Law Enforcement

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/12/2022
  

  Released FBI File Shows Extent of Government Spying on Aretha Franklin

  Beverly Gage says the surveillance was par for the course under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership, when Black figures with any suspected links to civil rights or militant politics was a target.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/28/2022
  

  Far Right Presence in Law Enforcement is Scary, but Not New

  by Anna Duensing

  Edwin Walker oversaw the National Guard's enforcement of integration in Little Rock out of duty. He held a personal repugnance of integration and soon traded his military career for the far right. Today's Oath Keepers are his political descendants.

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  9/16/2022
  

  Inside Riotville: How the Military and the Police Prepared for Domestic Rebellion

  by Bench Ansfield

  “Riotsville” was the name the Army gave to the training grounds it built, beginning in 1967, to school police departments and military personnel in the art of domestic counterinsurgency. Sierra Pettengill's new documentary tells its story. 

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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: Texas Monthly
  6/29/2021
  

  The Resurrection of Bass Reeves: Was the Real "Lone Ranger" Black?

  Only recently has popular culture revived interest in Bass Reeves, one of the first Black men to serve as a US Marshal, and the scourge of Texas fugitives. 

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• 6/20/2021
  

  Should Immigration Courts Operate under the Attorney General? History Says this is an Accident that Should be Undone

  by Alison Peck

  Franklin Roosevelt was pushed fear of a Nazi fifth column and big business's hostility toward foreign-born labor leaders to shift immigration courts from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice, where they act as an extension of law enforcement. Legislation to make them independent is long overdue. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/26/2021
  

  The County Where Cops Call the Shots

  Aaron Bekemeyer's PhD dissertation research examines how police unions, like those in Suffolk County, NY, became powerful in the 20th Century. Jennifer Mittelstadt also comments on the exceptional status of police unions.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  3/4/2021
  

  What the Policing Response to the KKK in the 1960s Can Teach about Dismantling White Supremacist Groups Today

  by David Cunningham

  If history is a guide, providing police with new tools to address current white nationalist threats could result in further repression of activists of color.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/16/2021
  

  Police Forces Have Long Tried to Weed Out Extremists in the Ranks. Then Came the Capitol Riot

  The Capitol riots highlight the dangerous potential for far right extremists to operate inside police departments, as well as official ignorance of the scope of the problem. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/8/2021
  

  Why a Shootout Between Black Panthers and Law Enforcement 50 Years Ago Matters Today

  by Paul Ringel

  A 50 year-old police attack on members of the High Point chapter of the Black Panther Party has been largely forgotten, but it shows the historical development of a pattern of law enforcement that targets Black militants and allows white supremacist radicals free rein. 

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• SOURCE: Buzzfeed
  1/29/2021
  

  A New Photo Exhibit Looks At Decades Of FBI Surveillance On American Citizens

  Christopher Gregory-Rivera's new exhibit documents the FBI's surveillance, in concert with Puerto Rican authorities, of private citizens suspected of involvement in the island's independence movement.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  1/28/2021
  

  UCLA Wins $3.65-Million Grant to Build ‘Age of Mass Incarceration’ Archive with LAPD Records

  In addition to 177 boxes of LAPD records, which the university fought for and won access to in court, the project will seek out and include oral histories and other ephemera from community members who were affected by the region’s aggressive criminal justice pipelines, said professor Kelly Lytle Hernández.

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• SOURCE: CNN
  12/15/2020
  

  What Obama Gets Wrong on 'Defund the Police'

  by Austin McCoy

  "If political budgets are moral documents, then divesting heavily from institutions that have the capacity to perpetuate harms is the moral thing to do."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/3/2020
  

  A Lesser-Known Trump Immigration Policy Needs Biden’s Attention

  by Smita Ghosh

  Biden should reverse the Trump policy of using "expedited removal" to deport migrants without a hearing, which is part of a historical pattern of deportation programs that harm communities, separate families, and sometimes result in legal residents being expelled from the United States.

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• 10/11/2020
  

  Paul Revere Made the Boston Massacre a Flashpoint for Revolution.

  by Philip Gerard

  The incident that became known as the Boston Massacre didn't have to happen, and didn't have to become a flashpoint for violence after. As political tensions break into violence today, it's worthwhile to think about Boston in 1770.

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• SOURCE: Huffington Post
  9/24/2020
  

  How Segregationists Rushed Through The 1968 Rioting Laws DOJ Is Using In 2020

  The Anti-Rioting Act was conceived as a way to suppress civil rights protests in the 1960s and today may be invoked to charge participants in protests with serious federal crimes.  

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• SOURCE: The Intercept
  9/29/2020
  

  Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement

  A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/26/2020
  

  The Long History of Chemical Weapons in Civilian Law Enforcement

  by Thomas Faith

  Chemical weapons developed for World War I found their way into civilian policing to repress labor movements despite the objections of military leaders like General John Pershing. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/21/2020
  

  Though Often Mythologized, the Texas Rangers Have an Ugly History of Brutality

  by Jonathan S. Jones

  The link between racial violence and Texas law enforcement goes all the way back to the state’s original police force, the Texas Rangers.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/1/2020
  

  The History Of Racist Colonial Violence Can Help Us Understand Police Violence

  by Sarah Olutola

  Racial ideologies and practices of social control honed by colonial powers are present today in American police tactics and defenses of police abuse against communities of color.