Police Brutality
Racial Injustice in America
How a Coalition of New York Activists Revealed Police-Department Secrets
The widespread protests over George Floyd’s death helped prompt legislators to repeal a law known as Section 50-A, which kept police disciplinary records from public view.
Dept. of Policing
A Cop Flipped Him the Bird; He Joined the Police Academy
Keiyon Ramsey’s grandmother told him that Black families should never call the police; now he’s a deputy inspector in the N.Y.P.D., intent on enacting change from within.
Culture Desk
How “Starship Troopers” Aligns with Our Moment of American Defeat
Once again, the present has caught up to Paul Verhoeven’s acid vision of the future.
Our Columnists
A Night with Occupy City Hall
Organizers want to redirect one-sixth of the N.Y.P.D.’s operating budget—about a billion dollars—and invest it in underfunded communities.
Dispatch
Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest Has Always Been in Flux
An experiment in self-rule tests the limits of consensus.
News Desk
How to Defund the Police
Community groups operating in New York City and across the country have reduced violence and present an alternative vision of safety.
Annals of Activism
Where Bail Funds Go from Here
Bail funds have been deluged with donations since the recent wave of protests began. But organizers hope these funds won’t have to exist in their current form for much longer.
Shouts & Murmurs
Offer and Counteroffer
Offer: Defund the police. Dismantle systems of oppression. Counteroffer: No choke holds. (Sometimes.)
Letter from Europe
Assa Traoré and the Fight for Black Lives in France
Traoré has become an animating force of resistance to police violence in France since the death of her brother, Adama, in 2016.
News Desk
How Police Unions Enable and Conceal Abuses of Power
Some labor leaders are pushing to expel police unions if they don’t reform.
Cultural Comment
Seeing Police Brutality Then and Now
We still haven’t fully recognized the art made by twentieth-century black artists.
As Told To
“The Plight of the Fight”: A View from Atlanta After the Killing of Rayshard Brooks
A young protester who demonstrated after another fatal police shooting recounts a candid conversation with a cop.
Our Columnists
How the Charges Against Derek Chauvin Fit Into a Vision of Criminal-Justice Reform
Amid protests demanding “justice for George,” calls to turn the law-enforcement apparatus on itself are complicated, at a moment when activists are insistently pushing to abolish or defund the police and the prison system.
U.S. Journal
Tulsa’s Hopeful Anger
Activism and politics have become one and the same in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.
American Chronicles
The History of the “Riot” Report
How government commissions became alibis for inaction.
Letter from Minneapolis
The Heart of the Uprising in Minneapolis
Residents who have been on the front lines for George Floyd are finding their lives—and their city—transformed.
Portfolio
A Photographer on the Front Lines of Philadelphia’s Protests
Twenty-nine-year-old Isaac Scott captured the early days of intense confrontation—including clashes with the police—and stayed for the more peaceful days that followed.
This Is America
So Brutal a Death
Nationwide outrage over George Floyd’s brutal killing by police officers resonates with immigrants, and with people around the world.
A Reporter at Large
Punishment by Pandemic
In a penitentiary with one of the U.S.’s largest coronavirus outbreaks, prison terms become death sentences.