Tag Archives: police misconduct
Four Years Later, Sandra Bland’s Arrest Continues to Sow Distrust in Law Enforcement
New reporting shows that Sandra Bland recorded her infamous 2015 arrest. Authorities never told her grieving family.
After Sandra Bland’s death in the Waller County jail became a national scandal, former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia struggled to ju...Read More
The Sandra Bland Act Was Stripped of the Provision That Could’ve Prevented Her Arrest. Now It Has a Chance.
“I believe this is the legislative session that we come together, in bipartisan fashion, to pass a bill to prohibit this practice that can have life-altering consequences,” one lawmaker said.
On July 10, 2015, on a quiet road near Prairie View A&M University, a hot-headed state trooper stopped Sandra Bland for changing lanes without a turn signal...Read More
‘Ignored to Death’ in the Bexar County Jail
Janice Dotson-Stevens' death is another tragic example of how bad the criminal justice system is at dealing with mentally ill people who enter it.
by Michael Barajas January 4, 2019 – Three days after Christmas, family and friends of Janice Dotson-Stephens packed into pews inside the Lewis Funeral Ho...Read More
Dallas County’s Cop-Convicting DA Is Among the Most Vulnerable Down-Ballot Republicans This Election
Even with her record for prosecuting cops, Faith Johnson hasn’t won over criminal justice reformers, who’ve made Dallas ground zero in the movement to elect progressive prosecutors.
On the first day of early voting, Liz Wolff was walking up to her Oak Cliff polling place when a man campaigning for Dallas County DA Faith Johnson approached h...Read More
In Arlington, How Not to Respond to a Police Shooting
The Arlington Police Department's bumbling response to the death of O'Shae Terry has only inflamed community tensions. Meanwhile, the DA has gone radio silent ahead of the election.
The meeting started cordially enough, but quickly turned sour. Angry community members lobbed question after question at a representative of the Arlington Polic...Read More
Cruz’s Reaction to ‘New Jim Crow’ Comments Ignores the Racist Roots of Mass Incarceration
O’Rourke talks racial disparities in the justice system; Cruz goes nuclear and embraces the politics of policing, revealing an aversion to confronting our dark past.
Several minutes into his first televised showdown with Beto O’Rourke on Friday, Senator Ted Cruz dove into a controversy that had dominated right-wing media, ...Read More
The Murder Conviction of Dallas-area Cop Roy Oliver is Nothing Short of Extraordinary
The case illustrates the high bar that prosecutors must clear for a conviction, particularly in Texas, where prosecutions for on-duty killings are virtually unheard of.
Police are justified in maiming, shooting or killing you if another “reasonable” officer would’ve done the same thing. That’s the malleable, snake-eatin...Read More
Why Dallas is One of the Few Places Killer Cops Could be Held Accountable
This summer, Dallas County officials took the rare step of indicting killer cops — twice.
Something extraordinary happened in Dallas County this month: A grand jury returned a murder indictment against a police officer who shot and killed someone. On...Read More
South Texas School Security Guard Arrested After Allegedly Throwing Girl to Ground
A school security guard at Donna ISD has been arrested after video surfaced that appears to show him slamming a girl to the ground during a fight between studen...Read More