Our system of unequal justice was on further display last week in St. Louis, where police officer Jason Stockley was found not guilty of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith. Stockley was accused of chasing Mr. Smith for three miles, shooting him without provocation, and then planting a gun in Mr. Smith’s car. A recording device inside… Read More
How law enforcement thinks about gun ownership rights has everything to do with race. The bottom line is that open carry gun laws and gun ownership laws in general afford rights that the police often only recognize for white people. That sounds like a pretty inflammatory thing to say, but once you look at how… Read More
In a recent post, Media Coverage of Black Shooting Victims (Part I), we considered how the media uses negative portrayals of black shooting victims to imply that police brutality against black victims is somehow justifiable. We explored how the news media’s use of mug shots or unflattering photos of the victims and its assassination… Read More
As if it isn’t alarming enough to see police officers fatally shooting suspects without justification, what has made such recent police violence even more troubling has been the all too frequent instances of police officers callously refusing to offer any medical attention to the men they have gunned down. Oftentimes, this lapse seems to occur… Read More
As this nation is repeatedly confronted with horrifying instances of police shootings and police excessive force, it is important to consider the commonalities and patterns among the incidents so that we can strive to find a way to stop this unjustified violence. One detail that the media seems to frequently gloss over is the offending… Read More
With media attention focusing on police violence, many cities are looking to expand the use of police body cameras. Cities using body cameras hope that recording officers’ encounters with suspects will curb police brutality, make officers accountable for their excessive force, and provide everyone with more information about what happened. But the use of police… Read More
