2015-2016

Policing the Police Is Civilian Oversight the Answer to Distrust of Police?

  • July 20, 2016
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In the last week, America has been shaken by a series of deadly encounters between police and citizens. In Louisiana, a shaky video captured the tussle that ended with Alton Sterling’s death. Barely a day had passed when Philando Castile’s last moments were broadcast on Facebook after he was shot by a police officer in Minnesota. On Thursday, a shooter targeted police officers in Dallas during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest, killing five. Amid the grief, anger and despair, these incidents have once again raised the issue of how to ease tensions between police and communities. On Wednesday, President…

North Carolina Bans Public Access to Police Dash Cameras

  • July 14, 2016
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What good are police body cameras, or police car dash cams, if the footage they record is off limits to the public? That question might best be posed to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who yesterday signed into law a bill making that footage inaccessible to the general public, including everyday citizens who were recorded in the footage and might need it to prove police misbehavior. Despite widespread outcry, including protests and submission of a petition signed by more than 3,000 people, House Bill 972 received little opposition in the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 48 to…

The DOJ Will Investigate Alton Sterling’s Shooting

The Louisiana attorney general said he would fully cooperate with the federal investigation. WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man who was killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, early Tuesday morning. “The FBI’s New Orleans Division, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana have opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Alton Sterling,” said David Jacobs, a spokesman for the department. “The Justice Department will collect all available facts and evidence and conduct a…

Welcome to the arrest capital of the United States

When you cross into the New Orleans suburb of Gretna, Louisiana, over the Crescent City Connection bridge there is no sign that says, “Welcome to the Arrest Capital of the United States.” There is no cutout of a smiling cop telling you to be careful and not violate any local laws. There is no warning telling you that of all the large cities and mid-sized towns in the country, this is the one in which you are most likely to be arrested. In fact, it is. Nationally, Gretna is known as the place where, as Katrina’s flood waters stubbornly refused…

Black Man’s Fatal Encounter With Police Splits Mississippi City Known for Harmony

TUPELO, Miss. — The blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror of the Ford Focus. The man behind the wheel, a 37-year-old African-American, pulled over, opened the door and sprinted into the Mississippi night. Soon, a white police officer was giving chase on foot, accompanied by his police dog. The officer would eventually find and fatally shoot the man, Antwun Shumpert, here on the evening of June 18, plunging this small city — famous globally as the birthplace of Elvis Presley, but known regionally as a beacon of relatively progressive racial attitudes — into what has become a tragically common…

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