The list of unofficial criminal offenses that Black people can be killed for continues to grow. We can’t drive while Black (Philando Castille), jog while Black (Ahmaud Arbery), or sleep while Black (Breonna Taylor). And now, with George Floyd, we can officially add breathing while Black to that lineup of senseless violations.https://level.medium.com/breathing-while-black-george-floyd-rip-787d8ea707
CHICAGO — If not for the reporting of Jamie Kalven, an independent journalist in Chicago, the world might never have known the name Laquan McDonald, a black teenager who was shot 16 times by a police officer as he walked down a street holding a folding knife. Mr. Kalven questioned the official police account of the shooting and revealed the existence of a police dashboard-camera video that documented the episode. Months and many court fights later, Chicago city officials were forced to release the video of the shooting, which showed Mr. McDonald, 17, being shot again and again one night…
A Chicago police officer is facing federal criminal charges for shooting two black teenagers in 2013, when he fired into a stolen car that was moving away from him in an incident that was recorded on video. An indictment filed on Thursday and made public on Friday charges Officer Marco Proano with two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, each one carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Both of the teenagers who were shot survived. Video of the encounter, captured by a dashboard camera in the officer’s squad car, became public last year as…
A Reader investigation found ten cases since 2011 where police killed a civilian in Chicago and charged an accomplice with the murder.On July 8, 2012, as the summer sun rose over the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, police hauled a distraught 19-year-old named Tevin Louis away from a murder scene. The victim was Louis’s best friend, Marquise Sampson. The shooter was a veteran police officer, Antonio Dicarlo. For the previous five years, Louis and Sampson had been inseparable, drawn together by rough childhoods marked by foster care and poverty. In good times, Sampson made Louis laugh….
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….