Historically, police have used their legal authority to protect businesses and private property over the working class.
Police Brutality
The police killing of João Pedro Mattos Pinto, a 14-year-old Black Brazilian in Rio de Janeiro, unmasked the scope of police brutality amid a pandemic and led to an unprecedented court decision.
Cities imagine taking away resources from racist, oppressive policing and putting it toward public safety and social services.
“If this moment can be sustained through further conversations, I think there can be a breakthrough.”
Lawmakers across the country are proposing policy measures to cut or loosen ties to traditional policing.
The message sent to police through arming them with military equipment is that they are in fact at war.
The focus on reforms like improved training doesn’t solve racially biased policing. That’s because of the nature of policing itself.
Cellphone videos of vigilante violence and fatal police encounters should be viewed with the solemn reserve of lynching photographs.
George Floyd’s death—and so many before his—was avoidable. But until Black Lives Matter to elected officials, police officers, and White Americans, the uprisings will continue.
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