2015-2016

Statement in Support of #RightToRecord

  • August 11, 2016
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In an open letter to the documentary community published today at The Talkhouse, filmmaker David Felix Sutcliffe describes a disturbing pattern of citizen journalists – those who document police killings of black and brown civilians – being targeted and arrested by law enforcement in response to their reporting. Most recently the pattern includes Diamond Reynolds who livestreamed the aftermath of Philando Castile’s shooting, Abdullah Muflahi who documented Alton Sterling’s shooting, and Chris LeDay who uploaded a video of the shooting. Other targets of arrest – and harassment – include Kevin Moore, who filmed Baltimore police dragging Freddie Gray into the…

Baltimore Police Used Force 2,818 Times In Six Years. They Found One Violation

  • August 10, 2016
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A Department of Justice report found the police force holds an “us-versus-them mentality” and routinely abuses residents’ rights. WASHINGTON ― The Baltimore Police Department routinely abused residents’ civil rights, performed unconstitutional searches, retaliated against individuals exercising free-speech rights and failed to hold cops accountable for misconduct, according to a damning federal report. The Justice Department report, to be formally released on Wednesday, confirms what some Baltimore residents already know ― that Baltimore police routinely and disproportionately stop, frisk and arrest poor black residents without legal justification. “Baltimore’s legacy of government-sanctioned discrimination, serious health hazards, and high rates of violent crime…

Homan Square: US inquiry into Chicago police ‘should also cover facility’

  • August 5, 2016
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Justice Department pressured to expand civil rights investigation as Rahm Emanuel’s challenger calls secret detention warehouse’s inclusion ‘crucial’ A major investigation into Chicago police should be extended to cover the detention warehouse Homan Square, a police interrogation facility exposed by the Guardian, a group of politicians have said. The Cook County board of commissioners, which oversees the second largest county in the US including the entirety of Chicago, approved a measure on Wednesday calling for the DoJ to expand its landmark investigation into the city’s police department “to look into allegations of civil and human rights violations” at Homan Square….

Freedom Square: Making Black Lives Matter

  • August 5, 2016
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In Chicago, the #LetUsBreathe Collective has transformed a lot adjacent to the Homan Square facility, exposed as a Chicago Police Department “black site” by The Guardian last year, into a beautiful organizing space aptly called Freedom Square. While the city continues to divest social resources from our communities, this site of torture has become a site of freedom and visionary love in a neighborhood that is over-policed and over-incarcerated. According to Million Dollar Blocks, North Lawndale committed nearly $241 million to incarceration in 2005-2009. Following the Black Lives Matter march and civil disobedience at CPD’s Homan Square in Lawndale July…

STUDY: Police Body Cameras in Danger of Being Used as ‘Instruments of Injustice’

  • August 5, 2016
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The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights examined body-worn camera policies in 50 municipalities. It was not impressed. In the wake of Korryn Gaines’ death at the hands of Baltimore County police officers this week, a new report on the nation’s police body-worn camera programs proves especially relevant. Yesterday (August 2), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Upturn released a report that examines the programs implemented by 50 departments—and finds them lacking. “Police Body Worn Cameras: A Policy Scorecard” zooms in on the programs implemented by police departments in 50 U.S. municipalities: Albuquerque, Aurora (Colo.), Austin,…

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