Category: Police Violence

The resolutions of two recently concluded homicide cases — one involving a Black man and the other a white cop — gave us fresh examples of the biases of our criminal justice system, inequities that both reflect and reenforce broader social perspectives. The results raised key questions: Who gets the benefit of the doubt? Who […]

Danquirs Franklin’s actions before his death don’t matter. All that matters is what the officer who shot him saw and knew when she pulled the trigger. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the City of Charlotte sought to distract from this unremarkable point when it released irrelevant video footage this week showing events before Franklin’s death in […]

Harold Easter asked the cops, “Y’all gonna let me die in here?” They would. Harold’s question came about ten minutes into his detention in a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department holding room on January 23, 2020. Within an hour of entering the room, Harold, who was Black, collapsed. He died a couple days later. The cops brought […]

Charlotte cops document their violence in reports filed with, and reviewed by, the police department. But the public — those on whom violence is inflicted — can’t see the reports. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s position is that so-called use of force reports, including those that were completed following officers’ June 2 ambush of citizen-protesters with chemical […]

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says it won’t strangle or choke people. Or needlessly shoot or inflict violence on them. Or shoot without warning. Or jump straight to violence. Or initiate violence. Or allow officers to just stand there while their colleagues brutalize people. Or usually shoot at moving vehicles. These promises, we were told last week […]

Charlotte Councilman Larken Egleston is pushing CMPD’s lies about its brutality — while working to block any independent review of the police department’s spending or operations. Much of the work to thwart real reform of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department occurs in the city’s Safe Communities Committee, which is chaired by Egleston and is charged […]

The sergeant was giddy about the brutality to be unleashed. It was the night of June 2. Citizens were winding their way through uptown Charlotte to protest the recent murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers. Around 9:30 p.m., demonstrators began walking up 4th Street, traveling from College Street toward Tryon Street. As […]