Police

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  11/17/2021
  

  Law Enforcement Has Long Practiced Double Standards for Activists

  by Denise Lynn

  Nobody should be shocked that the FBI has aggressively surveilled Black Lives Matter organizers while deciding that the online organizing of the January 6 attack on the Capitol was protected speech; this double standard has characterized law enforcement's approach to racial justice protest. 

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• SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer
  12/15/2021
  

  Philadelphia DA: Prosecutors Hid Evidence for Years in a 2003 Murder Case

  Prosecutors in Philadelphia are accused of withholding evidence that undermined the credibility of key witnesses in the case, a pattern that critics argue has been widespread.

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• 11/7/2021
  

  Historically, Black Distrust of Police is About More than Acts of Violence

  by Christopher Hayes

  The Harlem rebellion against the NYPD in July 1964 was sparked by a police killing of a teenager (and a grand jury's refusal to indict him), but reflected the role of the police in maintaining a profoundly unequal social order that affected everyday life in Black neighborhoods, a situation that has changed little. 

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  10/4/2021
  

  The Forgotten, but Consequential, New York City Police Riot of 1992

  Encouraged by Rudy Giuliani, thousands of New York City Police officers, some drunk, staged a riot at City Hall and on the Brooklyn Bridge to protest Mayor David Dinkins's 1992 proposal of an all-civilian, independent police complaint review board. Why has this pivotal event been scrubbed from many New Yorkers' memories? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/22/2021
  

  George Holliday Dies at 61, Taped LAPD Beating of Rodney King

  George Holliday's fortuitous purchase of a camcorder inaugurated the era of civilian video evidence of police abuse, though accountability has followed only rarely. 

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• SOURCE: Bookforum
  9/12/2021
  

  Vice, Vice, Baby: Anna Lvovsky's History of Policing Sex

  The “shifting public understandings of homosexuality in the twentieth century,” the legal historian Anna Lvovsky argues, “cannot be fully understood without a history of policing.”

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• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  7/12/2021
  

  Black Power and Anti-Carceral State Infrastructure

  by Joshua L. Crutchfield

  Mutual aid groups that formed in response to the COVID pandemic echo the ways that participants in the Black Freedom movement sought to create alternative instititutions for the benefit of communities and individuals that did not reinforce the power of the police. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/29/2021
  

  Liquor Laws Once Targeted Gay Bars. Now, One State Is Apologizing.

  New Jersey's liquor commission has released documents that show how it applied liquor laws to close gay bars, showing how marginalized groups can be singled out through bureaucratic means. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  6/28/2021
  

  Revealed: Neo-Confederate Group Includes Military Officers and Politicians

  Despite its denial of links to far-right groups, the Sons of Confederate Veterans has considerable overlap with them, and was a key player in the fight over statues that led to the notorious "Unite the Right" assembly in Charlottesville in 2017. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/24/2021
  

  The Unknown History of Black Uprisings

  by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

  Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor reviews Elizabeth Hinton's new "America on Fire" and explains how it shakes up established accounts of a "good" and "nonviolent" civil rights movement giving way to protest and violence.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/9/2021
  

  Protesters Marching in Elizabeth City, N.C., over Andrew Brown’s Killing are Walking in the Footsteps of Centuries of Fighters for Black Rights

  by Melissa N. Stuckey

  A historian living and working at the site of Andrew Brown Jr.'s killing by police explains that local protesters are following generations of freedom seekers. 

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• 6/4/2021
  

  Understanding Gun and Police Violence Lies Between History and Power

  by Kwasi Konadu

  Dealing effectively with gun violence and police violence requires recognizing they are connected by the long history of America's culture of force in defense of the social order. The National Gun Violence Awareness Day observed today should reflect this connection.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  6/2/2021
  

  The Racist Roots of Campus Policing

  by Eddie R. Cole

  Campus police forces often trace their origins to moments when Black demands for expanded housing opportunity clashed with universities' ambitions for expansion or desire to maintain white residential areas near their campuses. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  

  D.C. Police Recruits are Learning about Black History, Go-Go Music and Half-Smokes. Leaders Think it Will Make Them Better Officers

  DC leaders are concerned that new police recruits are disconnected from the history and culture of Black communities in the District. Will history lessons help? 

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• SOURCE: ABC News
  5/29/2021
  

  Why the LGBTQ community sidelined police for Pride

  "The decision comes as event organizers reckon with the legacy of brutality and abuse against the LGBTQ community by police that they say still continues today."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/21/2021
  

  Will We Ever Get Beyond "The Fire Next Time"?

  by Elizabeth Hinton

  "What we witnessed in 2020 was the latest manifestation of an ongoing crisis that could have been solved if elected officials had properly understood the root causes the first time around."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  5/27/2021
  

  The Lies Cops Tell and the Lies We Tell About Cops

  by Stuart Schrader

  "The core of policing is not safety. It is social control. All the other lies obfuscate this function."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  5/25/2021
  

  The Professor Who Became a Cop

  Patrick Blanchfield reviews "Tangled Up In Blue," Rosa Brooks's account of joining the DC Police Reserve Corps and meditation on the role of policing in society. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  5/19/2021
  

  Why We Should Abolish the Campus Police

  by Davarian L. Baldwin

  University police forces are a major factor in strained relationships between colleges and their communities. Abolish them, says the author. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  5/19/2021
  

  Reclaiming the Power of Rebellion

  Activist Derecka Purnell interviews Elizabeth Hinton about her new book "America on Fire" and the need to think about urban unrest in political, not criminal or psychological, terms.