Princess Blanding and her family have endured the pain of losing two relatives experiencing a mental health crisis to police violence within a five-year period. The trauma of watching body camera footage of the minutes before her “brothers” died is acute. And the recent death of Irvo Otieno in Virginia is reigniting her call to […]
Criminal Justice
Posted inCriminal Justice, Public Safety
The Criminal Legal System Continues to Fail Pieper Lewis, a Survivor of Sex Trafficking
Pieper Lewis’ harrowing experience as a sex trafficking victim and her entrance into the criminal legal system underscore the ripple effects of sexual violence on Black girls and young women. This week, the 18-year-old is facing up to a year in jail after pleading guilty earlier this month to escaping custody. She also faces additional […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
New York Family Seeks Justice in Their College Student Son’s Death
Roquishia Lewis is still shell-shocked after a grand jury voted to not press charges against the white man who fatally stabbed her 19-year-old son on a college campus — and she’s even more confused by how her son has been portrayed by the Erie County district attorney in New York. “I’m devastated by how they […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Rasheem Carter’s Death Shows the Fault Lines of Jim Crow Still Run Through Mississippi
The investigation into the killing of Tiffany Carter’s son sheds light on a rigid pattern in which Black Americans find themselves at odds with the very institutions they’re supposed to trust. While Rasheem Carter’s death wasn’t the result of officer-involved violence — and while there are many unknowns about what happened — the case has […]
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 […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Why Has Qualified Immunity Excused Officers’ Misconduct in Lawsuits for Decades?
Nearly three years after high-profile police-involved deaths of Black people forced more Americans to recognize that police brutality has disproportionately impacted Black communities, qualified immunity continues to be a hot button issue for legislators and police reform advocates. Capital B wanted to better understand how this legal doctrine plays out for Black victims of police […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Violent Confrontations End Peaceful Stop Cop City Music Festival
A music festival organized by members of the Stop Cop City movement came to a fiery end Sunday evening, with at least 35 arrests. Roughly 1,000 people gathered near the Weelaunee Forest for the second day of a music festival. The unrest began when a group of protesters, separate from the music festival, entered the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration
Recent Rise in Women and Girls Behind Bars Is Rooted in the War on Drugs
Reforming the criminal legal system has been a persistent rallying cry among advocates, a growing number of prosecutors, and some lawmakers. At the height of the pandemic, there was a 37% drop in the jail population of girls and women. Stay-at-home orders and slowdowns to routine court proceedings contributed to the decrease, according to 2021 […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
‘I Was on My Knees, Handcuffed’: Black Man Shot By Mississippi Police Tells His Story
JACKSON, Miss. — Michael Corey Jenkins held his neck, covered in white gauze bandages, as he struggled to form words. He wanted to explain the violent abuse he endured at the hands of deputies from the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office last month. “I was on my knees, handcuffed, and he was standing over me,” Jenkins […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Police Shot Handcuffed Black Man in the Face in Mississippi, Attorney Says
BRAXTON, Miss. — A 32-year-old Black man came close to death last month when he was shot in the mouth while handcuffed during a drug raid in this small, predominately white village, according to an attorney for his family. Six white sheriff’s deputies falsely accused him and a friend of selling drugs and “dating white […]