This story has been updated. Sharon Jenkins received a late-night call at home in The Woodlands, Texas, from a Lubbock County officer the week of Thanksgiving 2024. She was told there had been a “horrible accident” involving her son. The words hit hard. Although she understood them, she couldn’t quite process the reality. She never […]
Policing
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Why Has Qualified Immunity Excused Officers’ Misconduct for Decades?
The movement to increase accountability for police officers who use excessive force may have seen its most significant setback yet with the second election of Donald Trump as president. Trump has promised the nation’s police officers that he will grant them “immunity from prosecution,” a move that legal experts say would deal a severe blow […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing, Public Safety
Justice Eludes Survivors as Former Detective Dies Amid Abuse Allegations
This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For more than 25 years, prosecutors say, white homicide Detective Roger Golubski terrorized Black women in Kansas City, Kansas. His accusers said he would kidnap them, he would sexually abuse them, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
A White Man Pleads Guilty in the Shooting of a Black Teen — but Not for Killing Him
For more than two years, Megan Reed has awaited some form of justice for her son, Sinzae. The 13-year-old was shot and killed just yards from the front door of his home by a man who says he opened fire in self-defense even though, police say, there is no evidence that the child had a […]
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, Housing, Policing, Politics & Policy
Black Unhoused Communities Targeted After Supreme Court Ruling
LOS ANGELES – On a dirt pocket between a sidewalk and freeway in the Wilmington neighborhood in South Los Angeles, roughly half a dozen people lived in tents for most of the summer. But by 7 a.m. on Sept. 24, three police SUVs and a bright orange truck lined the street next to the freeway […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
The Epidemic of Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls in Wisconsin
Sheena Scarbrough had read the headlines about missing and murdered Black people in Wisconsin and across the country — but never imagined it would hit so close to home. On April 1, she spoke to her daughter Sade Carleena Robinson via FaceTime. On April 3 she found out the 19-year-old was missing. Scarbrough says she […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Split Verdict Closes One Chapter for Tyre Nichols’ Family, Yet The Fight Isn’t Over
It’s been a grief-stricken road for RowVaughn Wells nearly two years after the fatal beating of her son Tyre Nichols. On Thursday, the Memphis, Tennessee, mother was able to close one chapter after three of the five former police officers were found guilty of federal witness tampering charges in the fatal beating. But they were […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Incarceration, Policing, Public Safety
DOJ Launches Investigation Into This Mississippi County’s Infamous ‘Goon Squad’
Nearly two years after Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker survived hours of a sadistic torture plot conjured up by six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers, the U.S. Justice Department has launched a pattern or practice investigation into Rankin County, and its sheriff’s department. On behalf of Jenkins and Parker, their attorneys Malik […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
NFL Player’s Privilege May Have Spared His Life, But Other Black Men Aren’t So Lucky
Just days after video footage went viral of NFL player Tyreek Hill’s traffic stop ahead of his team’s first game of the season on Sunday, the Miami Dolphins wide receiver called for the firing of the police officer who tackled him. On Wednesday, Hill commented that he “could have been better” about keeping his driver’s […]
