Police Accountability

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.

Since Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s 2017 election, at least five people have died at the hands of the law enforcement in Mississippi’s capital city.

Senate Bill 1421 requires law enforcement agencies to make public investigative records of officer-involved shootings and uses of force resulting in great bodily harm. But law enforcement unions argue that the law threatens the privacy of their members.

With Appeal contributor Darwin BondGraham

Lexipol, a private for-profit company, has quietly become one of the most powerful voices in law enforcement policymaking in the country.

Advocates say the case hasn’t been handled fairly and there’s little hope for justice.

People who view body cam footage of an incident are less likely to attribute blame to a police officer than those who see the same incident through the lens of a dashboard camera.

A new proposal to abolish small police forces seeks to end the cycle of debt and incarceration.

Officer Sheehan Miles of the Trenton Police Department had 43 force encounters between 2012 and 2016, according to a new database.

Dismal police accountability has made communities vulnerable to private vendors.

With Appeal staff reporter George Joseph.

Between 2001 and 2017, the department justified officers in 99 percent of use-of-force cases, according to data released through a public records request.

Community outrage mounts over Officer Andrew Mitchell’s killing of Dalton during an attempted prostitution arrest.

Critics say the Berkeley Police Department’s unusual practice of posting anti-fascist protesters’ mugshots on Twitter endangers activists and violates free speech rights.

His opponent in Tuesday’s primary helped establish new police accountability and court reforms in Ferguson after the police shooting of Michael Brown.

Jurors were barred from hearing about the eight civil rights lawsuits against Detective Jeremiah Williams.

On May 23, 2013, Khari Illidge, a 25-year-old Black man in Lee County, Alabama, was face down and hogtied, with a 385-pound police officer kneeling on his back, when he suddenly went limp and a mixture of white froth and blood seeped from his mouth. Sheriff’s deputies had confronted Illidge while he was running in […]

Late last month, local students and community members participated in a sit-in at Chicago City Hall to oppose a massive new police and fire training academy on the West Side of Chicago. Protesters set up tombstones labeled with the names of closed public schools, mental health clinics, and people killed by the police. It was one of […]

On March 13, roughly two dozen community activists and supporters gathered outside a courtroom in Franklin County Municipal Court to support four young activists accused of disrupting last June’s pride parade in Columbus, Ohio. The Black Pride 4 — Wriply Bennet, Ashton Braxton, Deandre Miles-Hercules, and Kendall Denton — and six other activists blocked the […]

On the morning of February 9, 2017, 17-year-old Quanice Hayes knelt on the ground in front of heavily armed Portland police officers as they yelled instructions at him. “Stay down on your knees,” they told him. “Move towards us.” A police dog barked. Hayes, who was unarmed, reached down toward his waistband. Why? We’ll never […]