Police

From changing policy to helping people get a shot at freedom, we’re proud of the vital work we published in 2024.

Gregory Sharkey spent 15 years in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. He was finally freed last month—but will those responsible for caging him be held accountable?

Democrats spent the last four years running away from police reform. “Funding the police” didn’t just help them lose the presidency—it handed a dangerous man an even stronger police and surveillance state.

Attorneys say the district’s practice of sending armed police officers to mental health emergencies violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.

In June, the DOJ said the Phoenix Police Department routinely commits egregious civil rights violations. Community members are demanding change—and the release of three Phoenix youths imprisoned for a murder committed by a police officer.

A MindSite News-Medill investigation documents wide use of tasers in response to 911 mental health calls.

Documents obtained by The Appeal show law enforcement warning of a “strong possibility” of anti-police violence by student protesters at Cal Poly Humboldt ahead of a sweep that led to mass arrests.

George Floyd’s ancestors were born into slavery. Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa powerfully document Floyd’s life and lineage.

When residents of Leyden, Massachusetts, started investigating their former police chief, they didn’t know it would end with criminal charges—and a successful push to reform the town’s government.

The recently enacted Secure D.C. bill ignores demands from District residents while giving handouts to an unelected prosecutor desperate to consolidate power.

Lies, damned lies, and crime statistics.

Police raided Ryan Cortez’s home after he participated in a protest against police harassment. On Oct. 6, a jury acquitted Cortez, but concerns over free speech remain.

Jacob Harris’s father is heading to appeals court on Wednesday. Federal judges will decide the fate of his wrongful death suit against the city of Phoenix.

Police say they need pay raises to help with hiring and retention. But crime has been falling in LA, even as the department reports having its lowest number of officers in decades.

In her new book, “They Killed Freddie Gray”, Justine Barron reveals much of what the public has believed about Gray’s death is incorrect.

This excerpt from Survivor Injustice asks us to reconsider what justice really looks like for crime victims.

Organizers say they’ve collected thousands of signatures for a referendum to put Cop City on the November ballot. But local officials seem intent on making sure it doesn’t reach a vote.

Lawmakers in seven states proposed bills to make abortion murder punishable by death. Cops arrested three women for their pregnancy outcomes.

Online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay make billions from shoplifted products. Why are police and lawmakers focusing on small-time thieves?

At least 42 people have been charged with “domestic terrorism” under the state’s wide-ranging statute. Legal experts are calling it a “sloppy” and unprecedented attack on constitutional rights to free speech and protest.

It’s been four years since a Phoenix police officer killed Jacob Harris. Records obtained by The Appeal show officials have made inconsistent or false statements about the night police killed him. As Harris’s friends grow up behind bars, his father won’t stop until he gets justice for his son.

Absent structural organizing and actual political change, societal consumption of anti-Black violence instead reinforces the dehumanization of Black people that is central to white supremacy.

ShotSpotter, Flock Safety, and Fog Data Science pitch themselves as third-party public-safety platforms, but they really are are “data brokers”—companies that profit by selling bulk information to others.

“That Black officers can also be the face of police brutality against Black people doesn’t disprove the racism at the institution’s core,” writes Ieshaah Murphy.

Organizers are calling on national support for their continued efforts to halt the construction of a police militarization facility in the Atlanta forest.

As more people criticize or refuse to cooperate with police, writers Emily Galvin-Almanza and Khalid Alexander argue most departments aren’t taking that criticism to heart—they’re replacing human sources and interactions with computer-generated evidence instead.

Federally funded police task forces carry out thousands of online stings each year, despite little evidence that they prevent abuse.

New York law can leave people who are involuntarily committed financially liable for their hospital bills and ambulance ride

On September 23, 2020, a Black man died for the alleged crime of crossing the street the wrong way. His death was due in large part to America’s long history of criminalizing public spaces and our existence in them.

Stacey Abrams wants to give police officers raises. Time and again, Democrats have reacted to calls for racial justice by giving more money to cops.

Patrice Andrews once promised she’d never work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But in 2018, she directly ordered the arrest of immigration activists during an ICE deportation.

Her jeans were so tight, she couldn’t have been raped, the judges said.

Reporters entertained the notion that a toddler deserved prison time with headlines like ‘No Charges for 5-Year-Old in Pembroke Pines School Attack’

Billions of dollars of federal COVID relief aid are flowing to police, prisons, and jails in jurisdictions across the nation.

Less than two years after racial justice protests sparked calls to “defund the police,” states and jurisdictions are using pandemic aid to pad already bloated law enforcement budgets.

In the ’90s, the city passed a policy requiring the police department to pay some of their own legal costs. There’s no evidence that the department ever paid up.

Not literally, thankfully.

On the night of Jan. 6, Arizona’s former prison director, Charles Ryan, drank half a bottle of tequila and got into a three-hour armed standoff that involved about 50 police officers. After a tense confrontation in which Ryan repeatedly pointed a gun at officers, Tempe police took Ryan into custody and brought him to a hospital — but he was never booked into jail. In the end, Ryan went back home like nothing had happened.

The specific ways in which Frey and other local leaders failed to respond to Floyd’s death seem frankly astonishing when laid out on paper. But the story of this failure is, in fact, the only future offered by the centrist “police reformer” set. 

Although Minneapolis has garnered media attention since the George Floyd uprising, St. Paul may be the Twin City making the most strides toward transformative justice. But Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s actions may undo positive steps in Ramsey County.