Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd in May of 2020, was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison on Friday. The sentencing decision was delivered by Hennepin Country District Court Judge Peter A. Cahill. Chauvin, 45, will likely only serve 15 years of the 22-and-a-half-year sentence. After 15 years, […]
Derek Chauvin Found Guilty for George Floyd’s Death as Police Kill Ma’Khia Bryant
On Tuesday, Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges for the murder of George Floyd last year. The prosecution argued that George Floyd died as a direct result of Chauvin’s physical actions– Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck caused low oxygen levels which led to a brain injury and arrhythmia, which caused his heart […]
Police Officer Killed 20-Year-Old Daunte Wright
On Sunday, a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man during a traffic stop. The shooting happened ten miles from where Derek Chauvin is on trial in the killing of George Floyd. According to the Chief Tim Gannon of Brooklyn Center Police Department, the officer intended to tase […]
House Passes Police Reform Bill in Honor of George Floyd
On Wednesday night, the House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a policing reform bill named for the Black man who was killed in May by a Minneapolis police officer. George Floyd’s murder sparked more than 7,000 demonstrations across the country with communities protesting police violence. The bill seeks to ban chokeholds, end […]
Police Have Killed 751 People This Year
According to Mapping Police Violence, a database built by Samuel Sinyangwe, there were only 27 days in 2019 that the police did not kill someone. Mapping Police Violence claims to be “the most comprehensive accounting of people killed by police since 2013.” The database highlights the racial disparities in police killings. The data show that […]
Jacob Blake Shot in Back Multiple Times by Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old unarmed Black man, was shot in the back by police seemingly 7 times on Sunday afternoon in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Witnesses report that Blake was helping break up a fight and that police attempted to taser him after responding to a domestic disturbance call. In a Twitter video, Blake can be seen […]
Seattle Police Chief Resigns Following City Council’s Vote to Defund the Police
Police Chief Carmen Best announced plans to retire Monday night, shortly after the Seattle City Council voted to cut the city’s police department budget by less than 1% after months of protests demanding that the city defund the police. By a vote of 7-1, the council approved mid-year budget cut would reduce the police department’s […]
Wall of Moms Tear Gassed by Federal Agents in Portland, Oregon
Dozens of mothers linked arms in Portland, Oregon on Sunday in order to create a “Wall of Moms” around Black Lives Matter protesters, about 400 people, who have been under attack from federal law enforcement for weeks. Chanting “Feds stay clear, moms are here!” “Feds go home!” and “Leave our kids alone!” the group demonstrated […]
Women in Viral Video Sue Indianapolis Police for Excessive Use of Force
Two women have filed an excessive force lawsuit against four Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers who were captured on video using batons and pepper balls to subdue them at a protest against police violence on May 31. The federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana on behalf of Ivoré Westfield […]
Protesters Remove Racist Monuments Across the United States
Protests over the epidemic of police killings of Black Americans have fueled a national movement to remove statues and monuments that symbolize white supremacy, anti-Black racism, colonialism, and oppression in the United States. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday that the statue of President Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum […]
Minneapolis City Council Votes to Dismantle Police
On Sunday, June 7, the Minneapolis City Council voted to dismantle the city’s police department. The council members pledged to replace the department with a community built public safety system, citing an inability to reform the force – which has long been accused of racism. A total of nine council members voted in favor of […]
Immigrants Arrested on Mistaken Charges at Phoenix Protests Face Deportation
Four undocumented people were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after being arrested at protests condemning the murder of George Floyd in Phoenix, Arizona. The Phoenix Police Department arrested all four immigrants the night of Saturday, May 30. They were held overnight in a Maricopa County jail before being transferred to ICE custody. One […]
Wisconsin Teachers Union Demands Police Be Removed from Public Schools
The Madison, Wisconsin teacher’s union, Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI), has changed its stance on school-based police officers and is now advocating for police to be taken out of the city’s main high schools and replaced with thirty-three additional support staff. This is the first time that Madison Teachers Inc. has demanded the removal of police […]
Chicago Protests Amplify Demands that Police Be Removed from Schools
Outrage over the murder of George Floyd by police has sparked activists in Chicago to demand that police officers be removed from Chicago Public Schools. Young people are urging the district to nullify the $33 million contract it entered into with the Chicago Police Department in August to station officers in CPS buildings. Approximately a […]
Civil Rights Groups Sue Trump Administration for Violence Against Protesters
Civil right groups are representing Black Lives Matter D.C. and individual protesters in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for violently dispelling peaceful protesters for President Donald Trump’s photo op on Monday. The lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, say the violence against protesters […]
Police Brutality in the Time of Coronavirus
Covid-19 is shining yet another spotlight on American systemic racism as African Americans face higher rates of death from coronavirus, as well as policing in the form of social distancing patrols, which are often racially disparate, inequitable, and aggressive. A majority of businesses have reduced operations or closed, but the NYPD has not slowed operations […]
Fort Worth Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Atatiana Jefferson in Her Own Home Charged with Murder
The Fort Worth police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black woman in her own home has been charged with murder. Early Saturday morning Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, 28, was shot and killed by a police officer inside her own home after a neighbor called a non-emergency police number for a wellness check on her. […]
Justice Denied Once Again as Eric Garner’s Murderer Goes Free
Five years after the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man whose last words “I can’t breathe” started a rallying cry, the Justice Department has decided that they will not bring federal charges against the New York City police officer allegedly responsible for strangling him to death. The announcement came exactly when the deadline […]
Another Funeral for a Black Texan Woman in the Month of May
Funeral services were held on May 23 for Pamela Turner, an unarmed, 44-year-old Houston-area grandmother of three who was shot and killed by Baytown, Texas police officer Juan Delacruz outside of her suburban apartment complex on May 13 in what civil rights attorney Ben Crump has called an “unjustifiable execution.” The Rev. Al Sharpton gave […]
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Michael Brown’s Mother Running for Ferguson City Council
Lesley McSpadden announced this week that she is running for City Council in Ferguson, Missouri’s 3rd Ward, a position that would allow her to have oversight over the police department that was involved in the 2014 shooting of her son, Michael Brown. “I wanted to go back and do something right in a place that […]