Desperate Defenses of Police Violence

The pushback against accountability for police after the Derek Chauvin conviction for murdering George Floyd among my Trump-supporting friends strikes me as willful ignorance and blindness, judging from the false memes spread on Facebook. First, there's the suggestion that Floyd got what he deserved because he had submitted a counterfeit $20 bill, was under the...

I posted this meme on Facebook, which led to good-natured discussion with a lawyer-friend who questions whether BLM is a positive movement if it presumes all African-American encounters with law enforcement as depicted in video snippets are the fault of the police. I responded: "I don't presume video clips are a substitute for due process,...

‘Just Mercy’: Seeking Justice for Death Row Inmates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVQbeG5yW78 "Just Mercy," a movie based on the best-selling book, "follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local...

‘Wrongful Death’ Settlements Grow. But Can Police Reform Work?

The family of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency medical technician who was fatally shot by police officers in a botched drug raid, has received a $12 million "wrongful death" settlement from the city of Louisville, KY. The city also agreed to institute a dozen police reforms to prevent future deaths. "To promote better relations...

Congress Considers Police Reform Legislation

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP-v6esQvTU If police violence against minorities is to diminish, systemic change will be needed. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would curtail police chokeholds, introduce new training procedures, seeks to expand the use of body cameras, create a national registry for officers accused of misconduct, and establishes independent prosecutors to investigate police. It...

Police Fatally Shoot 1,000 People A Year in US, Despite Promises of Reform

Since the FBI has not kept detailed statistics on police shooting and killing armed and unarmed citizens, The Washington Post since 2015 has done so, documenting on average more than 1,000 fatal shootings of civilians a year. This story addresses the complexity of the problem. In one week, according to CNN, at least nine instances...