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 […]
Public Safety
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, Public Safety
The Lawmakers Fighting the Epidemic of Missing and Murdered Black People
Four years ago, as the six members of Minnesota’s United Black Legislative Caucus gathered for one of their first meetings, Ruth Richardson proposed a novel idea to create a task force to investigate the root causes of violence against Black women. Richardson said she was in her first term as a state representative when she […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Public Safety
Carlee Russell May Have Lied, But These Black Women and Girls Are Still Missing
The case of Carlethia “Carlee” Russell has taken an even more unsettling turn as she apologized through her attorney and admitted that she was not kidnapped in a hoax that flooded social media and dominated national news. Police poked holes through her story last week and couldn’t verify her initial account of seeing an unaccompanied […]
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, 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, Public Safety
New Laws Protecting Sexual Assault Survivors Don’t Bring Justice for All
There has been a gradual wave of reform efforts across the country granting sexual assault survivors more time to sue their alleged abusers. With New York’s Adult Survivor Act taking effect last month, about half of states have either eliminated or expanded their statute of limitations on sexual offenses, including five states just this year. […]