Reassuring news on the Freddie Gray case: Baltimore’s chief prosecutor charged six police officers on Friday with a range of crimes including murder and manslaughter in the arrest and fatal injury of Freddie Gray, a striking and surprisingly swift turn in a case that has drawn national attention to police conduct. The state’s attorney for Baltimore …
Baltimore
As riots rage in Baltimore, let's be abundantly clear about the following: The death of Freddie Gray was and is nothing short of an abomination. No one--no one--is supposed to die in police custody. In particular, no one is supposed to have his/her spine severed while in police custody. It is bad enough that Freddie …
Good for the Obama Administration
And credit where it is due: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges. Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades …
Please Stop with the F***ing Complaints about the President’s Passion for Golf
Every single time at something bad happens, you can count on critics of President Obama to complain that he is playing golf instead of attending to the crisis of the moment (which may not even require crisis attention at the presidential level). The latest round of golf-inspired outrage has emerged in the aftermath of the …
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Lives Matter
How is that for a revolutionary thought? A gunman who announced online that he was planning to shoot two "pigs" in retaliation for the police chokehold death of Eric Garner ambushed two officers in a patrol car and shot them to death in broad daylight Saturday before running to a subway station and killing himself, …
And Speaking of the Overextension of Police Powers . . .
This is just appalling: D.C. police have made plans for millions of dollars in anticipated proceeds from future civil seizures of cash and property, even though federal guidelines say “agencies may not commit” to such spending in advance, documents show. The city’s proposed budget and financial plan for fiscal 2015 includes about $2.7 million for the District …
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More Evidence of Police Brutality
I guess we all have reason to be afraid of law enforcement. Now, police are shooting and killing unarmed people who lie face down on the ground. And note the following: The toxic combination of a "five year-old uncorroborated tip," a vague accusation from a confessed car thief and meth addict, and a recently robbed …
Shame on Columbia Law School
I know that there are people who are upset about the Michael Brown/Eric Garner cases. I know that the cases have ripped open old wounds that have to do with America's legacy on race and race relations. I know that it is high time to focus on the overextension and abuse of police power. But life …
The Murder of Eric Garner and the Failure of Justice
As others have noted, while there may have been some reason not to indict Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to have refrained from indicting Daniel Pantaleo for the murder--yes, the murder--of Eric Garner. And why was Garner murdered? For selling "loose" or untaxed cigarettes. "Appalling" does …
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The Ferguson Grand Jury Decision
For those trying to understand why the grand jury in the Michael Brown case came to the decision not to indict Darren Wilson, this appears to be a very good accounting: The most credible eyewitnesses to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., said he had charged toward Police Officer Darren Wilson just before …
