Portside

Mere reform won’t fix policing.

“In an America...Black people ‘are considered dangerous even when they are in their living rooms eating ice cream, asleep in their beds, playing in the park, standing in the pulpit of their church, birdwatching, exercising in public, or walking..."

What if state officials targeted people who shared an Instagram post criticizing the government for criminalizing the poor and not providing mass testing or economic relief?

Gangs of sheriff’s deputies, violent cliques who glorify “aggressive” policing, have operated out of Los Angeles County stations and jails for decades. Their criminal behavior has been so egregious it has resulted in $55 million in legal payouts.

Plainclothes police ‘jump-out boys’ terrorize American cities. Sometimes they become all-out criminal gangs.

As calls to defund police grow, peacemakers on the frontlines of Chicago’s gun violence epidemic have dramatically reduced homicides and shootings.

“I just don’t feel that police evicting people is a way to ‘protect and serve.’”

Dr. Linda Murray, former chief medical officer for Cook County Department of Public Health, was a doctor serving public housing residents when one of the deadliest heat waves in U.S. history hit Chicago. 25 years later, she sees the same root causes.