A new lawsuit alleges that the city is discriminating against people with mental health disabilities by continuing to send armed officers to mental health calls.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has taken legal action against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to stop deputies from hitting incarcerated people in the head so often. Yesterday, LASD said it should not be forced to change.
Lawmakers in seven states proposed bills to make abortion murder punishable by death. Cops arrested three women for their pregnancy outcomes.
As Phoenix begins to displace around 700 people from an encampment near downtown, the ACLU of Arizona is asking a judge to find the city in contempt of a court order prohibiting it from violating the rights of the unhoused.
Years after legalization, the state’s growers say police are taking a “seize first, ask questions later” mentality toward marijuana enforcement, sometimes with heavily militarized operations that allegedly violate their rights.
Graphic video footage obtained by The Appeal shows 29-year-old Joshua McLemore wasting away and rolling in his own waste in the Jackson County Jail before eventually dying of malnutrition.
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.
A judge ruled the report can be used as evidence in the civil case against an ex-NOPD officer who sexually assaulted a teenage rape victim.
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
Multiple major cities including San Francisco and Oakland this year have considered obtaining armed police robots that can kill people.
Law-enforcement spent weeks scaremongering about opioids showing up in candy this Halloween. Despite the media frenzy, no drugs seem to have actually turned up.
Smart Communications, a for-profit Florida company that sells phone, videochat, and email-like services to prisons and jails, told at least one sheriff’s department that it can live “the resort life” on a trip to Florida.
After a six-year investigation, the DOJ says Orange County law-enforcement unconstitutionally used jailhouse informants to elicit confessions and incriminating evidence from people for years.
Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat says the county needs more jail beds to fix the jail’s crisis. But a new ACLU report says that significant numbers of people in the jail can be released.
Thousands of deaths in jails, prisons, and police custody have gone uncounted in recent years. Now the DOJ is calling for changes to federal law.
The fight to remove cops from classrooms is still raging, with some successes.
Florida seems to be sprinting in the opposite direction of progress. A new law allows cops to pull people over for driving loud cars.
What do you do with people who are repeatedly failed by social services and the legal system?
The real aim of these operations might be to boost support for cops.
The probe will assess whether the SVD engages in a “pattern or practice of gender-biased policing,” according to the DOJ.
Accused of faking his symptoms, Joshua Lee Smith was dragged from his hospital bed, called a “junkie,” and thrown in jail, his lawsuit says. Then, he woke up paralyzed.
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.
We’re celebrating 4/20 by tackling some popular myths about marijuana and the criminal legal system.
Reporters entertained the notion that a toddler deserved prison time with headlines like ‘No Charges for 5-Year-Old in Pembroke Pines School Attack’
In the wake of more horrific police killings, it’s important to remember that Black cops cannot fix America’s fundamentally broken and racist policing system.
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.
Former top cops say a culture of neglect at the NYPD has left inexperienced and poorly trained officers in charge of some of the department’s most sensitive cases.
After the city council passed the ground lease for massive police facility known as “Cop City,” local opposition hasn’t ceased; it’s evolved.
Internal emails and their attachments show that a roving Metropolitan Police Department unit attempted to suppress robberies in 2012 and 2013 by stopping and frisking and surveilling residents of Black neighborhoods.
There’s a growing business crafting law enforcement narratives about police shootings and officer misconduct.
It’s Giving Tuesday! And a generous donor has pledged to match the first $5,000 we receive today. If you love this newsletter and The Appeal’s reporting, now is the best time to give. With your help we can make major headway toward funding more vital journalism in 2022. Photo by Joseph Ngabo at Unsplash Police […]
The Appeal team has a lot to be thankful for this year, including the fact that we can spend time with our families again. We know not everyone is as fortunate, and we’re thinking of community members, especially those behind bars, who can’t be with their loved ones. In the midst of Thanksgiving travel and […]