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"Fill the void. Lift your voice. Say Her Name. Black women, girls, and femmes as young as seven and as old as ninety-three have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names or learn their stories. Breonna Taylor, Alberta Spruill, Rekia Boyd, Shantel Davis, Shelly Frey, Kayla Moore, Kyam Livingston, Miriam Carey, Michelle Cusseaux, and Tanisha Anderson are among the many lives that should have been. #SayHerName provides an analytical framework for understanding Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence, and it explains how--through Black feminist storytelling and ritual--we can effectively mobilize various communities and empower them to advocate for racial justice. Centering Black women's experiences in police violence and gender violence discourses sends the powerful message that, in fact, all Black lives matter and that the police cannot kill without consequence. This is a powerful story of Black feminist practice, community-building, enablement, and Black feminist reckoning."--Amazon.com.

The city of White Plains, New York, has settled a lawsuit by the family of a man who was shot in his home by police after accidentally pressing his medical alert badge in 2011. Kenneth Chamberlain repeatedly told police he was fine and asked them to leave, but they refused, called him racial slurs and broke into his home before killing him. After a decade of legal action, the family agreed to a $5 million settlement with the city, but the local police association blasted the agreement and said it was not an admission of misconduct. “It doesn’t equate to accountability,” says Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., who now works to challenge police brutality and continues to ask for unsealed records related to his father’s death. “We need actual structural change,” says Mayo Bartlett, a human rights lawyer representing the Chamberlain family, who argues police misconduct must be addressed through legislation. “It has to be something that’s codified in law.”

We speak with acclaimed scholar and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw about her new book #SayHerName, which honors the stories of 177 Black women and girls killed by police between 1975 and 2022 whose deaths received little media coverage or other attention. “We can’t give these women back to their families, but we can make sure that they are not lost to history,” Crenshaw tells Democracy Now! She also discusses the ongoing right-wing “attack on Black knowledge,” such as Florida’s new education curriculum that claims slavery had “personal benefit” for enslaved people, as well as the recent death of civil rights scholar Charles Ogletree.

"BREAK THE WHEEL takes the reader through different solutions that will make way for a defining, generational moment of racial reckoning and social justice understanding. The murder of George Floyd sparked global outrage. At the center of the conflict, the controversy and the trial, Keith Ellison grappled with how to bring justice for Floyd and his family, and now, in the pages of this important book, aims to find the best approaches to put an end to police brutality once and for all. Each chapter of BREAK THE WHEEL works through a different spoke of the tragedy and its causes. The first chapter channels George Floyd's perspective as Ellison narrates the high stakes tension of the trial. The next chapter comes at the issue from a cop's viewpoint as Ellison sits down with white and BIPOC officers to discuss police reform. From there this book goes spoke to spoke on the wheel with Ellison in conversation with prosecutors, heads of police unions, historians (to capture the troubled history of policing), judges, activists, legislators, politicians, and media figures, in attempt to end this chain of violence and replace it with empathy and shared insight. While it may seem like an unattainable goal, BREAK THE WHEEL demonstrates through Ellison's analysis of George Floyd's life, alongside rich historical context, that lasting change can be achieved with informed solutions"--

New York City has agreed to pay more than $13 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accuses the city’s police department of using unlawful tactics against protesters following the death of George Floyd, according to a proposed settlement filed in a Manhattan federal court Wednesday.

"The historic uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd transformed the way Americans and the world think about race and policing. Why did it achieve so little in the way of substantive reforms? Cedric Johnson argues that this shortcoming was not simply due to the mercurial and reactive character of the protests. Rather, the core of the movement itself failed to locate the central racial injustice that underpins the crisis of policing: socio-economic inequality"--

"This bill prohibits no-knock warrants, which generally permit law enforcement officers to enter a premises without first identifying their authority and purpose."

Filed in federal court primarily in regards to the excessive force and use of tear gas in the midst of a global pandemic.

"In May and June 2020 protests erupted nationwide after the publication of video footage of a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into the neck of George Floyd leading to his death. That incident and its aftermath have sparked heightened interest in Congress' ability to implement reforms of state and local law enforcement."

"Nationwide protests in response to the publication of video footage of a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into the neck of George Floyd leading to his death have generated renewed interest in the issue of reforming the policing practices of state and local officials. As discussed in more detail in this companion sidebar several existing federal laws seek to prevent and redress constitutional violations by state and local law enforcement officials. However because the Constitution generally grants states the authority to regulate issues of local concern—which includes policing and criminal law—Congress is limited in its ability to legislate on matters related to state and local law enforcement—limits that may inform any new laws Congress seeks to enact on this evolving issue. This Sidebar begins with an overview of Congress’s authority to enact legislation and the limits on those powers. It then discusses in more detail two of the enumerated powers—congressional powers that are found within the Constitution—that may be most relevant when Congress legislates on matters relating to state and local law enforcement."

"To hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct in court improve transparency through data collection and reform police training and policies."

"On Sunday Rep. Justin Amash announced plans to introduce the Ending Qualified Immunity Act. Qualified immunity shields police officers from civil liability for violating a civilian's constitutional rights in most circumstances. Reforming it is an important step toward holding law enforcement accountable for abuse of power. But Congress must also act to address the less-well-known but equally pernicious rules governing municipal liability. It's time to hold local governments accountable for police violence."

"Lawmakers are unclear precisely what the intelligence community currently considers legal given the classified nature of the operations."

"A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Thursday started talks on a police reform bill the day after Democratic President Joe Biden urged senators and representatives to act before the May 25 anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis policeman."

"We are rising up against all the ways that the criminal-legal system has harmed and failed to protect Black communities. The current moment requires a solution that fundamentally shifts how we envision community-care and invest in our society. History is clear that we cannot achieve genuine safety and liberation until we abandon police prisons and all punishment paradigms."

"Against a backdrop of increasing national attention to police violence the Supreme Court on Thursday issued an opinion in a closely watched criminal-procedure case that clarifies the meaning of the term seizure."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday expanded the ability of people to sue police for excessive force ruling in favor of a New Mexico woman who filed a civil rights lawsuit after being shot by officers she had mistaken for carjackers."

"U.S. Supreme Court justices returned to the contentious issue of police powers on Wednesday as they grappled with whether to make it easier for officers to enter a home without a warrant for reasons of health or public safety in a case involving the confiscation of a Rhode Island man's guns."

"A second local prosecutor on Thursday asked the U.S. Justice Department to have his name removed from a controversial report on policing reforms saying he feared it would fail to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system."

"White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday called the fatal police shooting of a Black teenage girl in Columbus Ohio 'tragic' and said that President Biden has been briefed on the matter."

"President Biden and Vice President Harris on Tuesday phoned the family of George Floyd after a jury found ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of Floyd's murder. 'Vice President Harris on Tuesday phoned the family of George Floyd after a jury found ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of Floyd's murder.'"

"President-elect Joe Biden will be under tremendous pressure to take action toward greater racial justice throughout the country on Day 1 of his presidency following massive nationwide protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor along with other incidents of violence against Black Americans."

"The president promised one during his campaign. But civil rights groups and police union reps both said it wasn't necessary."

"Vice President Harris on Tuesday urged every American to do their part to confront racial injustice after a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder in the death of George Floyd."

"NOBLE has been at the forefront of promoting police accountability since the organization's inception in 1976. NOBLE's mission is to ensure equity in the administration of justice and in the provision of public service to all communities and to serve as the conscience of law enforcement agencies and personnel by being committed to justice by action."

"Recent events have brought to the fore longstanding concerns about the nature of policing in the United States and how it undermines racial equity. As an institution policing needs significant reconsideration. It is time to rethink the structure and governance of policing. It is also time to engage in a deeper conversation about the meaning of public safety. In the meantime however the following is a list of urgently-needed reforms compiled by a small group of law school faculty each of whom runs or is associated with an academic center devoted to policing and the criminal justice system. The reforms are not intended as an entire agenda for what ought to happen around policing or what American policing should look like. Rather they offer immediate concrete steps federal state and local governments can take to address enduring problems in policing. The authors are scholars who are also deeply involved in the daily practice of policing and included among them are the Reporters for the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law: Policing which works with advisers from across the ideological spectrum in drafting high-level principles to govern policing though the recommendations here go beyond the scope of the ALI project."

"Prompted by several recent high-visibility killings by police officers the U.S. civil rights enforcement regime is the subject of focused attention at the national state and local levels."

"Colorado's attorney general said Wednesday that a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain a Black man who was put in a chokehold and injected with a powerful sedative two years ago in suburban Denver."

"America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. Throughout our history we have not always lived up to that self-evident truth. This has been especially true in our criminal justice system."