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Category: Law/Crime

After this city dissolved its police department, crime fell by almost half

After this city dissolved its police department, crime fell by almost half

CNN reports: Last week, Minneapolis officials confirmed they were considering a fairly rare course of action: disbanding the city police department. It’s not the first locale to break up a department, but no cities as populous have ever attempted it. Minneapolis City Council members haven’t specified what or who will replace it if the department disbands. Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get. The city, home to a population about 17% of…

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Police think they can get away with anything. That’s because they usually do

Police think they can get away with anything. That’s because they usually do

Bocar Abdoulaye Ba and Roman Rivera write: Minneapolis citizens had already put the city’s police department on notice that Derek Chauvin, the officer charged with second-degree murder in the death of George Floyd, might be dangerous. Over his 18-year career, they lodged at least 17 complaints against him, but none resulted in meaningful discipline. Chauvin’s example mirrors a pattern seen in earlier prominent police killings — such as the murder by Jason Van Dyke of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, in Chicago…

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William Barr, Trump’s ‘law and order’ enabler

William Barr, Trump’s ‘law and order’ enabler

David Rohde writes: Over the past week, Attorney General William Barr has taken a series of actions that will likely forever tie his legacy to that of Donald Trump. All of them were in defiance of Barr’s duty, as the country’s chief law-enforcement officer, to foster public faith in the American criminal-justice system by acting as apolitically as possible. All of them echoed the political messaging of Donald Trump. On Sunday, May 31st, as protests over the police killing of…

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Minneapolis’ Third Precinct served as ‘playground’ for renegade cops

Minneapolis’ Third Precinct served as ‘playground’ for renegade cops

Star Tribune reports: Long before former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck, the Third Precinct in south Minneapolis had a reputation for being home to police officers who played by their own rules. One officer kicked a handcuffed suspect in the face, leaving his jaw in pieces. Officers beat and pistol-whipped a suspect in a parking lot on suspicion of low-level drug charges. Others harassed residents of a south Minneapolis housing project as they headed to work, and…

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Why protesters want to defund police departments

Why protesters want to defund police departments

Time reports: When you talk to activists who are pushing to defund police departments, there’s a specific word that comes up often: Reimagine. The idea that police are the only answer to preventing crime and protecting people is one that has been so ingrained into American society that it can be hard to imagine a different reality. But amid a national uprising against police brutality and systemic racism, activists say it’s time to reimagine what the public actually needs. In…

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Buffalo police serve and protect each other

Buffalo police serve and protect each other

The Daily Beast reports: A video of Buffalo police officers shoving an elderly peace activist to the ground, then walking by him as a pool of blood collected around his head, shocked the nation. Their colleagues? Not so much. All members of the Emergency Response Team resigned from the unit on Friday in support of the officers who were suspended without pay for their aggression toward Martin Gugino, 75. “Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of…

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Law enforcement seizes masks meant to protect anti-racist protesters from Covid-19

Law enforcement seizes masks meant to protect anti-racist protesters from Covid-19

HuffPost reports: Law enforcement agents have seized hundreds of cloth masks that read “Stop killing Black people” and “Defund police” that a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organization sent to cities around the country to protect demonstrators against the spread of COVID-19, a disease that has had a disparate impact on Black communities. The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) spent tens of thousands of dollars on the masks they had planned to send all over the country. The first four boxes, each…

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White supremacist infiltration of U.S. police forces: Fact-checking National Security Advisor O’Brien

White supremacist infiltration of U.S. police forces: Fact-checking National Security Advisor O’Brien

Just Security reports: On Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, whether he thinks “systemic racism” is a problem in law enforcement agencies in the United States. O’Brien responded: “I don’t think there is systemic racism. I think 99.9 percent of our law enforcement officers are great Americans,” said O’Brien. “But … there’s a few bad apples.” There are two flaws in O’Brien’s response. First, O’Brien ignores the well-documented support by law enforcement officers…

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Trump’s multiple voter registration applications suggest he’s either committing tax fraud or voter fraud

Trump’s multiple voter registration applications suggest he’s either committing tax fraud or voter fraud

The Washington Post reports: President Trump originally tried to register to vote in Florida while claiming his “legal residence” was in another part of the country — Washington, D.C. — according to Florida elections records. The September 2019 registration application listed Trump’s legal residence as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, the location of the White House. That created a potential problem for Trump: Florida law requires voters to be legal residents of the state. A month later, Trump resubmitted his application…

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Police officers accused of brutal violence often have a history of complaints by citizens

Police officers accused of brutal violence often have a history of complaints by citizens

Police work to keep demonstrators back during a protest in Lafayette Square Park on May 30, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Jill McCorkel, Villanova University As protests against police violence and racism continue in cities throughout the U.S., the public is learning that several of the officers involved in the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville share a history of complaints by citizens of brutality or misconduct. Decades of research on police shootings…

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The law-enforcement abuses that don’t bother Trump

The law-enforcement abuses that don’t bother Trump

Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes write: President Donald Trump has seen abusive law enforcement before—stared it in the face, called it by its name, denounced it. He did not, to be sure, see the killing of George Floyd—the latest African American man to be killed by a police officer—as a reason to condemn abusive policing, although video of Floyd’s death prompted millions of Americans to recoil in horror and sparked outrage, protest, and violence nationwide. The president has been mostly…

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Judge Sullivan says he is not required to ‘rubber stamp’ DOJ’s bid to dismiss Flynn case

Judge Sullivan says he is not required to ‘rubber stamp’ DOJ’s bid to dismiss Flynn case

The Washington Post reports: U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan should not be required to act as a “mere rubber stamp” for the government’s unusual move to undo the guilty plea of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the judge’s lawyers told a federal appeals court in Washington on Monday. Sullivan’s attorneys asked the appeals court to stay on the sidelines to give the judge an opportunity to ensure the “integrity of the judicial process” and to rule…

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Trump is the looter

Trump is the looter

David Frum writes: When pro-Trump protesters descended on state capitals to demand reopening, nobody shot at them, not even when they endangered police lives by screaming into their faces, unmasked, during a pandemic. Nobody shot at them when they carried weapons into state legislative buildings to intimidate state legislators and governors. And of course, those protesters received the full-throated endorsement of President Trump. “Liberate Minnesota!” Trump tweeted on April 17. Threats of armed violence by pro-Trump demonstrators forced the shutdown…

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The U.S. has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

The U.S. has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

Paul Butler writes: On Friday the CNN journalist Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television as he covered protests of police brutality in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jimenez identifies as African American and Hispanic, and when the cops confronted him, he did just what minority parents tell their kids to do. Jimenez cooperated; he was respectful, deferential even. He said: “We can move back to where you like … We are getting out of your way … Wherever you want us, we…

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Police violence escalates unrest across America

Police violence escalates unrest across America

Slate reports: The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane. Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest. Share widely: National guard and…

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Police are deliberately targeting journalists during George Floyd protests

Police are deliberately targeting journalists during George Floyd protests

Bellingcat reports: Bellingcat has identified and collected multiple instances of US law enforcement deliberately targeting journalists during the protests against the killing of George Floyd. The arrest of a CNN crew in Minneapolis while broadcasting live on air on May 29th was a shocking event, especially in a country with such strong protections on freedom of speech. However as of the time of writing we have identified at least 50 separate incidents where journalists have been attacked by law enforcement….

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