Social Movements & the Law

Bullets crashed through the walls of Brandy Earthman’s house on Minneapolis’ north side one evening this summer. The shots sheared through the door of the living room where her children were playing. One severed a bone in her 19-year-old son’s arm.

Our latest coverage of protests against racism and police violence around the world following the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020.

The murder of George Floyd mobilized the Movement for Black Lives and inspired a national reckoning with police violence and impunity.

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — St. Louis County’s prosecutor announced Thursday that he will not charge the former police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a dramatic decision that could reopen old wounds amid a renewed and intense national conversation about racial injustice and the police treatment of people of color...

SEATTLE (AP) — An Oregon police officer lost his job and then returned to work after fatally shooting an unarmed Black man in the back...

Killing of James Garcia in Arizona renews questions about systemic problems at one of country’s deadliest police departments

Some officers involved in fatal shootings reportedly marked those incidents with backyard barbecues and were initiated into a "secretive clique."

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pledge to discipline officers who commit violence does nothing to address NYPD’s culture of rewarding bad behavior.

How NYPD officers continue to use chokeholds — which can be deadly and are explicitly prohibited by the department — on civilians, while officers with substantiated claims of abuse go without any meaningful punishment.

Police deploy teargas and flash-bangs in Brooklyn Center as Wright’s father Aubrey rejects police claim that officer intended to fire Taser

Mr Blake, a black man, was shot in the back by police in Wisconsin, sparking protests.

A former Ohio police officer, who is white, will appear at a bail hearing on Friday after his arrest on a charge of murder in the fatal shooting on an unarmed Black man in December.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The FBI said Tuesday it’s investigating the reported assault of a Black man by a group of white men at a southern Indiana lake...

In the city with the highest rate of police killings, open investigations pile up while the family of Cortez Bufford waits for answers.

In 2018, police shootings hit record levels in Phoenix. The trend extends statewide and stretches beyond a single year.

As the experience of Portland shows, federal intervention in city policing shows real reform is far from guaranteed

Attorney Eric Nelson alleges prosecutorial and jury misconduct and errors of law at trial and says the verdict was contrary to law

A Minnesota judge ruled Monday that the manslaughter case can proceed against a former suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Columbus police shot and killed a teenage girl who swung at two other people with a knife Tuesday, according to bodycam footage from the officer who fired the shots just minutes before the verdict in George Floyd’s killing was read...

Lawyers for the family of black man Andrew Brown Jr say an independent autopsy shows the 42-year-old died after North Carolina police delivered a "kill shot" to the back of his head.

MONROE, La. (AP) — The most violent videos languished for years, lost or ignored in a digital vault. Louisiana State Police troopers and top brass alike would often look the other way, even as officers took to official messaging channels to banter about their brutality.

When James Smith called police to check his neighbour was OK, she ended up dead. Never again, he says.

Demonstrators demand unconditional ban on ‘no-knock’ warrants after Locke, 22, was killed during a raid on an apartment this week

The mother of Ahmaud Arbery filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Tuesday against the three men accused of killing her son, a Black man who was chased down and shot dead as he jogged through his Georgia neighborhood.

With the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd on Tuesday, prosecutors will begin turning their attention to making their case against three others who took part in the fatal arrest.

Three police officers have been arrested and charged in the killing of an unarmed Black man who pleaded for breath while being restrained in Washington state last year.

ATLANTA (AP) — Three white men have been indicted on murder charges in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man fatally shot while running in a neighborhood near Georgia's coast...

More than 100 officers have faced official repercussions after study collected 5,000 posts from eight departments

The fact that Raoul Peck’s new HBO film on white supremacy exists shows that something profound about the world is changing.

The magazine invested extraordinary amounts of time and resources into building an intellectual edifice for segregation.