More than 30 years ago, a news camera was allowed inside a Milwaukee courtroom to capture the sentencing of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The hearing started with friends and relatives of the 17 victims who chose to give impact statements. One by one, they calmly entered the courtroom and approached a podium several feet from […]
Criminal Justice
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
The ‘Black Cop’ Isn’t Enough Reform to End Police Brutality
More than 25 years before Nas released “Cops Shot the Kid,” KRS-One wrote about the “Black Cop,” describing them as strategically placed props in a systemically racist system used to oppress Black people. During slavery, there were Black overseers who beat other enslaved people. Fast forward to 1993, KRS-One wrote, “Black slave turned black cop […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Partner Content, Policing
‘They Need to See’: RowVaughn Wells on What It Means to Attend the State of the Union Address
This story was originally published by The 19th. RowVaughn Wells is nervous; at 61, she never expected to be the face of a movement, to visit the White House, or to be singled out in front of the nation by the president of the United States. Now, a month to the day since her son, Tyre […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gun Violence
Unarmed and Killed: Sinzae Reed’s Family Awaits Justice Four Months Later
It has been nearly four months since 13-year-old Sinzae Reed was fatally shot in an Ohio apartment complex by his neighbor Krieg Butler, a 36-year-old white man. The boy’s death was declared a homicide after a county coroner’s autopsy found he had been shot twice, including a fatal wound to the chest. But Butler remains […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
The Tyre Nichols Video Is Coming Out. You Don’t Have to Watch.
Footage of five Memphis, Tennessee, police officers, who were fired after participating in a traffic stop that resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols earlier this month, is expected to be televised during Friday’s prime-time lineup. It’s unclear how long — and how horrific — the video will be. But since the police department announced […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Partner Content, Policing
In an Effort to Diversify, Cleveland Police Look to HBCUs
This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Yarnell Rickett wants to see more Black and brown police officers at his police department. He believes Historically Black Colleges and Universities […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Public Safety
Kansas City Police Dismissed a Black News Site’s Reports of Missing Women. Then One Showed Up.
For more than a month, a 22-year-old Black woman was allegedly held hostage inside a makeshift room in the basement of an Excelsior Springs, Missouri, home. Bound with handcuffs, gagged by duct tape and a metal collar with a padlock around her neck, she was repeatedly raped and whipped by her kidnapper, according to court […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gun Violence
A 13-Year-Old Black Boy Was Killed. Will Stand-Your-Ground Protect the Shooter?
A white man accused of killing a 13-year-old Black boy in Columbus, Ohio, has roamed free for nearly 90 days after prosecutors dismissed murder charges against him, prompting the boy’s family to demand officials provide an explanation and put the man back behind bars. Police say Krieg Allen Butler claimed he fired a gun in […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice
Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers Are in Prison. The Person Accused of Protecting Them Is Now in Court.
Jacquelyn Lee Johnson, the former district attorney accused of unethically meddling in the investigation of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder in 2020, was expected to face a judge this week for arraignment on a felony charge of violating her oath of office. But the hearing in the long-awaited case has been delayed at her attorney’s request, according to court records. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
What the Conviction in Atatiana Jefferson’s Death Tells Us About Police Accountability
The former police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson while she was babysitting her then-8-year-old nephew has been sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison for the fatal shooting in Fort Worth, Texas. Aaron Dean, who is white, was convicted of manslaughter for the October 2019 shooting, which followed a non-emergency call from a concerned neighbor […]
