Eddie Terrell Parker woke up in a Mississippi jail cell last January with an unfamiliar taste of alcohol on his tongue and the painful memory of seeing his friend, Michael Corey Jenkins, get shot in the mouth by a Rankin County sheriff’s deputy. Prior to that Tuesday night, Parker was not a drinker. The amount […]
Criminal Justice
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Reform Rollbacks May Lead to Another Rise in Mass Incarceration
LaNaisha Edwards was 15 when she started going to funerals in the mid-1990s. By her senior year, getting dressed for another memorial service “became the normal thing to do — sadly” in Los Angeles, she said. By September 2010, the plague of gun violence that destroyed other families hit too close to home. Her 24-year-old […]
Posted inPublic Safety
East Coast Earthquake Reveals Holes in Disaster Preparedness
In New York, a city of 8 million people, daily exposure to a cacophony of sounds and shakes is the norm. So, sitting in her apartment in Brooklyn, Nichole Jenkins thought it was just a big truck driving down her street. Elsewhere in Brooklyn, roommates Sannah Boyd and Imiyah Weatherspoon swore construction work was being […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration, Partner Content
Michael Johnson Spent 3 Years in Solitary and Was About to Give Up on Life. Then He Got a Letter from his Daughter.
This story was originally reported and published by MindSite News, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on mental health. To read more stories like this, sign up for the MindSite News Daily newsletter. Michael Johnson had all but given up on living when a letter from his 14-year-old daughter, Ja’Kyra, arrived for him at Pontiac Correctional Center in 2015. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
‘Sick’ Acts Warrant Stiff Penalties for Former Mississippi Officers, Lawyer Says
Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker will bravely walk into a federal courtroom in Mississippi this week to face six former Rankin County law enforcement officers who tortured them for hours. A single bullet nearly silenced Jenkins’ voice forever. “This has been very hard for me, for us, this last year,” Jenkins said during […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
In This Ohio County, a Historic District Attorney Race Spotlights Police Killings
UPDATE: Shayla Favor received 41% of the votes in the March 19 Democratic contest for Franklin County prosecutor, compared to 35% for Anthony Pierson and 24% for Natalia Harris, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Favor will go against Republican John Rutan in the general election on Nov. 5. The stakes remain high in Columbus, Ohio. As […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice
South Carolina Punished a Black Woman for Protesting. Her Supporters Demand Her Release.
The moment Eric Kennedy laid eyes on Brittany Martin a decade ago, he knew she was the woman he wanted to share the rest of his life with. From the rich tones of her melanated skin to her unwavering pride for being a Black woman and mother, Kennedy’s admiration of Martin has been unconditional, even […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Mother of Mentally Ill Ohio Man Killed by Police Turns Grief Into Advocacy
Kimberly Roquemore spent the better part of February constantly checking the Ohio attorney general’s website for the results of her son’s death investigation. At least 17 times a day, she found herself hitting the refresh button and found no updates on the page. Roquemore had a feeling that the grand jury wouldn’t indict Desmond Ragland, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Wrongful Convictions Reveal the Flaws of the Criminal Justice System
Derrick Hamilton turned 18 behind bars. A few months later in 1983, he was sentenced to 25 years to life for murder and robbery, and transferred to an upstate New York prison over 200 hundred miles away from his family. This sequence of events happened not once, but twice, to the young father. He was […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
He Needed Help During a Mental Health Crisis. Then an Officer Killed Him.
Kimberly Roquemore’s maternal instinct kicked into high gear during the summer of 2022. She had this unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach that her second-oldest child, Maalik Roquemore, was in danger. The 32-year-old was a Black man living in America with mental illness. Kimberly, a registered nurse, was a week away from moving […]