Police Accountability

Police are accused of lying to obtain the warrants to conduct military-style raids on the homes of poor people and people of color.

In a civil rights lawsuit, an officer in Allentown claims he was subjected to racial discrimination before he was fired.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Yesterday seemed by all accounts a good day for police accountability. Scholars recently revealed that police violence is a leading cause of death for Black men, but […]

Police and prosecutors claimed facial recognition technology wasn’t at the center of a shoplifting case, but defense attorneys say it was the sole basis for probable cause to arrest.

In Valencia County, a sheriff’s deputy who once faced allegations of excessive force in Albuquerque is accused of assaulting an elderly man.

A new internal audit shows that officers disproportionately strike, tussle with, and draw guns on Black people but then fail to disclose the incidents in their reports.

A federal lawsuit claims that Palo Alto, California, police falsely detained, arrested, and beat a gay Latinx man—then boasted about their brutality.

Police unions resist accountability and exert influence over criminal justice reform.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. In 2017, the coalition Freedom to Thrive looked at the enormous outlay on policing and incarceration across the U.S.—over $180 billion annually—contrasting it with the systemic underinvestment […]

The Crescent City is in the final stages of a multimillion-dollar federal police reform process. Here‘s why it and other programs like it fail to achieve real reform.

Three Bronx friends recount their 2012 arrests in the NYPD’s ‘Operation Crew Cut,’ along with their experiences with the court system and incarceration, and reflect on their lives seven years later.

In California, Texas and Florida, advocates sent letters to district attorneys, demanding that they refuse to work with officers with histories of misconduct.

For far too long, the press has leaned on wrong-headed tough-on-crime officials like the former NYPD commissioner when reporting on the criminal legal system.

A California Superior Court ruling gives officers accused of misconduct access to investigator notes and files while cases are in progress.

The accusations span decades and involve two separate Biddeford cops and at least seven alleged victims.

Brandi Courtesis lost her job with the Gettysburg force after saying a colleague sexually harassed her. The accused, fired for another reason, may be back in uniform soon.

The police union’s newly elected vice president led the investigation into the shooting that cleared Officer William Gourley of any wrongdoing.

Corrupt cops, lazy lawyers, and cowardly politicians: Kevin Cooper’s case exemplifies three and a half decades of systemic failures

How a 60-year-old legal doctrine lets law enforcement officers off the hook for civil rights violations.

On June 1, BuzzFeed and Injustice Watch reported on the Plain View Project, a new database of racist, violent, and otherwise offensive public Facebook posts and comments by active and retired police officers. (We covered the Plain View Project, the online behavior it exposed, and the additional investigation by Injustice Watch / BuzzFeed in our […]

Thanks to the diligence of one assistant state attorney, 119 cases were thrown out and the officer is under state investigation.

The popularity of Axon’s tech soared after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014, but it may be doing more harm than good in protecting people from excessive force.

DA Leon Cannizzarro used jailhouse informant Ronnie Morgan to convict a man in the killing of five teenagers, but the case was overturned. Now, Morgan is petitioning for a prison transfer, reviving the murder case.

Newly released records show that task force members faced allegations of theft and questionable overtime, all under the watch of a commander later fired for lying as the misconduct was investigated.

New York City just paid Jose LaSalle of the Copwatch Patrol Unit nearly $900,000 over claims of false arrest related to the 2016 incident, but his fight for justice is far from over.

The fatal shooting by Oakland police of an unconscious man as he woke is putting pressure on the California department to rethink its deployment of force.

After a drug bust involving Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines turned deadly, questions are being raised about how he operated during his time on the force.

New NYPD data show that in 2018 the department closed nearly 500 rape cases due to an alleged lack of participation from victims and had a declining clearance rate for rape, raising questions over its handling of sexual assault.

Police union lawsuits delayed many local governments from complying with a new transparency law. In the meantime, some cities have destroyed files.

In September, Marcus Smith experienced a mental health crisis and begged Greensboro, North Carolina police for help. Instead, they tied him with restraints. Moments later, his body went lifeless.

Attorneys for a man exonerated in a Baltimore murder say detectives suppressed exculpatory evidence and that the police’s homicide unit has a pattern and practice of similar conduct in decades of cases.

Attorneys and advocates call for change in Madison County after the deaths of three Black people at its jail and because of what they allege is a system of roadblocks targeting Black residents.

A scandal of falsified drug arrests is spreading at a Florida sheriff’s office that has also spent more than $1.33 million settling excessive force lawsuits and is at the center of the increasingly troubled Robert Kraft case.

Activists suspect the investigation was tainted by the close relationship between the police and prosecutors.

Their claims are part of a federal lawsuit; other women say they, too, were assaulted and the officer now faces a raft of criminal charges.

In 2017, over 2,000 homeless people were arrested on charges including drinking in public and panhandling. That same year, roughly 1,400 people were arrested in Miami-Dade County for rape, murder, and robbery.

In 2009, Anaheim police shot and killed Theresa Smith’s son. A new California law promises police transparency, but her quest for answers faces a substantial cost.

With Appeal contributor Ko Bragg

Jason Van Dyke’s sentence for the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald is approximately half the average sentence for a person convicted of second-degree murder in Cook County, Illinois.

Claims including sexual assault of a woman with mental illness to lying in reports haunt the Miami Gardens police; payouts in federal lawsuits have cost the city’s taxpayers at least $3.5 million.