Saturday, May 31, 2025
Beyond the Crime Scene
  • Home
  • News
  • True Crime Stories
  • Videos
  • Podcast
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • True Crime Stories
  • Videos
  • Podcast
No Result
View All Result
Beyond the Crime Scene
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Police Oversight, Accountability Face Shifting Perspectives

by
March 1, 2025
in News
0
Police Oversight, Accountability Face Shifting Perspectives
189
SHARES
1.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter



This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters.

A community in Alabama may soon be forced to close its local police department. Last week, a grand jury recommended disbanding the Hanceville Police Department, concluding that it “recently operated as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency.” City officials have said they are considering the recommendation, but for now, the department is, in effect, shuttered. Five officers have been arrested, and the entire force has been placed on leave.

One state away, a former Rankin County sheriff’s deputy came clean to Mississippi Today this week about his role in a two-decade reign of terror by the department’s “Goon Squad.” The former deputy, Christian Dedmon, said that he and his colleagues regularly brutalized and humiliated suspects, lied in official reports, and frequently seized and destroyed evidence without a warrant during drug raids. Dedmon, like several former deputies from Rankin County, is serving prison time after being convicted last year in the brutal assault and torture of two Black men.

Neither case will be shocking to regular readers of this newsletter. Previous editions have highlighted similarly extreme — even cartoonish — instances of police misconduct, corruption and brutality. We have also covered how some of those cases have triggered efforts at reform and accountability. But as the federal government, and to a lesser extent, public opinion, increasingly turns away from concerns over policing — more than four years since protests over police violence overtook the national discourse — the future of police accountability looks uncertain.

Deadly police violence has increased slightly since 2020. Statistics on police killings per capita show a slight but durable increase since the pandemic and George Floyd protests, according to a Marshall Project analysis of the Mapping Police Database. Numbers released this week suggest this trend continued through 2024, even as violent crime rates have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice has insinuated that it will no longer pursue the kinds of federal investigations that regularly followed high profile acts of police violence during the Obama and Biden era. President Trump also rescinded an executive order signed by former President Biden in 2022 that established use-of-force restrictions for federal law enforcement and created a national database for tracking misconduct, which all federal law enforcement agencies were required to submit to.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration took that database offline, The Washington Post reported. Because of its short lifespan, it’s difficult to assess how effective the database was, or could have been, at its stated goal: preventing officers with a history of serious misconduct from finding new jobs in law enforcement. The single report released about the database in December of last year found that despite nearly 10,000 queries run by officials in the first eight months of 2024, only 25 searches were made by agencies seeking information on an officer from outside their own department.

The vast majority of misconduct incidents captured in the database were generated by border enforcement agents and corrections officers in federal prisons, The Appeal reported on Thursday.

The executive branch isn’t the only part of the federal government to sidestep a role in police a role in police accountability. This week, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that could have increased the legal responsibility police have to ensure they have the correct address when conducting raids on the homes of crime suspects. These “wrong home” raids can create lasting trauma for the people they ensnare. A lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Denver, for example, alleged that police looking for a man in apartment 307, instead raided apartment 306, and wound up locking a mother and her 5- and 6-year-old daughters in a police car for an hour.

In Chicago this month, Anjanette Young is marking the six-year anniversary of a wrong-home raid that made national news. Young was handcuffed and left naked despite explaining to officers that they were in the wrong place. She has since become an advocate for changing the way police approach these kinds of arrests. “Six years since I stood before officers — crying, pleading, afraid — only to be ignored,” Young said at a news conference outside City Hall last week, WBEZ Chicago reported. “And yet I stand here again, afraid and demanding for justice, accountability, still demanding that those in power would keep their promise.”

Beyond changes in how law enforcement is (and isn’t) subject to oversight and accountability, developments in recent weeks have also raised some questions about who enters the profession and how they are trained.

In New York City, the NYPD announced that it’s lowering its educational hiring standards in response to what officials describe as a recruitment crisis. With new applications down by more than half since 2017, the department is reducing its college credit requirements from 60 to 24 credits — while also reinstating a timed 1.5-mile run requirement that the department dropped in 2023, partly based on the belief it would help more women meet the qualifications.

The return of that requirement comes just days after The Associated Press published an investigation which found that at least 29 police recruits have died in training over the past decade, often from heatstroke, excessive physical stress, or underlying medical conditions that were exacerbated by training activities. A disproportionate number of the deaths occurred in Black trainees with the sickle cell trait, a genetic condition which can cause fatal complications under high physical stress in otherwise healthy people.



Source link

Related articles

A White man, wearing a black suit and a blue and red tie, talks into a mic while standing at a podium with a U.S. Department of Justice seal on it. A group of reporters holding cameras and microphones stand in front of him.

What Trump’s Pardons for the Chrisleys, Larry Hoover, NBA YoungBoy Mean

May 31, 2025
New video shows Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann days before arrest

New video shows Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann days before arrest

May 31, 2025
Tags: DatabaseDisband PoliceExcessive ForceGoon Squad (Rankin County)Police Accountabilitypolice brutalitypolice discipline processPolice MisconductPolice Reformpolice shootingspolicing
Share76Tweet47
Previous Post

Princeton man allegedly murdered and mutilated by brother mourned at funeral

Next Post

Florida pervert sent to prison for raping 13-year-old girl, forcing her to take Plan B

Related Posts

A White man, wearing a black suit and a blue and red tie, talks into a mic while standing at a podium with a U.S. Department of Justice seal on it. A group of reporters holding cameras and microphones stand in front of him.

What Trump’s Pardons for the Chrisleys, Larry Hoover, NBA YoungBoy Mean

by
May 31, 2025
0

Filed 12:00 p.m. EDT 05.31.2025 The president has remade the pardons process with seemingly one key principle in mind: “No...

New video shows Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann days before arrest

New video shows Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann days before arrest

by
May 31, 2025
0

It was a killer commute.  Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann made an unwanted pass at a “creeped out”...

UK driver accused of mowing down dozens of Liverpool FC soccer fans is former Royal Marine, father of 3

UK driver accused of mowing down dozens of Liverpool FC soccer fans is former Royal Marine, father of 3

by
May 31, 2025
0

The UK driver accused of mowing down dozens of Liverpool FC soccer fans at a championship parade was close to...

Tate brothers will return to UK to face charges after Romanian legal proceedings, lawyers say

Tate brothers will return to UK to face charges after Romanian legal proceedings, lawyers say

by
May 31, 2025
0

LONDON, May 30 (Reuters) – Internet personality Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan will return to Britain to face criminal charges once separate legal proceedings in Romania have been concluded, a lawyer for...

Hard-partying crypto bro looks haggard in NYC court as he awaits indictment in sick kidnap, torture case

Hard-partying crypto bro looks haggard in NYC court as he awaits indictment in sick kidnap, torture case

by
May 31, 2025
0

The hard-partying crypto king accused of sadistically torturing an Italian millionaire for his Bitcoin password appeared haggard as he faced...

Load More
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
The horrifying rape, torture murder of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin : True Crime Diva

The horrifying rape, torture murder of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin : True Crime Diva

May 29, 2023
Drunk driver who killed mother and son blamed the victims, phone calls with father reveal

Drunk driver who killed mother and son blamed the victims, phone calls with father reveal

September 22, 2024
Mackenzie Shirilla

Father of Mackenzie Shirilla’s boyfriend doesn’t support life sentence

August 20, 2023
Karen Styles: map of where a deer hunter found her body

The 1994 murder of Karen Styles

May 9, 2023
The Murder of Latanisha Carmichael – TRUE CRIME REPORT

The Murder of Latanisha Carmichael – TRUE CRIME REPORT

June 7, 2023
The Unsolved Murder of Karina Holmer – TRUE CRIME REPORT

The Unsolved Murder of Karina Holmer – TRUE CRIME REPORT

September 3, 2023
The tragic story of solo traveler Emma Kelty

The tragic story of solo traveler Emma Kelty

May 15, 2023
Karen Styles: map of where a deer hunter found her body

The 1994 murder of Karen Styles

0
Dwane Roy Dreher: photo of his 2nd wife, Lois Genzler Dreher at 16 years old

The 1955 disappearance of U.S. Navy veteran Dwane Roy Dreher

0
Alta Braun: professional photo taken when she was about 4 years old.

The 1917 unsolved murder of Alta Marie Braun

0
Vacation Nightmare: The gruesome murder of Janice Pietropola and Lynn Seethaler

Vacation Nightmare: The gruesome murder of Janice Pietropola and Lynn Seethaler

0
Kristi Nikle: photo of suspect Floyd Tapson

The 1996 disappearance of Kristi Nikle

0
Frank and Tessie Pozar: photo of their son, Frank Pozar, Jr.

Motel Mystery: What happened to Frank and Tessie Pozar?

0
Evil on The Road Part 4: Desmond Joseph Runstedler

Evil on The Road Part 4: Desmond Joseph Runstedler

0
A White man, wearing a black suit and a blue and red tie, talks into a mic while standing at a podium with a U.S. Department of Justice seal on it. A group of reporters holding cameras and microphones stand in front of him.

What Trump’s Pardons for the Chrisleys, Larry Hoover, NBA YoungBoy Mean

May 31, 2025
New video shows Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann days before arrest

New video shows Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann days before arrest

May 31, 2025
UK driver accused of mowing down dozens of Liverpool FC soccer fans is former Royal Marine, father of 3

UK driver accused of mowing down dozens of Liverpool FC soccer fans is former Royal Marine, father of 3

May 31, 2025
Tate brothers will return to UK to face charges after Romanian legal proceedings, lawyers say

Tate brothers will return to UK to face charges after Romanian legal proceedings, lawyers say

May 31, 2025
Hard-partying crypto bro looks haggard in NYC court as he awaits indictment in sick kidnap, torture case

Hard-partying crypto bro looks haggard in NYC court as he awaits indictment in sick kidnap, torture case

May 31, 2025
Dog found abandoned in upstate NY apartment was 'days from death'

Dog found abandoned in upstate NY apartment was ‘days from death’

May 30, 2025
Chilling video shows prisoners smiling before beating sex offender to death

Chilling video shows prisoners smiling before beating sex offender to death

May 30, 2025
Beyond the Crime Scene with Bee Astronaut

Categories

  • Featured
  • News
  • Podcast
  • True Crime Stories
  • Videos

Legal Pages

  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Cookie Privacy Policy
  • California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
  • DMCA

© 2023 All right reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • True Crime Stories
  • Videos
  • Podcast

© 2023 All right reserved.