What might happen to federal checks on anti-Black violence once Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office in January? Maybe this question popped into your head after you read that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the killing of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman who was fatally shot by a […]
Justice Department
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
The FBI Thwarted a Racist Terror Plot in Nashville
This story was reported in partnership with The Trace. It was the sort of stomach-churning conspiracy you’d expect to find in a dystopian neo-Nazi novel. Federal agents this week arrested a man driven by white nationalist ideology and charged him with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to attack an energy facility in […]
Posted inCourts, Gun Violence, Public Safety
‘Ghost Guns,’ Black Communities, and the Case That Could Alter a Crisis
Two years ago, 16-year-old Angellyh Yambo was leaving her favorite bodega in the Bronx borough of New York City when she was struck and killed by a stray bullet. That bullet came from a 9 mm pistol that lacked a serial number, which most guns have. But this wasn’t a traditional firearm. It was a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Mississippi Police Department Faces a $400M Federal Lawsuit for Shooting Man in Jaw
A Mississippi man who barely survived being shot in the mouth while six white Rankin County police officers held him and his friend during an alleged drug raid has filed a $400 million federal lawsuit. Michael Corey Jenkins, 32, and Eddie T. Parker, 35, both Black, say their civil rights were violated on Jan. 24 […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Water Quality
Alabama Discriminated Against Black Residents, Feds Confirm
For the first time in U.S. history, the Justice Department has concluded an environmental justice inquiry through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, determining that the state of Alabama and Lowndes County discriminated against Black residents for decades. The findings from the investigation have led to an agreement involving the Alabama Department of Public Health […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Louisville Police Violated Black People’s Civil Rights ‘For Years,’ Says Justice Department
The Louisville Metro Police Department has a pattern of discriminating against Black people and violating their constitutional rights, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. In 2021, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched a nearly two-year investigation of the Louisville department following the March 2020 fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was a 26-year-old […]