These resources highlight statistics, anecdotes, and patterns of police misconduct. Most of the focus is on the U.S., although a few articles below are excellent international comparisons of how policing functions in other countries.

Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa, The Illusion of Meritocracy in Policing, Part 1

The Anastasis Center blog, Dec 3, 2018. A 10 minute blog. This post explores incidents of police abusing power or covering up criminal acts.

Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa, The Illusion of Meritocracy in Policing, Part 2

The Anastasis Center blog, Jan 7, 2019. A 10 minute blog. This post explores how the “War on Drugs” contributed to the racially biased mass incarceration problem.

Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa, The Illusion of Meritocracy in Policing, Part 3

The Anastasis Center blog, Jan 22, 2019. A 10 minute blog. This post explores the violent crime rate from the 1950’s - 1990’s, how the black community was unfairly perceived and scapegoated, and why restorative justice could have led to different public and community outcomes.

Hayley Rose and Mako Nagasawa, Plantation Capitalism, Session 6: The Violent and the Victims

Like with the British East India Company, the corporation was developed by colonial governments as a legal mechanism for investors to exploit people and the planet in colonies and other countries. These profiteers hired private security, shaped US gun culture, and even formed public policing to serve their limited interests, not the public good. We are still trying to regulate violence in all its forms. This is Relationship 11: The Violent vs. the Victims.

Why is this a matter of concern for Christians?

Because US Christians inherit from British Christians a very misleading translation of Exodus 22:2 - 3 popular in 18th century England. It directly influenced the "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws in the U.S.

Because even though Jewish law rejects judicial torture, US prosecutors use plea bargaining, which is -- at least in its current form -- psychological torture that accelerates the efficiency of the police-prison state and its violence.

Because John the Baptist and Jesus in Luke ch.3, v.14 told Roman soldiers to stop using their coercive power to extort and exploit even colonized peoples -- much less formal citizens -- and serve a public purpose. We are still trying to make regulated, legal violence serve the public, common good.

1:18 The Corporation: Legalized Tool of Colonial Exploitation Dependent on Violence

1:51 Strike-breakers in the U.S. Urban North

7:49 Slave Patrols in the U.S. South, and Southern Gun Culture

11:12 Public Policing in the U.S. North

12:26 Exodus 22:2 - 3, the Castle Doctrine, and Stand Your Ground Laws

23:42 White Supremacy and the U.S. Culture of Fear, Violence, Property, and Guns

29:55 Israel, Jesus, and Limitations on Empire and Policing

33:06 Jewish Law and Plea Bargaining as Judicial Torture

Top Articles on an International Comparisons on Policing: Amelia Cheatham and Lindsay Maizland, How Police Compare in Different Democracies. Council on Foreign Relations, Jul 30, 2020.  a vital comparison that shows that the U.S. does not have a uniform structure of police that are accountable to citizens. This is because of the historical origins of police departments.

Top Articles on the History of American Policing: Michael Harriot, A Timeline of Events That Led to the 2020 ‘Fed-Up’ Rising. The Root, May 30, 2020.  gives a very good historical outline marking important dates in the formation of the modern police force. Rund Abdelfatah, American Police. NPR Throughline, Jun 4, 2020.  interviews scholars of American policing. Discusses the history of using the police as a tool to fuse Irish, Italian, German, etc. people into “whiteness” while oppressing black people. Otto Kerner et al., Report of the U.S. National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Kerner Commission, 1967.  See summary by Alice George, The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened. Smithsonian Magazine, Mar 1, 2018.  “Released 50 years ago, the infamous report found that poverty and institutional racism were driving inner-city violence.” See also critique by Daniel Geary, What the Kerner Report Got Wrong about Policing. Boston Review, May 19, 2016.  “Although critical of policing methods to a degree unprecedented in a government report—including what surely must be one of the earliest critiques of stop-and-frisk—the Kerner report failed to acknowledge that the most destructive and lawless force in the riots was not rioters but police. The untold story of the uprisings was of excessive force police used in the name of suppressing disorder. Police and National Guardsmen caused nearly all deaths and injuries. In Newark, Detroit, and many other cities, there were really two riots: one by African Americans against white property, followed by a reprisal waged by police against the black community. Police cordoned off riot areas to stop white vigilantes from entering the fray. They thus prevented the occurrence of race riots of the kind that had typified American history up to this point: spontaneous white vigilante assaults on black people and property with the cooperation or tacit approval of the authorities. But police and guardsmen themselves fulfilled the traditional vigilante role by violently exerting white racial authority.” Geary’s analysis is a must-read.

Top Articles on Police Conduct: Roland Fryer, Using Economics to Solve Racial Inequality. Harvard Visitas, Apr 28, 2017.  uses a helpful methodology, although with very limited data – only a few cities – and finds that police use different levels of force based on the subject’s race. But Melvin B. Miller, Police Shootings: It’s Worse Than We Thought. Bay State Banner, Oct 6, 2021.  

“The Washington Post record indicates that while Blacks were disproportionately killed by the police, a greater number of whites actually lost their lives. The rate of police killings of Blacks was 37 per million, the rate for whites was less than half that, at 15 per million. Despite the proportional disparity, it was shocking to find that 2,962 whites were killed relative to 1,555 Blacks. But the situation gets worse. According to the New York Times, a study reveals that more than half of police killings go unreported. A research report from the University of Washington found that deaths reported on the National Vital Statistics System, a major federal database, underreported police killings. According to the report, which has been in the Lancet, a British medical journal, the underreporting of about 55% occurred from 1980 to 2018, with other reasons cited for the deaths. During this period of the war on drugs, an estimated 31,000 Americans were killed by the police, but according to the report, 17,000 were not acknowledged in official records. Researchers attribute the short count to coroners and medical examiners who do not always have the necessary information to provide an accurate record. As a result, it is reasonable to conclude that the number of Black deaths caused by the police is understated.”

Also, Laura Bronner, Why Statistics Don’t Capture The Full Extent Of The Systemic Bias In Policing. FiveThirtyEight, Jun 25, 2020.  Bronner shows “collision bias” where the police act in ways that impact the incidents of crime reporting; this qualifies Roland Fryer’s methodology, but still does not properly account for the police causing patterns of crime, which can be seen in Camden, NJ when the city in 2013 disbanded and then re-envisioned the police department and its relationship with the community, and crime rates fell. And Lily Hu, Race, Policing, and The Limits of Social Science. Boston Review, May 6, 2021.  Hu discusses the limits of the empirical data available, and social scientists’ debates about Roland Fryer’s conclusions. Bonnie Kristian, Seven Reasons Police Brutality Is Systemic, Not Anecdotal. The American Conservative, Jul 2, 2014.  Kristian writes an excellent structural and legal piece on why good police-civilian data is lacking in the first place.  Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, Derek A. Epp, Kevin Roach, Kelsey Shoub, Racial Disparities in Traffic Stop Outcomes. Duke Forum for Law and Social Change, 2017.  Compile the largest dataset about police routine traffic stops. Whitney Benns and Blake Strode, Debtors' Prison in 21st-Century America. The Atlantic, Feb 23, 2016.  “For failing to pay parking tickets, court fees, and other petty municipal citations, black residents of Greater St. Louis are ending up behind bars.” This is why police stop black people more often than white people at traffic stops, and why more violent encounters result. Cited by Amber Ruffin, Why Using Police as Debt Collectors Leads to the Killing of Black People. The Amber Ruffin Show, Apr 16, 2021.  a 7 minute video. See book Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Kelsey Shroub, Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race. Cambridge University Press | Amazon page, Jul 2018.  See also summary by Chris Horn, Racial Disparities Revealed in Massive Traffic Stop Dataset. University of South Carolina, Jun 12, 2020.  Galen Druke and Laura Bronner, Police Misconduct Trials Are Rare. Instead, Cities Pay Millions To Settle Misconduct Claims.. FiveThirtyEight, Mar 31, 2021.  Druke and Bronner show that the data is not good enough to draw firm conclusions over the period 2010 - 2019, but troubling is the fact that “America’s cities have spent on police misconduct settlements — in the range of $3 billion over the last decade.”

Top Articles on Police Culture: Shannon L. Rawski and Angela L. Workman-Stark, Masculinity Contest Cultures in Policing Organizations and Recommendations for Training Interventions. Journal of Social Issues, Sep 13, 2018.  “Through a review of the policing literature and data collected in a Canadian policing organization, we highlight how masculinity contest culture is related to police misconduct. All four masculinity contest culture dimensions can be observed in policing including: (1) “show no weakness,”(2) “strength and stamina,” (3) “put work first,” and (4) “dog‐eat‐dog.”” National Center for Women and Policing, Police Family Violence Fact Sheet. NCWP, 2014.  summarized by Conor Friedersdorf, Police Have a Much Bigger Domestic-Abuse Problem Than the NFL Does. The Atlantic, Sep 19, 2014.  Notes two studies that find police families have at least a 40% rate of domestic abuse, compared with 10% in the general population; and departmental disciplinary processes; see also Alex Roslin, Police Wife: The Secret Epidemic of Police Domestic Violence. Sugar Hill Books | Amazon page, 2015.  and his blog, Police Domestic Violence. And the relationship between white supremacists and local police departments is very concerning:  For history, see John Knefel, Police and Racist Vigilantes: Even Worse Than You Think. The American Prospect, Sep 10, 2020.  For current events, see Michael German, Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement. Brennan Center for Justice, Aug 27, 2020.  “The government’s response to known connections of law enforcement officers to violent racist and militant groups has been strikingly insufficient.” See also Mike German, The FBI Warned for Years That Police Are Cozy with the Far Right. Is No One Listening?. The Guardian, Aug 28, 2020.  “I was an FBI agent who infiltrated white supremacists. Too many local police don’t take the far right seriously – or actively sympathize.”

General Resources

Defund the Police? An Abolition Curriculum (Mennonite USA) this is an excellent, 9 week curriculum for use by churches, small groups, etc.

Gary Potter, The History of Policing in the United States (Eastern Kentucky University) originating as slave patrols in the South vs. municipal bureaucracies in northern cities

Drug War Facts (website)

Trail of Silence (website) tracking police killings of unarmed civilians from yr 2000

Killed By Police (website)

Guardian UK, The Counted: Police Deaths in the US (Guardian website)

Washington Post, Fatal Force (Washington Post) a database on police shootings

American Civil Liberties Union, Private Prisons (ACLU website)

Wikipedia, Criminal Stereotype of African-Americans (Wikipedia)

Otto Kerner et al., Report of the U.S. National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Kerner Commission, 1967.  See summary by Alice George, The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened. Smithsonian Magazine, Mar 1, 2018.  “Released 50 years ago, the infamous report found that poverty and institutional racism were driving inner-city violence.” See also critique by Daniel Geary, What the Kerner Report Got Wrong about Policing. Boston Review, May 19, 2016.  “Although critical of policing methods to a degree unprecedented in a government report—including what surely must be one of the earliest critiques of stop-and-frisk—the Kerner report failed to acknowledge that the most destructive and lawless force in the riots was not rioters but police. The untold story of the uprisings was of excessive force police used in the name of suppressing disorder. Police and National Guardsmen caused nearly all deaths and injuries. In Newark, Detroit, and many other cities, there were really two riots: one by African Americans against white property, followed by a reprisal waged by police against the black community. Police cordoned off riot areas to stop white vigilantes from entering the fray. They thus prevented the occurrence of race riots of the kind that had typified American history up to this point: spontaneous white vigilante assaults on black people and property with the cooperation or tacit approval of the authorities. But police and guardsmen themselves fulfilled the traditional vigilante role by violently exerting white racial authority.” Geary’s analysis is a must-read.

Ted Chiricos, Kelly Welch, Marc Gertz, Racial Typification of Crime and Support for Punitive Measures. Criminology, 2004.

Barbara E. Armacost, Organizational Culture and Police Misconduct. George Washington Law Review, Mar 2004.  

Melissa J. Erwin, Robyn R.M. Gershon, Michael Tiburzi, and Susan Lin, Reports of Intimate Partner Violence Made Against Police Officers. Journal of Family Violence, Feb 2005.

Van Jones, ARE Blacks A Criminal Race? Surprising Statistics. Huffington Post, Oct 5, 2005.

FBI, White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement. FBI, Oct 17, 2006.

Joshua Correll, et.al., Across the Thin Blue Line: Police Officers and Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007.

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press | Amazon page, Jan 2010.  See also Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. Children’s Defense Fund, Dec 15, 2010.  A 20 min interview.

Christian Davenport, Sarah A. Soule and David A. Armstrong II, Protesting While Black? : The Differential Policing of American Activism, 1960 to 1990. American Sociological Review, Feb 2011.  very clear evidence that police treat black citizens more punitively and with more violence

Noam Chomsky and Glenn Greenwald, How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. CSpan video, Oct 29, 2011.

William J. Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice. Harvard University Press | Amazon page, 2011.

The House I Live In (2013), documentary arguing that the U.S. War on Drugs has failed

The Sentencing Project, Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies. The Sentencing Project, 2014.

Paul Martin, Money-Driven Criminal Justice System Drives Poverty, Crime Rate. The Durham News, Feb 14, 2014.

Celeste Fremon, The Downfall of Sheriff Baca. Los Angeles Magazine, Feb 26, 2014.

Noam Chomsky, Security and State Power. Truthout, Mar 3, 2014.

Erika Hayasaki, Life of a Police Officer: Medically and Psychologically Ruinous. The Atlantic, Mar 14, 2014.

Alice Brennan and Dan Lieberman, Florida City's Stop and Frisk Nabs Thousands of Kids, Finds 5 Year Olds Suspicious. Fusion, May 9, 2014.

PBS, United States of Secrets. PBS, May 13, 2014. Re: government surveillance

Bonnie Kristian, Seven Reasons Police Brutality Is Systemic, Not Anecdotal. The American Conservative, Jul 2, 2014.  writes an excellent piece on why good police-civilian data is lacking in the first place.

Carol Rose, Independent Report Confirms Racially Disparate Treatment in Boston. ACLU, Jul 4, 2014.

Michael Bell, What I Did After Police Killed My Son. Politico, Aug 15, 2014.

Lulu Chang, Do Police Shoot Black Men More Often? Statistics Say Yes, Absolutely. Bustle, Aug 18, 2014.

Annie Lowrey and Jesse Singal, There’s a Huge Racial Divide on Crime and Trusting the Police. New York Magazine, Aug 18, 2014.

John Oliver, Ferguson and Police Militarization. Last Week Tonight video, Aug 18, 2014.

Tom McKay, One Troubling Statistic Shows Just How Racist America's Police Brutality Problem Is. Mic, Aug 18, 2014.  charts SWAT incidents by race

Michael Daly, Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household. Daily Beast, Aug 22, 2014.

Mike Males, Who Are Police Killing? Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, Aug 26, 2014.  Important data from 1968 showing a downward trend, though still troubling

Robert Rogers and David DeBolt, Use of Deadly Force by Police Disappears on Richmond Streets. Contra Costa Times, Sep 6, 2014.

Charles M. Blow, Crime, Bias, and Statistics. New York Times, Sep 7, 2014.

Michael Friedman, What Happens When We Don't Trust Law Enforcement? The Importance of Law Enforcement's Role in Our Society's Well-Being. Psychology Today, Sep 9, 2014.

Mark Puente, Undue Force. Baltimore Sun, Sep 28, 2014.

National Center for Women and Policing, Police Family Violence Fact Sheet. NCWP, 2014.  Summarized by Conor Friedersdorf, Police Have a Much Bigger Domestic-Abuse Problem Than the NFL Does. The Atlantic, Sep 19, 2014.  Notes two studies that find police families have at least a 40% rate of domestic abuse, compared with 10% in the general population; and departmental disciplinary processes.

John Oliver, Civil Forfeiture. Last Week Tonight, Oct 5, 2014.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Barack Obama, Ferguson, and the Evidence of Things Unsaid. The Atlantic, Nov 26, 2014.

Judd Legum, The One Word That Kept Darren Wilson Out of Jail. Think Progress, Nov 29, 2015.

Nicholas Kristof, When Whites Just Don't Get It. New York Times, Nov 29, 2014.

Chris Mooney, The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men. Mother Jones, Dec 1, 2014.

Michelle Alexander, White Privilege and the War on Drugs. Atlanta Blackstar, Dec 2, 2014.

Dave Gilson, Thurgood Marshall Blasted Police for Killing Black Men With Chokeholds. Mother Jones, Dec 4, 2014.

Ian Millhiser, How The Supreme Court Helped Make It Possible For Police To Kill By Chokehold. Think Progress, Dec 4, 2014.

Redditt Hudson, Being a Cop Showed Me Just How Racist and Violent the Police Are. There's Only One Fix. Washington Post, Dec 6, 2014.

Becca Stanek, England Has Avoided Eric Garners and Michael Browns by Doing What the U.S. Won't. Mic, Dec 8, 2014.

Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D., Is American Ready for the True Cost of Police Reform? Police One, Dec 8, 2014.

Ben Swann, The Root of Police Militarization. Truth in Media, Dec 10, 2014.

Michele L. Jawando and Chelsea Parsons, 4 Ideas That Could Begin to Reform the Criminal Justice System and Improve Police-Community Relations. Center for American Progress, Dec 18, 2014.

Shannon Stapleton, Black NYPD Cops Expose Climate of Rampant Racial Profiling in Force. Reuters, Dec 24, 2014.

Moreh B.D.K, Ex NYPD Cop Admits ‘We Planted Evidence, Framed Innocent People’ All For Arrest Quotas. Countercurrent News, Dec 27, 2014.

Prison Culture, Thinking Through the End of Police. Prison Culture, Dec 29, 2014.  fascinating proposals, many links to other references

Sam Mitrani, The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People, Not ‘Serve and Protect’. Labor and Working Class History Assn, Dec 29, 2014.

Walter Einenkel, Whistleblowing Officer Makes Tape of Top Cop Ordering Stop-and-Frisk of Black Males. Daily Kos, Dec 29, 2014.

Frank Vyan Walton, White Woman Goes on Shooting Spree, Yet Somehow Isn't Automatically Killed by Police. Daily Kos, Dec 30, 2014.

Matt Agorist, Whistleblower Cop Calls Our Corruption in Her Department, Naturally She's Being Fired for It. Free Thought Project, Dec 31, 2014.

Matt Apuzo, Ferguson Police Routinely Violate Rights of Blacks, Justice Dept Finds. New York Times, Mar 3, 2015.

John Vibes, DEA Agent Speaks Out: We Were Told Not to Enforce Drug Laws In Rich Communities. Freethought Project, Mar 10, 2015.

Karen Foshay, When the SWAT Team You Founded Kills Your Son-in-Law. Aljazeera America, Mar 19, 2015.

Stell Simonton, San Antonio, Where Policing the Mentally Ill Means Treating Them. Aljazeera, Mar 31, 2015.

Shaun King, American Police Killed More People in March (111) Than the Entire UK Police Have Killed Since 1900. Daily Kos, Apr 1, 2015.

Judd Legum, Everything the Police Said About Walter Scott’s Death Before A Video Showed What Really Happened. Think Progress, Apr 7, 2015.

Carimah Townes, New Mexico Is The Second State To Ban Police From Seizing Innocent People’s Property. ThinkProgress, Apr 13, 2015.  on civil forfeiture and a few States decisions to decrease it

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Myth of Police Reform. The Atlantic, Apr 15, 2015.

Valerie Richardson, Police Kill More Whites Than Blacks, But Minority Deaths Generate More Outrage. Washington Times, Apr 21, 2015.  Although relative to the population (13%), more black people are killed (30%)

Father Gregory Boyle, The Problem with Good Guys vs. Bad Guys Policing. LA Times, Apr 30, 2015.

Kristin Gwynne, Chicago to Pay $5.5 Million in Reparations for Police Torture Victims. Rolling Stone, May 6, 2015.  "The free counseling, education and job training services will also apply to the families of victims, including grandchildren, helping to undo the systemic burdens state violence has inflicted on communities. It’s landmark legislation that may provide a template for organizers advocating for justice for police violence in cities across the country." See also Yana Kunichoff and Sarah Macaraeg, How Chicago Became the First City to Make Reparations to Victims of Police Violence. Yes!, Mar 21, 2017.  Lindsay Smith, "among the first of at least 120 young, primarily Black men whom Chicago police officers would torture into false confessions... following the passage of historic reparations legislation, he became one of the first Black people in America to be granted reparations for racial violence."  See also Crain's Chicago Business School, How Chicago Racked Up a $662 Million Police Misconduct Bill. Crain's Chicago Business School, Mar 20, 2016.  and Hal Dardick, Chicago Still Faces Dozens of Wrongful Conviction Cases. Chicago Tribune, Jan 24, 2017.  and Steve Daniels, How Chicago's Financing of Police-Misconduct Payouts Adds Hundreds of Millions to the Tab. Crain's Chicago Business School, Jul 6, 2018.  to grasp the cost to the public.

German Lopez, How Systemic Racism Entangles All Police Officers - Even Black Cops. Vox, May 7, 2015.

Jeffrey Toobin, The Milwaukee Experiment. New Yorker Magazine, May 11, 2015.

Samuel V. Jones, FBI's Warning of White Supremacists Infiltrating Law Enforcement Nearly Forgotten. The Grio, May 12, 2015.

Yawu Miller, Race Colors Response to Opioid Crisis. Bay State Banner, May 20, 2015.

John Oliver, Municipal Violations. Last Week Tonight, May 22, 2015.

Christopher Moraff, Will Private Money Take the Sting Out of Obama’s Police Demilitarization? Next City, May 26, 2015.

Redditt Hudson, I'm a Black Ex-Cop, and This Is the Real Truth About Race and Policing. Vox, May 28, 2015.

Bill Quigley, 40 Reasons Why Our Jails Are Full of Black and Brown People. Huffington Post, Jun 2, 2015.

David J. Krajicek, Birth of a Prison State: The Bipartisan Disaster That Puts America Behind Bars. Salon, Jun 4, 2015.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Brief and Tragic Life of Kalief Browder. The Atlantic, Jun 8, 2015.

Jon Basil Utley, Why We Need Criminal Justice Reform. The American Conservative, Jul 8, 2015.

Amme Voz, I Thought I'd Escaped Poverty. Then I Went to Prison. The Nation, Jul 13, 2015.

Mekela Panditheratne, When is the Use of Force by Police Reasonable? The Atlantic, Jul 17, 2015.

George Yancy and Joe Feagin, American Racism in the "White Frame". (New York Times, Jul 27, 2015.

Alex Roslin, Police Wife: The Secret Epidemic of Police Domestic Violence. Sugar Hill Books | Amazon page, 2015.  See also his blog, Police Domestic Violence

Charles M. Blow, Darren Wilson’s Quest for Distance. New York Times, Aug 6, 2015.

Eric March, A Town in Massachusetts Decided to Stop Arresting Drug Users. 2 Months Later, Here's How It's Going. Upworthy, Aug 18, 2015.

Matt Pearce, Activists Come Up With a Plan to End Police Killings.  Here It Is. Los Angeles Times, Aug 21, 2015.

Counter Current News Editorial Team, Cop Who Leaked Video of Fellow Officers Beating Innocent Man Now Faces 7 Years in Prison. CounterCurrent News Aug 31, 2015.

Jeffrey Goldberg, A Matter of Black Lives. The Atlantic, Sep 2015.  “Since 1980, more than 260,000 black men have been killed in America. Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, is on a crusade to stop the killing.”

Melissa Chan, Oregon Cop Who Turned in Racist Police Chief for Dancing Like Monkey After Black Woman's Complaint Gets Death Threats. NY Daily News, Sep 9, 2015.

Desire Thompson, Black Banker Forced To Spend Eight Days In Psych Ward After Police Doubt BMW Belonged To Her. News One, Sep 14, 2015.

Ava Kofman, We Don’t Even Know How Best to Use Body Cameras—Let Alone Regulate Them. The Nation, Sep 23, 2015.

Jack Hitt, Police Shootings Won't Stop Unless We Also Stop Shaking Down Black People. Mother Jones, Sep/Oct 2015.  re: revenue generation

The Daily Show, The Battle for Less Bias. The Daily Show, Oct 1, 2015.

Sharon LaFraniere and Andrew W. Lehren, The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black. New York Times, Oct 24, 2015.

Conor Friedersdorf, The Corrupt System That Killed LaQuan McDonald. The Atlantic, Nov 27, 2015.

Bobby Azarian, The Neuroscience Behind Why White Cops Kill Black Men. Raw Story, Dec 1, 2015.

Arturo Garcia, Bombshell: Alabama Cops Systematically Framed Blacks by Planting Drugs and Guns for Decades. Raw Story, Dec 1, 2015.  See also A.R. Shaw, Police in Alabama Planted Drugs and Guns on Over 1,000 Innocent Black Men. Rolling Out, Dec 3, 2015.

Jorge Rivas, It's Time to Admit Police Have a History of Connections with the KKK. Fusion, Dec 16, 2015.

Christopher Ingraham, It's Official: There Never Was a War on Cops. Washington Post, Dec 30, 2015.

Hailey Wallace, The Man Who Killed Tamir Rice. Black Enterprise, Dec 30, 2015.  citing emotional instability and systemic failure.

Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland, Jamiles Lartey and Ciara McCarthy, Ties That Bind. Guardian, Dec 31, 2015.  district attorneys who clear police officers of killing.

Sarah Burris, Stephen Colbert Checks His White Privilege, Switches Seats with DeRay McKesson to Discuss Race, Police, #Blacklivesmatter. Salon, Jan 19, 2016.

Counter Current News Editorial Team, NYPD Cop Kills Off-Duty Cop, Claiming He ‘Thought He Was a Criminal’. Counter Current News, Jan 24, 2016.

Whitney Benns and Blake Strode, Debtors' Prison in 21st-Century America. The Atlantic, Feb 23, 2016.  “For failing to pay parking tickets, court fees, and other petty municipal citations, black residents of Greater St. Louis are ending up behind bars.” This is why police stop black people more often than white people at traffic stops, and why more violent encounters result.

Gary A. Harki, Norfolk Police Have Shot and Killed Twice as Many People as Any Other Agency in Virginia Since 2010. Virginian Pilot, Mar 1, 2016.

Christopher Ingraham, Why Oklahoma Cops Are Returning $53,000 to a Christian Band, an Orphanage and a Church. (Washington Post, Apr 26, 2016.

Victoria M. Massie, Sonia Sotomayor’s Devastating, Ta-Nehisi Coates-Citing Supreme Court Dissent. Vox, Jun 20, 2016.  On the 4th Amendment search and seizure.

Adam Liptak, Supreme Court Says Police May Use Evidence Found After Illegal Stops. New York Times, Jun 20, 2016.

Mark Gimein, Welcome to the Arrest Capital of the United States. Fusion, Jun 22, 2016.  re: New Orleans and Gretna, LA.

Philip Bump, The Irony at the Heart of the Dallas Police Deaths After a Black Lives Matter March. Washington Post, Jul 8, 2016.

Christopher Ingraham, Police Are Safer Under Obama Than They Have Been in Decades. Washington Post, Jul 9, 2016.

Olivia Goldhill, How Do Police Handle Violence in Countries Where Officers Don't Carry Guns? Quartz, Jul 9, 2016.

Peace House, Are You a Racist? Probably. Peace House video, Jul 10, 2016.  A humorous short video; compares map of implicit racial bias and map of police shootings of black men.

Keri Leigh Merritt, “One Continuous Graveyard”: Emancipation and the Birth of the Professional Police Force.  Black Perspectives, July 11, 2016 

Kia Makarechi, What the Data Really Says About Police and Racial Bias. Vanity Fair, Jul 14, 2016.

The Young Turks, NYPD Captain: You Need To Arrest More Black Guys. The Young Turks, Jul 15, 2016.

Shaun King, Introducing a 25 Part Series on How to Reduce Police Brutality Following the Deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. New York Daily News, Jul 23, 2016.

Matthew Segal, Beyond #BlackLivesMatter: Police Reform Must Be Bolstered By Legal Action. The Guardian UK, Jul 27, 2016.

Amanda Marcotte, Radicals With Badges: Mark Potok Explains Why Renegade Sheriffs Are a Growing Threat in the U.S. Salon, Aug 9, 2016.

Tess Owen, Racial Bias Found in 'Every Stage' of Baltimore Policing. Vice News, Aug 10, 2016.  See also David A. Graham, The Horror of the Baltimore Police Department. The Atlantic, Aug 10, 2016.  German Lopez, The Justice Department's Incredibly Damning Report on Baltimore Police, Explained. Vox, Aug 10, 2016.

German Lopez, The Tyranny of a Traffic Ticket: How Small Crimes Turn Fatal for Poor, Minority Americans. Vox, Aug 10, 2016.

New York Times Editorial Board, When Police Unions Impede Justice. New York Times, Sep 3, 2016.

Shaun King, White Men All Over America Continue to Kill Police - Where's the Conservative Outrage? NY Daily News, Sep 6, 2016.

Frontline, Policing the Police. Frontline, WGBH, PBS.  A collection of very good articles

The Young Turks, Cop Fired for NOT Killing Someone. The Young Turks, Sep 14, 2016.

C.E. Dyer, BREAKING: Truth About Terence Crutcher Comes Out… It’s BAD for the Media. Conservative Tribune, Sep 21, 2016.  while it is true he had lowered his right hand, this is an attempt to discredit Crutcher based on his past; does one need to be a saint to have rights?; also an attempt to discredit "media" despite same day coverage which did acknowledge his criminal record like Chicago Tribune, Terence Crutcher Was Turning His Life Around Before Fatal Tulsa Police Shooting, Family Says. Chicago Tribune, Sep 21, 2016.

Joel Handley, Inside the Chicago Police Department's Secret Budget. Chicago Reader, Sep 29, 2016.

Trevor Noah, Stop and Frisk. The Daily Show, Sep 30, 2016.

John Oliver, Police Accountability. Last Week Tonight, Oct 2, 2016.

Nathan Wellman, Georgia Cops Caught Bragging About Targeting Black Drivers in Insanely Racist Facebook Messages. US Uncut, Oct 5, 2016.

Jamie Kalven, Operation Smoke and Mirrors: In the Chicago Police Department, If the Bosses Say It Didn’t Happen, It Didn’t Happen. Intercept, Oct 6, 2016.

Lara Bazelon, Pennsylvania's Shame. Slate, Oct 12, 2016.  Ill-trained police, underpaid defense attorneys, wrongful convictions.

Equal Justice Initiative, Police Killings Against Native Americans Are Off the Charts and Off the Radar. EJI, Oct 31, 2016.  a “Native Lives Matter” movement

Dan Berger, When White Supremacists Strike, Police Don’t Always Strike Back. Washington Post, Aug 18, 2017.  “The long history of law enforcement's complicity in the affairs of right-wing insurgents.”

Sarah Larimer, "You Can't Hit a Girl Like That!" Officer Caught on Camera Punching Woman in the Face. Washington Post, Nov 17, 2016.

Joe Domanick, Let’s Listen to Cops—If We Want Real Policing Reform. The Crime Report, Dec 14, 2016.

Julia Craven, Black People Are Way More Likely To Be Killed By Police Than Their White Peers: Study. Huffington Post, Dec 20, 2016.

Monique Judge, New Missouri Statute Ensures Children Are Fed Into the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The Root, Dec 21, 2016.

Jacqueline Howard, Black Men Nearly 3 Times as Likely to Die from Police Use of Force, Study Says. CNN, December 20, 2016.  cites important studies about racial bias

Alice Speri, Down to the Wire: Obama's DOJ Issues Scathing Report on Systemic Abuse Within Chicago Police. The Intercept, Jan 13, 2017.

Tanya Arditi, In Sanctuary Counties, Crime is Significantly Lower and Economies are Stronger Than in Comparable Nonsanctuary Ones, Says New CAP-NILC Report. Center for American Progress, Jan 26, 2017.  although surely there are far too many variables that affect the relationship between crime and sanctuary city status?

Alice Speri, The FBI Has Quietly Investigated White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement. The Intercept, Jan 31, 2017.  but meanwhile Julia Edwards Ainsley, Dustin Volz and Kristina Cooke, Trump to Focus Counter-Extremism Program Solely on Islam. Reuters, Feb 2, 2017.

Sarah Mervosh, A Black Dallas Family 'Did Everything America Said We Should' But Still Endures Racism Daily. Dallas News, Feb 5, 2017.

Simone Weischelbaum, Sessions May Resist Federal Oversight of Police, But There’s Another Option. The Marshall Project, Feb 5, 2017.  CA attorney general can sue local police depts

Eric Lichtblau, Sessions Indicates Justice Department Will Stop Monitoring Troubled Police Agencies. New York Times, Feb 28, 2017.

Neil Bedi and Connie Humberg, Police Are More Likely to Shoot If You're Black. Tampa Bay Times, Apr 4, 2017.  A very detailed analysis of Florida police stats.

Dan Stone, Concentration Camps Reveal the Nature of the Modern State. Aeon, Jul 14, 2017. Coordination developed by the British in South Africa, perfected by Germany under Nazism.

David French, The Unwritten Law That Helps Bad Cops Go Free. National Review, Jun 21, 2017.  Fear is not reasonable fear.

Kevin D. Williamson, Civil Asset Forfeiture: Where Due Process Goes to Die. National Review, Jun 25, 2017.

Matt Ford, The Bipartisan Opposition to Sessions's New Civil-Forfeiture Rules. The Atlantic, Jul 19, 2017.  See also Lucy Steigerwald, Jeff Sessions: Feds Have the Right to Seize Your Cash, Property. The American Conservative, Jul 21, 2017.

The Young Turks, Why Michele Bachmann Suddenly Cares About Police Shootings. The Young Turks, Jul 20, 2017.  Criticizes MN Governor Dayton for saying, "If you don't like it, you can leave" about Somali and Muslim population growth in St.Cloud. which is usually deployed towards black and brown people in inner cities); and then wants to make cultural questions relevant.

Philip Giraldi, Feds Deploy Massive ‘Pre-Crime’ Dragnet on Millions of Americans. The American Conservative, Jul 21, 2017.

Mark Berman, Trump Tells Police Not to Worry About Injuring Suspects During Arrests. Washington Post, Jul 28, 2017.  dog-whistle politics

Kevin Rector, Prosecutors Dismiss 34 Gun and Drug Cases Amid Body Camera Investigation. Baltimore Sun, Jul 28, 2017.

Monique Judge, Cop Shares Racist Facebook Post, Will Resign After Public Outcry. The Root, Aug 1, 2017.

Paul Butler, US Justice is Built to Humiliate and Oppress Black Men, and It Starts With the Chokehold. The Guardian, Aug 11, 2017.

Shaun King, Soul Snatchers: How the NYPD’s 42nd Precinct, the Bronx DA’s Office, and the City of New York Conspired to Destroy Black and Brown Lives. Part 1) Medium, Aug 21, 2017.

German Lopez, American Policing is Broken. Here's How to Fix It. Vox, Sep 1, 2017.

Jeremy Stahl, This Judge’s Excuses for Acquitting Jason Stockley of Murder Are Pathetic. Slate, Sep 15, 2017.  Judge Timothy J. Wilson acquits police officer Jason Stockley from St. Louis.

Amanda Ripley, A Big Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations. New York Times, Oct 20, 2017.  Surprisingly little effect on police behavior.

Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, Derek A. Epp, Kevin Roach, Kelsey Shoub, Racial Disparities in Traffic Stop Outcomes. Duke Forum for Law and Social Change, 2017.  compile the largest dataset about police routine traffic stops. See book Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Kelsey Shroub, Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race. Cambridge University Press | Amazon page, Jul 2018.  See also summary by Chris Horn, Racial Disparities Revealed in Massive Traffic Stop Dataset. University of South Carolina, Jun 12, 2020.

David McFadden, Ex-Baltimore Detectives Testify About Force's Robberies, Illegal Activities. USA Today, Jan 29, 2018.

David A. Graham, What It Takes to Actually Convict Police of Misconduct. The Atlantic, Feb 13, 2018.

Joseph Goldstein, "Testilying" by Police: A Stubborn Problem. New York Times, Mar 18, 2018.

Trevor Noah, An Alabama Sheriff Legally Siphons Cash From Inmates. The Daily Show, Mar 28, 2018.

German Lopez, Stephon Clark Was Shot by Sacramento Police Eight Times From Behind or the Side, Autopsy Finds. Vox, Mar 30, 2018.  includes discussion of racial bias among police officers

German Lopez, Christina Animashaun, and Javier Zarracina, How America Has — and Hasn’t — Changed Since Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death, in 11 Charts. Vox, Apr 4, 2018.  From economic well-being to criminal justice issues, racial inequality is still very real in America.

P.R. Lockhart, After the Harith Augustus Shooting, Chicago’s Policing Problems Are Back in the Spotlight. Vox, Apr 4, 2018.  A short history of the Chicago police's problems, including the 2017 DOJ Report of their violation of the 4th Amendment.

Kathleen Frydl, Why We Should Abolish ICE - and the DEA Too. Vox, Apr 14, 2018.  talks about how a punitive organizational purpose and lack of measurable outcomes and accountability shapes recruitment and the behavior of personnel hired

Al Baker, Confronting Implicit Bias in the New York Police Department. New York Times, Jul 15, 2018.  Although see also Greg Ridgeway, Analysis of Racial Disparities in the New York Police Department's Stop, Question, and Frisk Practices. RAND Corporation, 2007.

Jamie Kalven, Chicago Faces a Defining Moment in Police Reform and Civil Order. The Intercept, Aug 15, 2018.  The first of five articles; Part 3: "130 Chicago Officers Account for 29 Percent of Police Shootings."  Part 4:  "Chicago Police Are 14 Times More Likely to Use Force Against Young Black Men Than Against Whites."

Elyssa Cherney, Ex-Chicago Cop Sentenced to 25 Years in Sex Trafficking of Young Girls. Chicago Tribune, Sep 13, 2018.  and Patrick O'Connell, Chicago Chicago Cop's Use of Condoms Made Outside of Illinois Allowed Prosecutors to Pursue Federal Sex Crime Charges. Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2018.  

Shannon L. Rawski and Angela L. Workman-Stark, Masculinity Contest Cultures in Policing Organizations and Recommendations for Training Interventions. Journal of Social Issues, Sep 13, 2018.  “Through a review of the policing literature and data collected in a Canadian policing organization, we highlight how masculinity contest culture is related to police misconduct. All four masculinity contest culture dimensions can be observed in policing including: (1) “show no weakness,” (2) “strength and stamina,”(3) “put work first,” and (4) “dog‐eat‐dog.””

The Young Turks, Cops Blow the Doors Off Black People's Houses in Arkansas. The Young Turks, Oct 24, 2018.  re: no-knock warrants used in drug searches, often with explosives to blow doors open; 110 people out of 133 were black; residents left to pay for the damages

Kirsten West Savali, LA Sheriff’s Office, Compton Station, is a White Supremacist Gang Incubator. Essence, Nov 5, 2018.  “There is also Baltimore’s  Gun Trace Task Force; Philadelphia’s Lying Bitches Unit; and the Chicago Police Department has such an entrenched legacy of violence that the University of Chicago created a Torture Archive to document its intragenerational savagery. As far back as 1999, the LA Times reported on the proliferation of white supremacists with gangs within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, so this song and dance about “investigations” to determination the veracity of claims against them is almost insulting.”

David French, Another Police Shooting Raises Hard Questions about Police Restraint. National Review, Nov 13, 2018.  significant for its admission, from a conservative source, that "a good guy with a gun" backfires for black men.  Katherine Timpf, Jemel Roberson’s Death Is an American Tragedy. National Review, Nov 15, 2018.

Jeff Mordock, Four St. Louis Police Officers Charged with Beating Undercover Colleague. Washington Times, Nov 28, 2018.  three committed the beating, the fourth covered it up; victim’s identity unknown

Conor Friedersdorf, Sadism in the St. Louis Police Department. The Atlantic, Dec 3, 2018.

Monica Davey, Police ‘Code of Silence’ Is on Trial After Murder by Chicago Officer. New York Times, Dec 3, 2018.

David Doel, Meek Mill Schools CNN Host With Black American Reality. The Rational National, Dec 4, 2018.  discusses the background of rapper Meek Mill’s personal history

Daniel Victor, Black Man Killed by Police in Alabama Was Shot From Behind, Autopsy Shows. New York Times, Dec 4, 2018.  and A.R. Shaw, Alabama Police Shot Black Man 3 Times in the Back as He Helped to Save Lives. Rolling Out, Dec 5, 2018.

Lee Fang, Trump's Pick for Attorney General Pushed for Military Strikes on Drug Traffickers, Questioned Asylum Law. The Intercept, Dec 7, 2018.  and Martin Matishak, Rand Paul 'Disturbed' by Attorney General Nominee's Views. Politico, Dec 9, 2018.  re: William Barr, nominated by Trump; views on Patriot Act, civil asset forfeiture.

David A. Graham, Process Crimes and Misdemeanors. The Atlantic, Dec 14, 2018.  Some interesting insights on Rudy Giuliani's mayoral policy in NYC, focusing on "broken windows" policing.

The Young Turks, Supreme Court Makes Major Ruling on Constitution. The Young Turks, Feb 21, 2019.  a unanimous decision against civil asset forfeiture, because the Constitution bans "excessive fines".

Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Study Finds Racial Bias In Police Traffic Stops And Searches. Huffington Post, Mar 19, 2019.  

Erika G. Quispe-Torreblanca and Neil Stewart, Causal Peer Effects in Police Misconduct. Nature Human Behaviour Volume 3, May 27, 2019, p.797-807.

“We estimate causal peer effects in police misconduct using data from about 35,000 officers and staff from London’s Metropolitan Police Service for the period 2011–2014. We use instrumental variable techniques and exploit the variation in peer misconduct that results when officers switch peer groups. We find that a 10% increase in prior peer misconduct increases an officer’s later misconduct by 8%. As the police are empowered to enforce the law and protect individual liberties, integrity and fairness in policing are essential for establishing and maintaining legitimacy and public consent. Understanding the antecedents of misconduct will help to develop interventions that reduce misconduct.”

Rob Arthur, New Data Shows Police Use More Force Against Black Citizens Even Though Whites Resist More. Slate, May 30, 2019.

Will Carless and Michael Corey, To Protect and Slur. Reveal News, Jun 14, 2019.  “Inside hate groups on Facebook, police officers trade racist memes, conspiracy theories and Islamophobia” summarized by Michael Herriot, Report: Hundreds of Police Officers Belong to Racist Facebook Groups. The Root, Jun 15, 2019.  evidence of systemic racism in policing

Katie Rose Quandt, Floridians Are Suing a Cop Fired for Planting Drugs in Their Vehicles. Truth Out, Jun 20, 2019.  re: sheriff’s deputy Zachary Wester

Joe Fox, Adrian Blanco, Jennifer Jenkins, Julie Tate, and Wesley Lowery, What We’ve Learned About Police Shootings 5 Years After Ferguson. Washington Post, Aug 9, 2019.

Jonathan Ben-Menachem, Pulling Back the Curtain on Boston’s “Clean Sweep”. The Appeal, Aug 15, 2019.  “Most coverage of police raids targeting homeless people and substance users parroted official—and fraught—talking points.”

Hasan Minhaj, The Broken Policing System. Patriot Act, Sep 9, 2019.  discusses police training, lack of legal consequences due to “qualified immunity,” police unions designed to protect current officers, prosecutors’ disincentives to not prosecute police

Chris Palmer and Mensah M. Dean, Police Probing North Philly Interaction with Teen That Was Widely Shared on Social Media. Philadelphia Inquirer, Sep 16, 2019.  “Videos of a white officer temporarily placing a young black man in the back of a police cruiser had been viewed more than 1.5 million times by Monday afternoon.”

The Young Turks, Cop Thinks He's Getting An Award, He Gets A Reality Check Instead. The Young Turks, Oct 10, 2019.

Cody Johnston, Katy Stoll, and David C. Bell, How Cops Are Trained to Shoot You in Your Home. Some More News, Nov 6, 2019.  on “warrior” training

Joseph Goldstein and Ashley Southall, ‘I Got Tired of Hunting Black and Hispanic People’. New York Times, Dec 6, 2019.  “Multiple police officers in Brooklyn say they were told by a commander that white and Asian people should be left alone.”  Evidence of systemic racism in policing.

Craig Trainor, Abandoning Broken-Windows Policing, De Blasio Invites Disaster. The American Conservative, Jan 16, 2020.  “The New York City mayor has squandered the inheritance of his predecessors and watched crime go up.” This, despite national evidence to the contrary.

Ari Melber, ‘Totally Wrong’: Fed. Judge Who Ruled On 'Stop And Frisk' Fact-Checks Bloomberg And Biden At Debate. The Beat | MSNBC, Feb 20, 2020.  discusses the constitutionally illegal basis for how NYC Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg ran the police policy. David Doel, Retired Federal Judge Calls Bloomberg & Biden Liars. The Rational National, Feb 23, 2020.  expands on the details by offering a timeline.

Rebecca Anne Goetz, Minneapolis Police Department’s Long History of Brutality (Twitter thread, May 29, 2020).

Amanpour, Police Chief to Trump: Please Keep Your Mouth Shut if You Can’t Be Constructive. CNN, Jun 1, 2020.  Houston police chief Acevedo makes outstanding comments, including that people view police officers as the first point of connection or confrontation with government at large

Danielle Schulkin, White Supremacist Infiltration of US Police Forces: Fact-Checking National Security Advisor O’Brien. Just Security, Jun 1, 2020.  It’s more than “a few bad apples.” Contains links to important studies. Evidence of systemic racism.

The Hill, Kellyanne Conway Says There is Institutional Racism. The Hill, Jun 2, 2020.  in the criminal justice system, at the 6:20 min mark, a remarkable admission.

R.T. Rybak, I Was the Mayor of Minneapolis and I Know Our Cops Have a Problem. Politico, Jun 2, 2020.  “Racism permeated the culture of the department. But there are ways to change that culture that other cities can copy.”

Perry Bacon Jr., How The Police See Issues Of Race And Policing. FiveThirtyEight, Jun 4, 2020.

Rund Abdelfatah, American Police. NPR Throughline, Jun 4, 2020.  Interviews scholars of American policing. Discusses the history of using the police as a tool to fuse Irish, Italian, German, etc. people into “whiteness” while oppressing black people.

Meagan Flynn, Hannah Knowles, and Marisa Iati, 57 Buffalo Officers Resign from Special Squad Over Suspension of Two Who Shoved 75 Year Old. Washington Post, Jun 5, 2020.

Amy Goodman, Our System Is Corroded: Carol Anderson on Rampant Police Violence and Assault on Voting Rights.  Democracy Now, Jun 5, 2020.  Features video footage of police harassment of Messiah College students.

Officer A. Cab, Confessions of a Bastard Cop. Medium, Jun 6, 2020.  from a former CA police officer - illuminating, devastating. “I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population. with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants) One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators? No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.”

Daniel Politi, Activists Create Public Online Spreadsheet of Police Violence Videos. Slate, Jun 6, 2020.

Noam Scheiber, Farah Stockman, and J. David Goodman, How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts. New York Times, Jun 6, 2020.  “Half a decade after a spate of officer-involved deaths inspired widespread protest, many police unions are digging in to defend members.”

Cody Johnston, David C. Bell, and Katie Goldin, How to Cover These Police Riots. Some More News, Jun 6, 2020.  challenges media coverage separating “protesters” and “looters”; points out how police have an incentive to let “looters” loot. even though police civil asset forfeiture is looting, too) and bully and arrest “protesters”; notes how the police in Lansing, Michigan handled protesters calmly, but Black Lives Matter and racial justice protesters with extreme brutality.

Tim Hains, NY Police Union Head: "Stop Treating Us Like Animals And Thugs, And Start Treating Us With Some Respect!" Real Clear Politics, Jun 9, 2020.  not the most reassuring words

Wendi C. Thomas, The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I’m One of Them. ProPublica, Jun 9, 2020.  

Isaiah McKinnon, I Was a Police Chief Stopped by My Own Officer. After Floyd, We Need Change At All Levels. USA Today, Jun 11, 2020.  evidence of systemic racism in policing.

Allison Steele, Camden Disbanded Its Police Department; Here’s How the City Rebuilt It. Morning Call, Jun 11, 2020.  See also Scottie Andrew, This City Disbanded Its Police Department 7 Years Ago. Here’s What Happened Next. CNN, Jun 9, 2020.

Ruth Marcus, If You Don’t Believe Systemic Racism is Real, Explain These Statistics. Washington Post, Jun 12, 2020.  evidence of systemic racism in policing.

David Doel, Ex-Cop Explains Why Good Apples Are Rare. The Rational National, Jun 12, 2020.  From Ontario, Canada.

Bryan Brammer, Entire SWAT Team in Florida City Resigns After Police Chief Kneels with Protesters. Disrn, Jun 13, 2020.  suggesting white supremacist police officers

Dan Frosch and Ben Chapman, Black Officers Say Discrimination Abounds, Complicating Reform Efforts. Wall Street Journal, Jun 16, 2020.

Christina Maxouris, Police Officers Across the US Have Quit Their Jobs in Recent Days. Here is Where There Have Been Resignations. CNN, Jun 16, 2020.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, Massachusetts Court Won’t Block Access to Report On Who Boston Police May Have Targeted on Social Media. The Appeal, Jun 16, 2020.  “District Attorney Rachael Rollins sought to block the disclosure of records that could show Boston police used Snapchat to target people who are Black or Latinx.”

Mara Gay, Why Was a Grim Report on Police-Involved Deaths Never Released? New York Times, Jun 19, 2020.  “A review shows that the number of people killed by police activity in New York is more than twice what has been reported.”

Peter Jamison, This California City Defunded Its Police Force. Killings by Officers Soared. Washington Post, Jun 23, 2020.  re: Vallejo, CA and the dangers of formal unbundling of responsibilities

Eric Umansky, My Family Saw a Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween. Then I Learned How NYPD Impunity Works. ProPublica, Jun 23, 2020.

Lyman Stone, Above the Law: The Data Are In on Police, Killing, and Race. The Public Discourse, Jun 23, 2020.  excellent conservative treatment and argument

Brooke Sweeney, Wall Street Is Making Millions Off Police Brutality. Vice, Jun 24, 2020.  “So-called “police-brutality bonds” are a transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street”

Janelle Griffith and Dennis Romero, Cops Fired Over Violent, Racist Talk About Black People: We Are Going to 'Start Slaughtering Them'. NBC News, Jun 25, 2020.  three white supremacist officers, raises questions of systemic racism

Laura Bronner, Why Statistics Don’t Capture The Full Extent Of The Systemic Bias In Policing. FiveThirtyEight, Jun 25, 2020.  “collision bias” where the police act in ways that impact the incidents of crime reporting; this qualifies Roland Fryer’s methodology; but still does not properly account for the police causing patterns of crime, which can be seen in Camden, NJ when the city in 2013 disbanded and then re-envisioned the police department and its relationship with the community, and crime rates fell.

The Young Turks, District Attorney: No Injuries To Elijah McClain. The Young Turks, Jun 26, 2020.  highlights both the police and the prosecutor’s negligence; evidence of systemic racism. Chris Hayes, Police In Riot Gear Confront Peaceful Violin Vigil vigil for Elijah McClain with Pepper Spray. MSNBC, Jun 29, 2020.

Brakkton Booker, 4 Officers In San Jose, Calif., Put On Leave After Racist Social Media Posts Surface. NPR, Jun 29, 2020.  Evidence of systemic racism, but these efforts are appreciated.

David Doel, Police SUV Plows Into Activists in Detroit. The Rational National, Jul 3, 2020.  A stunning video.

Tana Ganeva, NYPD’s Culture of Impunity Sees an Officer Repeatedly Accused of Physical and Sexual Abuse Rising Through the Ranks. The Intercept, Jul 6, 2020.

Ryan Devereaux, Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”. The Intercept, Jul 15, 2020.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Ken Klippenstein: Uncovering Unmarked Federal Agents in Portland. Rising | The Hill, Jul 20, 2020.  a very troubling fascist development; one goal may be to portray Black Lives Matter protesters as violent. Lauren Wamsley, 'They Just Started Waling On Me': Violence In Portland As U.S. Agents Clamp Down. NPR, Jul 20, 2020.  Navy veteran’s hand was broken by the unidentified officers.  For video footage, see David Doel, Trump's Feds Gas Portland Mayor & Portland Moms On-Camera. The Rational National, Jul 23, 2020.  Mary Papenfuss, Trump Prepping To Dispatch Federal Squads To More Democratic Cities, Warns Mark Meadows. Huffington Post, Jul 19, 2020.  “The president claimed violence is up in “Democrat-run” cities. “They are liberally run, they are stupidly run,” he said.” Now This News, Even Fox News Called Trump's Federal Crackdown Illegal. NowThis, Jul 21, 2020.  has Judge Andrew Napolitano’s comments. Legal Eagle, Portland Occupied by Secret Federal "Police"?. LegalEagle’s Real Law Review, Jul 23, 2020 does a thorough legal analysis. Ken Klippenstein, The Federal Response to Protests Extends Far Beyond Portland. The Nation, Jul 23, 2020.  “An index lists requests from various metropolitan police departments, including the NYPD, Chicago PD, Miami PD, Philadelphia PD, San Diego PD, and DC’s Metropolitan PD. Even federal agencies requested assistance, including several FBI field offices and the Drug Enforcement Agency. CBP aerial assets have been deployed to a variety of states including Illinois, New York, Ohio, Texas, Michigan, California, Florida, and Minnesota.” Ed Mazza, Vietnam Vet Sprayed In The Face By Trump’s Federal Agents In Portland. Huffington Post, Jul 27, 2020.  “A federal law enforcement agent assaulted former Army medic Mike Hastie and shoved him out of the way.” David Doel, Vietnam Vet Stands Up to Feds in Portland. The Rational National, Jul 27, 2020.  has video clips confirming that the BLM protests were peaceful; the Vietnam Vet Mike Hastie movingly confronts the federal police by criticizing the federal government. Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Sergio Olmos, Mike Baker, and Adam Goldman, From the Start, Federal Agents Demanded a Role in Suppressing Anti-Racism Protests. New York Times, Jul 28, 2020.  “Twin government memos show how a gung-ho federal law enforcement response to anti-racism protests may have been driven by a shaky understanding of the demonstrations’ roots.” Trevor Noah, Are the Secret Police Finally Pulling Out of Portland?. The Daily Show, Jul 29, 2020.  great contrast in Fox News hosts on Trump’s 2020 use of federal troops and Obama’s 2014 use of federal troops in Oregon. Alicia Victoria Lozano, Portland Protests Peaceful After Federal Officers Scale Back Presence. NBC News, Aug 1, 2020.  Krystal Ball and Ken Klippenstein, DHS Sources Reveal DISGUST At Trump Using Them As Political Props. Rising | The Hill, Aug 3, 2020.  John Iadarola, Portland Police Join Forces With Neo-Fascists. The Damage Report, Aug 30, 2020.

Loveday Morris and Fiona Weber-Steinhaus, Prominent Germans Received Neo-Nazi Death Threats. Police Are Under Suspicion.. Washington Post, Jul 24, 2020.  even though this is about Germany, the fact that police computers were used is sobering. Is there something about the police as an organization that allows or promotes supremacist ideologies?

Travis Gettys, White Supremacists Posing as BLM Protesters Instigated Richmond Riots: Police. Raw Story, Jul 27, 2020.  which seems like white supremacists are coordinating(?) to be on both sides

Alexander C. Kaufman, How The Fossil Fuel Industry Funds The Police. Huffington Post, Jul 27, 2020.  “Oil majors Chevron Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell lavish thousands of dollars in donations on police in Houston and New Orleans each year. Marathon Petroleum, the biggest refinery owner in the U.S., is a notable sponsor of the Detroit Public Safety Foundation’s fundraising events, and the company’s top security official sits on the foundation’s board. Utility giant Exelon backs police foundations in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C. JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest financier of fossil fuels, has given millions to police foundations in New York City and New Orleans. In 2018 alone, Goldman Sachs, the world’s 14th-biggest financial backer of fossil fuel, gave $250,000 to the Los Angeles Police Foundation and $15,000 to the New York City Police Foundation’s annual gala.” 

Justin Feldman, Police Killings in the U.S.: Inequalities by Race/Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Position. People’s Policy Project, Jun 2020.  is an excellent, short report; see summary by Staff, Class and Racial Inequalities in Police Killings. People’s Policy Project, Jun 30, 2020.  “Feldman matches 6,451 police killings over the last 5.5 years to the census tract. i.e. neighborhood) where the killing took place. By using the poverty rates of those census tracts, he is able to sort both police killings and populations into five socioeconomic groups ranging from the poorest fifth. poverty rates greater than 23.9 percent) to the least-poor fifth. poverty rates below 5.6 percent) This analysis shows that socioeconomic position plays a big role in police killings.”

Emma Vigeland, Sheriff Threatens Library For Backing Black Lives Matter. Rebel HQ, Jul 30, 2020.  Sheriff Dan Coverley of Douglas County, Nevada told the librarian, “Don’t bother calling 911.” This, despite being paid by taxpayer dollars.

Niara Savage, Black Woman to be Awarded $150,000 by Florida County After White Boss Told Her She Didn’t Fit His Vision for What the Office Should Look Like, Fired Her. Atlanta Black Star, Jul 30, 2020.  probable racism

Amelia Cheatham and Lindsay Maizland, How Police Compare in Different Democracies. Council on Foreign Relations, Jul 30, 2020.  vital comparison

James Pasley, Trump Frequently Accuses the Far-Left of Inciting Violence, Yet Right-Wing Extremists Have Killed 329 Victims in the Last 25 Years, While Antifa Members Haven’t Killed Any, According to a New Study. Business Insider, Jul 31, 2020

Stephanie Dazio, Los Angeles Deputy Says Colleagues Are Part of Violent Gang (Associated Press, Aug 4, 2020.  “Gonzalez’s June 23 claim was first reported by The Los Angeles Times on Thursday. The allegations against the Compton deputies follow accusations of other gangs in the department — called the Spartans, Regulators, Grim Reapers and Banditos — that also share tattoos and a history of violence, the Times said.”

The Economist, America’s Black Upper Class and Black Lives Matter. The Economist, Aug 22, 2020.  

Jeremy Stahl, Kenosha Police Chief Blames Protesters for Their Own Deaths, Defends Vigilante Groups. Slate, Aug 26, 2020.  

Michael German, Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement. Brennan Center for Justice, Aug 27, 2020.  “The government’s response to known connections of law enforcement officers to violent racist and militant groups has been strikingly insufficient.” Summarized by Sam Levin, White Supremacists and Militias Have Infiltrated Police Across the US, Report Says. The Guardian, Aug 27, 2020.  See also Mike German, The FBI Warned for Years That Police Are Cozy with the Far Right. Is No One Listening?. The Guardian, Aug 28, 2020.  “I was an FBI agent who infiltrated white supremacists. Too many local police don’t take the far right seriously – or actively sympathize.”

Konstantin Toropin and Nicole Chavez, Kenosha County Sheriff Said Some People ‘Weren’t Worth Saving’ After 2018 Shoplifting Case. CNN, Aug 28, 2020.  evidence of systemic racism in the police.

Daniel Villareal, Arkansas Sheriff Resigns After Recording of Racist Language Leaks. Newsweek, Aug 28, 2020.  evidence of systemic racism. Hemant Mehta, Sheriff Resigns After Defending His Use of Racist Slurs: “I’m a Christian Man”. The Friendly Atheist | Patheos, Sep 3, 2020.  “Arkansas County Sheriff Todd Wright recently resigned after pressure from the county’s Quorum Court, but not before one final pathetic attempt at salvaging his reputation.”

Alex Pareene, The Police Are Pretty Sure They’re Going to Get Away With It. The New Republic, Aug 28, 2020. “In Portsmouth, Virginia, cops have been systematically using their state power to tyrannize political enemies.” For example, Ryan J. Reilly, A Black Vice Mayor In Virginia Urged A Police Chief’s Firing. Now She Faces Charges.. Huffington Post, Aug 25, 2020.  “A white Portsmouth resident filed the charges against Lisa Lucas-Burke, who called for the ouster of city Police Chief Angela Greene.” Ana Ley and Gary A. Harki, A Powerful Black Leader. White Opposition. Criminal Charges. An Old Pattern Continues in Portsmouth. (The Virginian-Pilot, Aug 22, 2020.  See also WSLS, Police: Richmond Riots Instigated by White Supremacists Disguised as Black Lives Matter. WSLS, Jul 28, 2020.

Christopher Mathias, White Vigilantes Have Always Had A Friend In Police. Huffington Post, Aug 28, 2020.  “New data shows that far-right vigilantes, often with support from cops, have threatened protesters nearly 500 times since police killed George Floyd.” See also Ryan Mac, A Kenosha Militia Facebook Event Asking Attendees To Bring Weapons Was Reported 455 Times. Moderators Said It Didn’t Violate Any Rules.. Buzzfeed News, Aug 28, 2020.  “CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the reason the militia page and an associated event remained online after a shooting that killed two people was due to “an operational mistake.”” Facebook’s data needs investigation; the links to police officers are probable, as with Paul Mozur, A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military (New York Times, Oct 15, 2018.  See also Safia Samee Ali, Where Protesters Go, Armed Militias, Vigilantes Likely to Follow with Little to Stop Them. NBC News, Sep 1, 2020.  "What animates these groups is anti-government, but it's also anti-left," one expert said. "They are often drawn to these events." Also relevant: Tal Axelrod, DHS to Label White Supremacists as the 'Most Persistent and Lethal Threat' to the US: Report. The Hill, Sep 4, 2020.  “Lone offenders and small cells of individuals motivated by a diverse array of social, ideological, and personal factors will pose the primary terrorist threat to the United States,” the earliest draft reads. “Among these groups, we assess that white supremacist extremists – who increasingly are networking with likeminded persons abroad – will pose the most persistent and lethal threat.” “Russia “probably will be the primary covert foreign influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation in the Homeland,” the documents add.” And, Samantha Schmidt, Fenit Nirappil, Abigail Hauslohner, and Tim Craig, Right-Wing Protesters Gather Outside Portland, Adding to Tensions. Washington Post, Sep 7, 2020.  other cities as well; Trump’s influence as well.

Staff, Wisconsin Representatives Call for Investigation Into If Kenosha Police Assisted in Acts of Terrorism. Milwaukee Independent, Aug 27, 2020.

Statista Research Department, People Shot to Death by U.S. Police, By Race 2017-2020. Statista, Aug 31, 2020.  “Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 661 civilians having been shot, 123 of whom were Black, as of August 30, 2020.”

Ally Jarmanning, 9 Current And Former Boston Police Officers Charged In Overtime Fraud Scheme. WBUR, Sep 2, 2020.  “For almost three years, Boston police officers assigned to work in the department's evidence warehouse in Hyde Park routinely filed for overtime they didn't work, federal prosecutors say, racking up more than $200,000 in fraudulent pay.”

Meg O’Connor, His Brother Called for Help After He Was Acting Strangely. Police Knelt On Him Until He Was Brain Dead. The Appeal, Sep 2, 2020.  “Body camera video shows that Daniel Prude was complying with police when they knelt on his back and pushed his face to the ground for so long that he stopped breathing.”

Gary A. Harki, Entrenched Racist Culture at Heart of Portsmouth’s Police Department, Officers and Former Chief Say. Virginian-Pilot, Sep 4, 2020.  Portsmouth, Virginia

Bob Chiarito, What Happens When Chicago Cops Speak Up About Police Misconduct? Their Lives Are Ruined, Whistleblowers Say. Block Club Chicago, Sep 10, 2020.  “The City Council on Wednesday signed off on a $3.8 million settlement to an officer who reported misconduct and was reassigned. The city has paid more than half a billion dollars to settle misconduct cases in the past decade.”

Trone Dowd, 4 Cops Were Just Fired for Shooting a Man 21 Times When He Was Already Down. Vice, Sep 11, 2020.  “The Houston Police Department has fired four of its officers for killing an emotionally distressed man who they shot a total of 24 times during a response to a 911 call in April. The majority of the shots were fired after the man was on the ground and incapacitated. Police Chief Art Acevedo announced the conclusion of the five-month-long investigation Thursday, showing bodycam footage of the incident and calling the officers’ actions “not objectionably reasonable.””

Robert Reich, Racism is Profitable. Robert Reich, Sep 15, 2020.  a 5.5 minute video. Wall Street banks have extended massive credit lines to for-profit prisons and other elements of the criminal justice system; other political elements covered, too, such as voter suppression

Kristine Phillips, Police Misconduct, Such as Falsifying Evidence, is a Leading Cause of Wrongful Convictions, Study Finds. USA Today, Sep 15, 2020.  “according to a study released Tuesday by the National Registry of Exonerations that focused on the role police and prosecutors play in false convictions in the U.S. Researchers studied 2,400 convictions of defendants who were later found innocent over a 30-year period and found that 35% of these cases involved some type of misconduct by police. More than half – 54% – involved misconduct by police or prosecutors.” 

Brandt Williams, With Violent Crime on the Rise in Minneapolis, City Council Asks Where Are the Police?. MPR News, Sep 15, 2020.

Billy Binion, Virginia Democrats Declined To End Qualified Immunity. Police Unions Are Alive and Well.. Reason, Sep 16, 2020.  “Another example of how powerful the law enforcement lobby is.” “The Virginia Senate last week passed a comprehensive police reform package that would prohibit the use of no-knock warrants and chokeholds in the majority of cases and make it easier for departments to decertify rogue cops. One thing was noticeably absent, though: a ban on qualified immunity.”

Brakkton Booker, Utah Officer Faces Felony Charge For Ordering Police Dog To Bite Black Man. NPR, Sep 17, 2020.

Cheryl Corley, Police Settlements: How The Cost Of Misconduct Impacts Cities And Taxpayers. NPR, Sep 19, 2020.

Heather Cox Richardson, Author Talk with Heather Cox Richardson on How the South Won the Civil War.  Oxford Academic | Oxford University Press, Sep 22, 2020.  At the 28:20 minute mark, Richardson addresses the George Floyd murder and the BLM protests and mobilization.  She highlights the report about racism in the Milwaukee Police Department following the mass murderer Jeffrey Dahlmer, who cannibalized Asian and Black victims (he tended to not do the same to his white victims):  MPD did not take seriously Black neighbors’ complaints and reports about Dahlmer, and even returned escaped victims to Dahlmer.  That report, written in the early 1980s, went nowhere.  Richardson also argues that the BLM cause is like abolitionism in the 1850s, which engaged the working class white community. 

David Doel, Seattle Cop Runs His Bike Over Injured Man's Head. The Rational National, Sep 24, 2020.  with an update on the Seattle City Council’s budget cuts from the Seattle Police Department.

Alice Speri, Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement. The Intercept, Sep 29, 2020.  “A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public.”

Emma Vigeland and Jayar Jackson, This Michigan Sheriff Needs To Resign ASAP. The Young Turks, Oct 12, 2020.  re: Dar Leaf defending the white supremacist Wolverine Boys who attempted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Ken Klippenstein: Eyewitnesses Undermine Law Enforcement Narrative About Slain ANTIFA Activist. Rising | The Hill, Oct 19, 2020.  now 21 out of 22 eyewitnesses say they did not hear law enforcement – mostly U.S. Marshalls – identify themselves. This could be an example of Trump’s right-wing authoritarian fascism. Tim Elfrink, Michael Forest Reinoehl Was Killed by Police Without Warning or Trying to Arrest Him, Witness Claims. Washington Post, Sep 10, 2020.

MSNBC, Valentin Uncovers Racism, Brutality While Reporting Undercover As Police Officer In Paris. MSNBC, Oct 19, 2020.  is a review of Valentin Gendrot’s book Flic. “Cop”) which suggests that police organizations reinforce and recruit for people with racial prejudice. In 2019, French police killed 26 people, compared with 1098 in the US and 3 in the UK; they do not track data on race.

Sharon Lerner, Department of Homeland Security Sued for Chemical Weapons Use. The Intercept, Oct 20, 2020.  “Federal agents employed “a vast arsenal of weapons,” including toxic smoke grenades, against protestors in Portland.”

Julian Borger, US ICE Officers ‘Used Torture to Make Africans Sign Own Deportation Orders’. The Guardian, Oct 22, 2020.  “Cameroonians say officers choked, beat and threatened to kill them, as lawyers tell of pre-election removal drive” “According to multiple accounts, detainees were threatened, choked, beaten, pepper-sprayed and threatened with more violence to make them sign. Several were put in handcuffs by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ice) officers, and their fingerprints were taken forcibly in place of a signature on documents called stipulated orders of removal, by which the asylum seekers waive their rights to further immigration hearings and accept deportation.”

Cody Johnston, Katy Stoll, and Will Gordh, Jim Crow, Neoliberalism, And The Current Fascist Backlash Against Civil Rights Movements. Some More News, Oct 25, 2020.

David Doel, Cop Slams Handcuffed Woman's Head Into The Ground. The Rational National, Oct 30, 2020.

Zachery Eanes and Carli Brosseau, March to Alamance Polls Ends with Police Using Pepper-Spray on Protesters, Children. The News & Observer, Oct 31, 2020.

Nicholas Bogel-Burrowes, Kentucky Police Training Quoted Hitler and Urged ‘Ruthless’ Violence. New York Times, Oct 31, 2020.  “A training slide show that urged officers to “always fight to the death” is no longer used but has raised an outcry in a state that has struggled with police violence.” See also Emma Austin and Deborah Yetter, Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer Resigns. Courier Journal, Nov 3, 2020. Brewer used quotations from Adolf Hitler in police training material

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, Police Captain Threatens Joe Biden Voters. The Young Turks, Nov 5, 2020.  pro-Trump police captain Scott Walden, in Flomaton, Alabama, resigned and is under investigation. See Tori B. Powell, Alabama Police Captain Resigns After Saying Biden Voters Deserve a ‘Bullet in Their Skull’. The Daily Beast, Nov 6, 2020.  

Biba Adams, Louisville Police Hid 738,000 Records Showing Sexual Abuse by Officers: Report. The Grio, Nov 12, 2020.  “The explosive story comes after a year-long probe into allegations against police who oversaw the Explorer Scouts.” “The program was reportedly rampant with sexual abuse claims beginning in October of 2016 until the program was shut down in March of 2017.”

David Doel, AOC’s Facts Hurt Police Union’s Feelings. The Rational National, Nov 14, 2020.  On how NYPD leaders’ claims are incorrect and hypocritical

Reade Levinson and Lisa Girion, A Black Man Risks All to Clear His Name — and Expose the Police. Reuters, Nov 17, 2020.  In Rochester, NY: “Rather than take a plea deal, Silvon Simmons chose to face a jury on charges of trying to kill a cop. His trial reveals the extraordinary freedom U.S. police officers enjoy from outside scrutiny, thanks largely to protections won by their unions. In America, the cops police themselves.” This is part 2 in a Reuters investigation.

Shani Saxon, Florida Sheriff's Department Targets Schoolchildren as Future Criminals Based on Their Abuse History. Colorlines, Nov 24, 2020.  “An internal document shows that officials keep a secret list of kids that could “fall into a life of crime,” according to a report in the Tampa Bay Times.”

Eoin Higgins, Bodycam Video Shows ‘Mob Mentality’ of Boston Police Who Responded to George Floyd Protests, Lawyer Says. The Appeal, Dec 18, 2020.  “Hours of video given exclusively to The Appeal show police officers bragging about attacking protesters and multiple instances of excessive force and the liberal use of pepper spray.”

Sabrina Rodriguez, Maya King, and Nolan D. McCaskill, The Racial Contradictions of Trump’s “Law and Order” Mantra. Politico, Jan 1, 2021.  “Police treatment of the Capitol rioters “says a lot about who is an enemy combatant and who is not.”” Capitol police must have been compromised by sympathizers to white supremacy, given their treatment of the Trump mob on January 6, 2021. See images and comments from Joe Scarborough, U.S. Capitol Ransacked After Massive Security Failure (Morning Joe | MSNBC, Jan 7, 2021.  Maggie Koerth, The Police’s Tepid Response To The Capitol Breach Wasn’t An Aberration. FiveThirtyEight, Jan 7, 2021.  police sympathize with right-wing protests; a study of how police deal with all kinds of protests. Ari Melber, Exposed: Police Double Standards From Trump Riot To BLM Protests. The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC, Jan 7, 2021.  An excellent video contrast of police treatment of BLM protests and the Capitol Building insurrection; includes police arrests on June 1 (289, BLM) and Jan 6 (41, DC Capitol).

Ali Melber, Reform: Officers Who Detained 6-Year-Old At Gunpoint Sued Under New Law. The Beat With Ari Melber, Jan 26, 2021.  White police officers in Aurora, Colorado thought the vehicle of a black woman and her children was stolen; police refused to look at her paperwork; children were pulled out of the car at gunpoint.

Roy Wood Jr. and Trevor Noah, What Does Defunding the Police Look Like? CAHOOTS Finds Out. The Daily Social Distancing Show, Jan 26, 2021.  CAHOOTS stands for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets. It has been operating in Eugene, Oregon for 30 years. Very effective and cost-effective. See also Ari Shapiro, 'CAHOOTS': How Social Workers And Police Share Responsibilities In Eugene, Oregon. NPR, Jun 10, 2020.  

Amber Ruffin, Why We Need a White History Month. The Amber Ruffin Show, Feb 5, 2021.  From slave patrols to armed militias to the police

FBI Washington, FBI Washington Field Office Releases Videos of Assaults on Officers at U.S. Capitol, Seeks Public’s Help to Identify Suspects. FBI, Mar 18, 2021.

Associated Press, No Convictions for Ex-Officers in St. Louis Protest, Beating. The Grio, Mar 30, 2021.  “No convictions were returned for three white St. Louis police officers accused of beating a Black undercover colleague so severely during a protest over another officer’s acquittal that he had to undergo multiple surgeries.”

Galen Druke and Laura Bronner, Police Misconduct Trials Are Rare. Instead, Cities Pay Millions To Settle Misconduct Claims.. FiveThirtyEight, Mar 31, 2021.  the data is not good enough to draw firm conclusions over the period 2010 - 2019, but “America’s cities have spent on police misconduct settlements — in the range of $3 billion over the last decade.”

Alicia Menendez, Baltimore Saw Dramatic Drop in Crime After the City Stopped Prosecuting Low-Level Offenses. MSNBC, Apr 4, 2021.  20% decrease in violent crime, social service and public welfare approach to drug possession.

Chris Hayes, Jan. 6th Would Have Been A Massacre If Police Reacted Like They Do To BLM Protests. All In | MSNBC, Apr 14, 2021.

Amy Goodman, Cops Have Brutalized Chicago's Latinx Community for Decades; Adam Toledo, 13, Is the Latest Victim. Democracy Now!, Apr 19, 2021.  a 20 minute video examining Chicago police conduct

Tom Jackman, Fairfax Seeks to Dismiss 400 Convictions in Cases Brought by One Officer. Washington Post, Apr 16, 2021.  “re: Jonathan A. Freitag: “Fairfax County prosecutors are moving to throw out more than 400 criminal convictions based on the testimony or work of a former patrol officer who is accused of stealing drugs from the police property room, planting drugs on innocent people and stopping motorists without legal basis, court filings show.”

Amber Ruffin, Why Using Police as Debt Collectors Leads to the Killing of Black People. The Amber Ruffin Show, Apr 16, 2021.  A 7 minute video

Jemima McEvoy, Nearly Half Of Republicans Think Derek Chauvin Verdict Was Wrong, Poll Shows. Forbes, Apr 25, 2021.

Lily Hu, Race, Policing, and The Limits of Social Science. Boston Review, May 6, 2021.  discusses the limits of the empirical data available, and social scientists’ debates about Roland Fryer’s conclusions.

Amy Goodman, Richard Wright's Novel About Racist Police Violence Was Rejected in 1941; It Has Just Been Published. Democracy Now!, May 31, 2021.  Julia Wright, daughter of Richard Wright, discovered the manuscript in the Wright home in Paris. he had moved his family there in 1946.  The book is titled The Man Who Lived Underground, and Wright said of it, “I have never written anything in my life that stemmed more from sheer inspiration or executed any piece of writing in a deeper feeling of imaginative freedom, or expressed myself in a way that flowed more naturally from my own personal background, reading, experiences and feelings.”

Chris Gelardi, Hacked Emails Give Unfiltered View Into the D.C. Police Gang Database. The Intercept, Jun 18, 2021.  “The emails reveal how the Metropolitan Police Department’s gang database is connected to other flawed tough-on-crime initiatives.”

David Doel, White Cops Caught Beating Black Undercover Cop. The Rational National, Jun 21, 2021.  Back in 2017, St. Louis Police Detective Luther Hall suffered permanent neck damage, posing in plainclothes and embedded with BLM protesters. His partner, a white police officer, was also undercover, and walked away unharmed.

Rep. Val Demings on Twitter (Twitter, Jun 25, 2021) points out that the strategy and philosophy of policing impacts the violent crime rate. “President Biden’s new crime plan follows the same model we successfully used in Orlando: crack down on violent criminals, get guns out of the wrong hands, and partner with the community. Our effort reduced violent crime by 40%.”

Andrew Boryga, How a 19-Year-Old Got Charged with a Hate Crime for Teasing a Cop. The Daily Beast, Jul 12, 2021.  “It was not the first time cops in a corner of Utah took special offense—and went hard after a critic.”

Gravel Institute, The Murderous Police Gangs of Los Angeles.  Gravel Institute, Aug 20, 2021.  The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Dept -- the 4th largest police department in the U.S. -- has 18 white supremacist gangs.

George Joseph and Micah Loewinger, Hack Of Oath Keepers Militia Group Includes Names Of Active NYPD Officers, De Blasio Launches Investigation. Gothamist, Sep 30, 2021.  “One NYPD sergeant, who is listed online as being active in the department’s Firearms and Tactics Session, was named in the data dump. The sergeant answered a phone number posted in the membership data and acknowledged he was an NYPD officer when asked whether he was the person in question. He declined to comment on whether or not he is a member of the militia organization, and referred WNYC/Gothamist to the NYPD’s press office. The log associated with the sergeant suggests he joined the Oath Keepers in 2014. The email address listed with the membership contains the term “nypdcop,” and the entry lists expertise in “field force operations,” “incident management,” and “riot control agents.” Another name revealed in the hack matches that of a Staten Island officer currently assigned to the department’s Strategic Response Group, a unit that’s been frequently deployed to quell protests.”

Melvin B. Miller, Police Shootings: It’s Worse Than We Thought. Bay State Banner, Oct 6, 2021.  

“The Washington Post record indicates that while Blacks were disproportionately killed by the police, a greater number of whites actually lost their lives. The rate of police killings of Blacks was 37 per million, the rate for whites was less than half that, at 15 per million. Despite the proportional disparity, it was shocking to find that 2,962 whites were killed relative to 1,555 Blacks.

But the situation gets worse. According to the New York Times, a study reveals that more than half of police killings go unreported. A research report from the University of Washington found that deaths reported on the National Vital Statistics System, a major federal database, underreported police killings. According to the report, which has been in the Lancet, a British medical journal, the underreporting of about 55% occurred from 1980 to 2018, with other reasons cited for the deaths. During this period of the war on drugs, an estimated 31,000 Americans were killed by the police, but according to the report, 17,000 were not acknowledged in official records.

Researchers attribute the short count to coroners and medical examiners who do not always have the necessary information to provide an accurate record. As a result, it is reasonable to conclude that the number of Black deaths caused by the police is understated.”

Ally Jarmanning, Boston Police Arrested a Black Man Having a Stroke. After $1.3 Million Payout, It’s Unclear If Anything’s Changed. WBUR, Oct 12, 2021.  This story was picked up by Christopher Gavin, Listen: Boston Paid $1.3 Million After Police Arrested Black Man As He Suffered a Stroke, WBUR Reports. Boston.com, Oct 12, 2021.  Ashantai Hathaway, Black Man Arrested by Boston Police While Suffering a Stroke Receives $1.3 Million Settlement. Black Entertainment, Oct 13, 2021.  Jamila Bey, Boston Settles for $1.3 Million With Man Who Was Arrested During Stroke And Denied Care. BET, Oct 14, 2021.  Khaleda Rahman, Black Man Arrested While Having Stroke Wins $1.3M Police Payout. Newsweek, Oct 14, 2021.  Roland Martin, That Man Could Have Died: Boston Cops Arrested Black Man For Being Drunk, But He Was Having A Stroke. Roland S. Martin, Oct 15, 2021.  Phil Paleologos, Boston Police Mistakenly Assumed a Stroke Patient Was Intoxicated. WBSM New Bedford, Oct 15, 2021.  

Jonathan Levinson, Dozens of Oregon Law Enforcement Officers Have Been Members of the Far-Right Oath Keepers Militia. Oregon Public Broadcasting, Oct 16, 2021.

Robin Stein, Haley Willis, Brenna Smith, Natalie Reneau, Rumsey Taylor, David Kirkpatrick, Steve Eder, Kim Barker and Michael Beswetherick, Before the Final Frame: When Police Missteps Create Danger | Visual Investigations. New York Times, Oct 30, 2021.  “A New York Times visual investigation rolled back the footage of fatal traffic stops to examine the causes and the consequences of officer-created jeopardy.”

Matthew Barakat, Suit: Fairfax Police Officers Protected Sex Trafficking Ring.  Associated Press, The Winchester Star, Dec 21, 2021.  Fairfax County, VA police protected the traffickers in exchange for sex.  Ana Kasparian, Cops Protected Trafficking Ring In Exchange For Free Sex.  The Young Turks, Jan 3, 2022.  

Deepa Shivaram, Virginia Beach Police Used Forged DNA Reports to Get Confessions, Investigations Finds. NPR, Jan 13, 2022.

Cody Johnston, How Racism And Greed Prevent Us From Solving Problems.  Some More News, Feb 23, 2022.  This 1 hr video cleverly presents federally subsidized child care to bring down the cost of children, single family zoning to bring down the cost of housing, stopping police no-knock raids, setting up safe injection sites.

John Oliver, Police Interrogations.  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Apr 18, 2022.  Oliver highlights very disturbing facets:  police apply pressure to obtain lies; police can lie about the evidence they have; police can give false assurances; people can question their own memories.  False confessions were involved in 34% in which children were wrongly convicted; and 69% when people with intellectual disabilities were wrongly convicted.  Only 30 states require that police interrogations be recorded.  We should require recordings, and make illegal police lying to suspects.  

Cheryl Rivera, Why Is It Easier to Imagine the End of Capitalism Than the End of the Police? Lux Magazine, Issue 2.  An optimistic case, but informative history.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Uvalde Cops Hiding From Investigators As More Lies Revealed.  Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, Jun 2, 2022.  See also Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Cops Threaten Uvalde Mom For Revealing Their Mistakes.  Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, Jun 6, 2022.  A litany of police misconduct in the reporting of Uvalde, TX.  

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave, Uvalde Police Could Have Stopped Gunman Within three Minutes, TX Police Commander Says.  The Hill, Jun 21, 2022. 

Ivy Scott, A Police Officer Lost Her Job 10 Years Ago. She’s Still Fighting to Get It Back.  Boston Globe, Jul 17, 2022.  “Former Boston police officer Brenda James alleges she was wrongly fired by Captain Paul Russell after he assaulted her during an overnight shift in 2012.”

Eric Reinhart, Biden's Plan for More Police Won't Make America Safer.  Time, Aug 24, 2022.  

Mehdi Hasan, A Network Of Local Sheriffs Is Helping To Spread The’'Big Lie’.  The Mehdi Hasan Show, Sep 12, 2022.  A 15 minute video segment.  Mehdi surveys multiple articles, statistics, and movements like “the constitutional sheriff movement.”  Sheriffs have a big impact on the local level.  Mehdi interviews independent journalist Jessica Pishko, who focuses on law enforcement and politics.

Some More News, Uvalde: A Timeline Of Police Lies.  Some More News, Sep 14, 2022.  A 45 minute video focusing on the lies told by 376 police officers and politicians to hide police incompetence and cowardice in the face of 1 active shooter.  Cody Johnston recounts numerous reports about the police lying.  Judges and prosecutors trust police.  Police are rarely punished when caught.  A study of the NYPD found that 181 officers gave false statements, and 80 faced no discipline while 42 were given a slap on the wrist.  

Ally Jarmanning and Todd Wallack, For Two Years, Natick Has Kept a Secret. A Police Officer Allegedly Sexually Assaulted a Dispatcher.  Boston Globe, Oct 30, 2022.

Tonya Alanez, Boston Police Officer Arrested After Domestic Violence Incident.  Boston Globe, Oct 30, 2022.  

Hassan Kano, Police Are Not Primarily Crime Fighters, According to the Data.  Reuters, November 2, 2022.  

Robby Soave and Briahna Joy Gray, Worst Fatal Police Shooting Caught On Camera, Widow Receives Settlement.  Rising | The Hill, Dec 6, 2022.  Mesa, Arizona.

Sharon Zhang, Police Killed Nearly 100 People a Month in 2022, Data Shows.  TruthOut, Jan 6, 2023.  “A preliminary report finds police killed over 1,100 people last year, the most killings in any year in the past decade.”

A.R. Shaw, Police Chief In Tyre Nichols Investigation Once Served On Infamous Red Dog Unit, Fired Over Sex Crime Scandal.  Atlanta Daily World, Jan 30, 2023.  “Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis is currently in charge of investigating the Tyre Nichols murder. Before taking over as the chief of the Memphis Police Department, Davis started her career with the Atlanta Police Department. In 2006, Davis served as the Commander of the APD’s infamous Red Dog Unit. The unit was started in the late 1980s to combat the drug crews that initiated violence in urban communities. The Red Dog Unit was known for its aggressive tactics when it came to arrests and fighting crimes. In 2011, Mayor Kasim Reed disbanded the Red Dog Unit due to a multitude of accusations of excessive force, police brutality, illegal searches, and a violation of civil rights. Ten years later, the Memphis Police Department would create a similar unit called SCORPION (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods). The unit consisted of 40 police officers split into four teams assigned to control high crime areas, mostly predominantly Black.”

Harry Bruinius, Can Police Police Their Own? NYPD As a Case Study. Christian Science Monitor, Mar 2, 2023.  Conclusion:  “It’s not a problem with ‘a few bad apples’; it’s a systematic lack of transparency and accountability.”

Diana Butler Bass, History Encoded. The Cottage | Substack, Apr 19, 2023. “Last weekend, a local newspaper in McCurtain County, Oklahoma released recordings of an after-hours meeting of community leaders — including a county commissioner and the sheriff — wondering if they could hire a hit man to kill a journalist and jonesing for the days when troublemakers could be whipped and lynched.” Bass surveys the racial history of Oklahoma.

Natasha Lennard, Atlanta Police Arrest Organizers of Bail Fund for Cop City Protesters.  The Intercept, May 31, 2023.  “Part of a brutal crackdown on dissent against the police training facility, the SWAT raid and charges against the protest bail fund are unprecedented.”

Colin Moynihan, New York to Pay $13 Million Over Police Actions at George Floyd Protests. New York Times, July 20, 2023.  

Cody Johnston and Katy Stoll, The Horrifying Results of Defunding The Police? Some More News, Aug 2, 2023. An update on how nation-wide police reform has stalled by all measures.

Amy Goodman, FBI & Colorado Springs Police Sued for Targeting & Spying on Racial Justice Protesters.  Democracy Now, Aug 3, 2023.  “The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has sued the FBI, the Colorado Springs Police Department and local officers for illegally spying on local activist Jacqueline "Jax" Armendariz Unzueta and the Chinook Center, a community organizing hub in Colorado Springs. The lawsuit accuses the agencies of "unconstitutional and invasive search and seizure of the phones, computers, devices, and private chats of people and groups whose message the Colorado Springs Police Department dislikes." This comes after revelations the FBI had infiltrated the Chinook Center by sending an undercover police detective named April Rogers to volunteer at the center in 2020, first exposed by the investigative reporter Trevor Aaronson, who writes for The Intercept and created the Alphabet Boys podcast. This was part of a broader FBI effort to infiltrate racial justice and left-wing groups in Colorado after the police killing of George Floyd.”

Jemar Tisby, White Supremacy Under Color of Law.  Jemar Tisby | Substack, Aug 5, 2023.  Four white police officers in Rankin County, Mississippi, tortured two black men, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker.  “The roughly 90-minute period of terror preceding the shooting began late on Jan. 24 after a white neighbor called Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman inside a Braxton home.”  Another deputy, Christian Dedmon, texted a group of fellow white officers and asked, them, “Are y’all available for a mission?”  The officers also,“used racist slurs against the two men during the raid and ‘warned them to stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River — areas with higher concentrations of Black residents.””

Amy Goodman, Pregnant Woman's False Arrest Shows "Racism Gets Embedded" in Facial Recognition Technology. Democracy Now, Aug 7, 2023. The six cases we know of false facial recognition involve Black people. The facial recognition data draws from existing convicted and incarcerated people, which has a racial bias already. It is therefore embedding prior racially biased decision.

Perry Stein and David Nakamura, Mistrial Declared for Ex-Louisville Officer Charged with Violating Breonna Taylor’s Civil Rights in Fatal Raid.  Washington Post, Nov 16, 2023 

Jamie Kalven, Why Does the Chicago Police Department Tolerate Abusive Racists in Its Ranks? The Intercept, Dec 9, 2023. 

Hedwig Lee, How Does Structural Racism Operate (in) the Contemporary US Criminal Justice System? Duke University Scholars, Annual Review of Criminology, Jan 26, 2024. See quotes by Augustus Corbett, MAGA, You're Lying! Black Men Are The Victims Of The Criminal Justice System, Not Trump. Defiant Lawyers Network, Jun 6, 2024.

Amy Goodman, Six White Mississippi "Goon Squad" Cops Get Lengthy Prison Sentences for Torturing Black Men. Democracy Now, Mar 22, 2024. In Mississippi, six former sheriff's deputies have been sentenced to between 10 and 40 years in prison for raiding a home and torturing, shooting and sexually abusing two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in January 2023. The six former deputies, all of whom are white, called themselves the "Goon Squad" and have been linked to at least four violent attacks on Black men since 2019. Two of the men attacked and tortured by the group subsequently died. To discuss the case and the verdict, we're joined by Eddie Parker and attorneys Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker. "Never have we seen this many police officers sentenced to this kind of time in one week," says Shabazz, who calls the verdict "historic." Jenkins, Parker and Shabazz are currently suing the Rankin County Sheriff's Department over its track record of civil rights violations and racist targeting of Black residents.

Leeja Miller, We Need to Talk About Cop Cities: They’re Everywhere. Leeja Miller, Jul 9, 2024. Helpful background information on housing discrimination via redlining and health effects via pollution and environmental racism.

J.T. Chapman, Is the US a Police State? Second Thought, Jul 12, 2024. The pro-Palestine tent cities on campuses showed us police make disproportionate responses. Lots of data compared to other countries.

Our Changing World, The Dark Truth About American Police. Our Changing World, Jul 26, 2024. Not enough detail, but an intriguing high level argument: That fossil capital and extraction industries fund police and security and military forces.