police brutality

Bull Connor's Police Dogs Shocked the Nation in 1963, but they were an American Tradition

by Joshua Clark Davis

"In 1963 liberal critics condemned the Alabama city’s K-9 unit as a relic of the Old South. The harder truth to accept, however, was that it was actually a product of a new America."

Welcome to the Predator State

by Michael Gould-Wartofsky

The rise of paramilitary police tactical teams heralds the arrival of a moment when policing drops the pretense of serving and protecting a community and embraces war footing. 

Two Years After George Floyd: What Next?

by Austin McCoy

Despite the massive insurgency of 2020, activists struggle as news media amplify reactionary moral panics about history curricula and crime to justify increasing the funding and power of police departments that have seen superficial reforms at best. 

HBO's "We Own This City" and Baltimore's Long History of Police Brutality

by Mary Rizzo

A Baltimore historian notes that the Black community's efforts to fight police brutality are much older than the War on Drugs. 

Review: The Pragmatism of Police Abolition

Activist and police abolitionist Derecka Purnell's book draws on personal and academic history to push readers to question what they think an ideal society looks like, and whether police forces are an instrument for achieving it. 

The Most Revealing Moment in Former Louisville Police Officer's Trial

by Matthew Guariglia

Former officer Brett Hankison didn't hesitate to defend his actions (shooting 10 bullets through a glass door during an unannounced raid) as legitimate. Policing has shaped the law in such a way that his confidence is justified. 

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. 

Martin Luther King Knew: Fighting Racism Meant Fighting Police Brutality

by Jeanne Theoharis

Despite contemporary efforts to portray contemporary movements like Black Lives Matter and radical groups like the Black Panther Party as deviators from the "respectable" movement led by MLK, the SCLC leader insisted on the need to combat police brutality despite the unpopularity of that position,

Officials Apologize for Deadly Police Shooting at a Black College in 1970

More than 400 students from the Jackson State class of 1970 were awarded diplomas on Saturday, as city and state officials apologized for the deadly police violence that took two lives and resulted in the shutdown of the campus and cancellation of that year's graduation ceremonies. 

From Rodney King to George Floyd: Reliving the Scars of Police Violence

"The murder trial of Derek Chauvin is at the center of a national reckoning on race and policing. But cycles of protests over systemic racism and policing are not new. We watched the trial with the families of Rodney King, Oscar Grant and Stephon Clark to see this moment in history through their eyes."

Adam Toledo's Killing is Part of a Brutal Pattern of Child Killings in America

by Keisha N. Blain

Repeated acts of police violence against children underscore the fundamentally racist roots of policing in the United States and demand a diversion of resources from police to social services. 

Calls to Disarm the Police Won’t Stop Brutality and Killings

by Maryam Aziz

Calls to disarm police departments ignore the way that policing has used unarmed forms of violence in its efforts at social control, particularly of Black communities. 

Virginia Police, Army Lt. Caron Nazario and America's Bloody Traffic Stop Catch-22

by Matthew Guariglia

The incident of Lt. Caron Nazario illustrates the argument of 1960s Black radical activist Robert Williams that violence against Black people has always been part of maintaining the social order; recognizing nonviolence as a tactic of civil rights activism should not obscure the constancy of violence from the other side. 

Kentucky State Police Quoted Hitler and Encouraged Cadets to be ‘Ruthless’ in a Training Program

The rhetoric in the slide show is consistent with “warrior-style” police training, which teaches officers to dehumanize people to act aggressively and forcefully. It also trains officers to approach every encounter with citizens as having a possibility of becoming dangerous or fatal.

In Louisville, Looking to Life-Changing Past Civil Rights Protests to Move Forward

Historian Tracy E. K'Meyer says that, despite the mutual misgivings of older and younger activists, Louisville's legacy of civil rights protests in the 1960s is highly influential today as activists seek justice and policing reform in the wake of the killing of Breonna Taylor. 

'My Faith in This World Is Gone.' For Protesters Injured by Police, There's No Real Recovery

Historian Heather Ann Thompson says that the use of violence against peaceable protest has been historically common in the United States, though access to military weaponry by civilian police departments is a new factor. 

Police Power and the Election of Newark’s First Black Mayor

by Andrew Grim

Newark’s experience cautions today’s activists to be wary of channeling the urgency, the radicalism, the moral authority of this current moment into electoral politics.

The Scars of Being Policed While Black (video)

by Laurence Ralph

Anthropologist and police violence researcher Laurence Ralph made the film above to explain exactly what it means to be policed in America today. It moves from my own experiences with racial profiling as a teenager to the horrific history of police torture in Chicago.

Will George Floyd’s Murder Be Trump’s Undoing?

by James D. Zirin

Donald Trump seems to mistake the temper of the times. Will his instinct to divide the nation be his undoing? 

Protesting the George Floyd Killing: A Moment or a Movement?

Certain moments “hit a collective nerve,” said historian Heather Ann Thompson.