by Ed Lyon
Most Americans are probably aware that the U.S. deploys a police force of sorts called the Border Patrol along the country’s Southern border and might be surprised by its growth.
Prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center Towers and damaged ...
by Ed Lyon
Despite being the capital of the nation’s largest Red state, Austin, Texas, is as liberally Blue as a city can be, proudly sporting the motto “KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD.” Whether weird or empathetic, Austin has made great strides toward diverting money from its police department to improve law ...
by Ed Lyon
There is evidence of legal systems, considered primitive by some, that have required a false accuser to face the same punishment the falsely accused would have had to suffer had the false accusations resulted in a conviction. What a completely different, fair, and equitable justice system the ...
by Ed Lyon
There is a push throughout the world to equip police with body cams. It seems to be widely believed that this will reduce incidents of police brutality.
However, “[w]hen the police are given the discretion to publicly release favorable body camera footage but withhold negative footage, police ...
by Ed Lyon
Newly hired employees are told not to bring their personal problems, biases, and prejudices to work with them. This admonition is especially appropriate in police departments.
Some officers bring racist or other hateful comments to social media [CLN, October 2019, p. 41]. However, some of ...
by Ed Lyon
After the U.S. Civil War and followingthe 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution that banned slavery, laws designed to disadvantage Black people were passed throughout former Rebel states. Those legislative acts became known as Jim Crow laws. None were fair. Some of the more insidious live ...
by Ed Lyon
A 2018 lawsuit by Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown filed against the city of Milwaukee alleging police used excessive force ended with a $750,000 settlement.
Milwaukee city attorney Tearman Spencer and assistant city attorney Robin A. Pederson sent a letter to the city’s Common Council on November ...
by Ed Lyon
Lauren Mestas of Austin, Texas, is an avid supporter of social justice and equality. She attended Black Lives Matter protests in Austin and was an eyewitness to the shooting of AK-47-toting Garrett Foster at the intersection of Fourth and Congress in late July 2020. Rattled, she forgot ...
by Ed Lyon
A settlement with family was reached in the death of Breonna Taylor of Kentucky, an unarmed Black woman who was killed when undercover Louisville Metro police “blindly” fired 10 rounds into her apartment on March 13, 2020, the result of a botched raid that began as Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker were sleeping. [See August 2020 CLN, p.48.]
The family’s lawsuit, resolved in mid-September 2020, cites battery, wrongful death, excessive force, and gross negligence. Taylor received no medical attention for more than 20 minutes after she was wounded, dispatch logs reveal, The Courier Journal reports.
Taylor was an emergency medical technician who battled for victims of the novel coronavirus before she became the victim of a no-knock warrant by overzealous cops.
The Taylor case got more exposure after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd. The video of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Officer Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes brought awareness to the everyday perils Black citizens face from police. Her death set off protests across the world along with Floyd’s.
Representing Taylor’s family were Lonita Baker and Benjamin Crump, who brought a civil rights deprivation and wrongful death ...
by Ed Lyon
Since the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd while in police custody, protests against police brutality and systemic racism have grown. And, as various protests and incidents of excessive force by police make headlines, police chiefs are beating a hasty exodus from troubled departments.
• In California, Los Angeles Schools’ Police Chief Todd Chamberlain resigned after defunding of his department by 33 percent resulted in 40 vacancies remaining unfilled and a force reduction of 65 officers.
• In Georgia, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned after Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by now-fired police Officer Garrett Rolfe. Although Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms accepted the resignation, she stated Shields would continue to serve within the department in a position “yet to be determined,” turning the resignation into a demotion.
• In Kentucky, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer fired Chief Steve Conrad after cops and National Guard soldiers shot restaurateur David McAtee to death. Conrad was fired because cops were not wearing their body cams, not because McAtee died.
• Prince George’s County, Maryland, Police Chief Hank Stawinski resigned after complaints by 13 minority officers were aired by the American Civil Liberties Union. They had ...
