Police Shootings
CAPCR created an incomplete list of St. Louis law enforcement killings from 1983-2001. We've combined that list with Heather De Mian's list of fatal shootings by SLMPD from 2000-present. Click here.
Memorial Honoring Lynching Victims Opens in Montgomery
4-26-18 — “The museum takes visitors from slavery to racial terrorism to segregation to mass incarceration, and connects them all as the narrative that systemically discriminates against people of color.”
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#PoliceMurdersAreModernDayLynchings
California Considering Unprecedented Law Restricting Police Firearm Use
4-3-18 - The proposed legislation would change California’s use of force laws so police may fire only when necessary rather than when reasonable.
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The Bill is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Sacramento leaders from the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement along with the grandfather of 22 year old policing shooting victim Stephon Clark.
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Supreme Court Rules for Police Officer in Excessive Force Case
April 4, 2018
The Supreme Court just showed once again how hard it is to prosecute police for unreasonable shootings. On April 2, 2018, the Court decided not to hear a case in which police shot a woman who was holding a knife but not making any threatening movements. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor said of the officer who fired: “If this account of Kisela’s conduct sounds unreasonable, that is because it was.”
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“Since the Civil War, federal law has allowed people to sue government officials, including the police, for violating their constitutional rights. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has erected a shield of immunity for police and said officers may not be sued unless victims can point to a nearly identical shooting that had been deemed unconstitutionally excessive in a previous decision.”
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More information here.
Between 2012 when Chief Dotson’s tenure began and the end of 2017, all but two fatalities from St. Louis police shootings were black.*
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Police are not judge, jury & executioner. Even if committing an illegal act, a person has constitutionally protected rights that cannot be abused. One of those rights is the right to due process.
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Nationally one black person is killed in an extrajudicial shooting every 28 hours.
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*Heather De Mian