Erika Eichelberger, You Call This a Medical Emergency? Death and Neglect at Rikers Island Women’s Jail. The Intercept, 29 May 2015. On the second day Jackie Caquias was “at the Rose M. Singer Center, [Rikers Island’s] only women’s facility, the medical clinic ran lab tests that showed Jackie’s liver was severely stressed. Blood work two weeks later showed the same. Yet the doctors at Rikers didn’t send Jackie to a gastroenterologist for a liver exam. Instead, they prescribed her Tylenol 3 and iron, both dangerous for people with liver problems. The Tylenol 3 was discontinued after a week, but even after medical staff ordered the iron be stopped, the pharmacy continued dispensing it. Less than a month after Jackie arrived at Rose M. Singer, her system began to fail. She grew disoriented and delusional, and began vomiting so severely that blood and bodily tissue came up — all signs of acute liver failure. On June 25, 2014, after spending weeks in Elmhurst Hospital comatose and hooked up to machines, Jackie died.”
Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, 4 March 2015. “Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community. Further, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes. Ferguson’s own data establish clear racial disparities that adversely impact African Americans. The evidence shows that discriminatory intent is part of the reason for these disparities. Over time, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular.”
A Brutal Beating Wakes Attica’s Ghosts
Tom Robbins, A Brutal Beating Wakes Attica’s Ghosts: A Prison, Infamous for Bloodshed, Faces a Reckoning as Guards Go on Trial. The New York Times, 28 February 2015. “This article was produced in collaboration with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on criminal justice issues.” On the evening of 9 August 2011 guards told George Williams, an inmate at Attica prison, that he was being taken from his cell for a urine test. “Mr. Williams was wondering why a sergeant would be doing the grunt work of conducting an impromptu drug test when, he said, a fist hammered him hard on the right side of his rib cage. He doubled up, collapsing to the floor. More blows rained down. Mr. Williams tried to curl up to protect himself from the pummeling of batons, fists and kicks. Someone jumped on his ankle. He screamed in pain. He opened his eyes to see a guard aiming a kick at his head, as though punting a football. I’m going to die here, he thought.”
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror. Equal Justice Initiative, 10 February 2015. “The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) today [10 February 2015] released Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, which documents EJI’s multi-year investigation into lynching in twelve Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II. EJI researchers documented 3959 racial terror lynchings of African Americans in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia between 1877 and 1950 – at least 700 more lynchings of black people in these states than previously reported in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date.” Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror: Report Summary. “For a copy of the full-length report, please e-mail EJI at contact_us@eji.org or call 334.269.1803.”
Undue Force (Used by the Baltimore Police Department)
Mark Puente, Undue Force. The Baltimore Sun, 28 September 2014. “The city has paid about $5.7 million since 2011 over lawsuits claiming that police officers brazenly beat up alleged suspects. One hidden cost: The perception that officers are violent can poison the relationship between residents and police.”
The Case for Reparations
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations. The Atlantic, 21 May 2014. “Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.”
The Resegregation of America’s Schools 60 Years After Brown v. Board of Education
Nikole Hannah-Jones, Segregation Now: The Resegregation of America’s Schools. ProPublica, 16 April 2014. “60 years ago [1954], the Supreme Court ruled that ‘separate but equal’ had no place in American schools. ‘Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments…. It is the very foundation of good citizenship.’ Brown v. Board, 1954. The ruling spurred years of protests, school closures, military intervention, and resistance across the South before a wave of court orders finally forced schools to integrate. Now, the South is seeing a resurgence of segregation. This is the story of schools in Tuscaloosa, Ala–where a series of backroom deals and difficult compromises have had devastating consequences.”
Invisible Child: Dasani and homeless children in NYC
Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child. The New York Times, five-part series, 9-13 December 2013. “There are more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression. This is one of their stories.”
Officer Serrano’s Hidden Camera: The stop-and-frisk trials of Pedro Serrano
Jennifer Gonnerman, Officer Serrano’s Hidden Camera: the stop-and-frisk trials of Pedro Serrano:NYPD rat, NYPD hero. New York Magazine, 19 May 2013. “Officer Pedro Serrano walked through the heavy wooden doors of the 40th Precinct in the South Bronx and headed upstairs to the locker room. For eight years he’d been working out of this 89-year-old station house, with its broken fax machines and crummy computers. “We work in a shithole,” the cops there would say, “but it’s our shithole.” Serrano, 43, had the day off—he’d stopped by only to pick up some papers—but when he got close to his locker, he noticed something strange. Someone had placed a dozen rat stickers on the door.” [Read more…]