Journalist – Historian – Speaker
I’ve been out of town so haven’t been commenting directly on the Laquan McDonald killing. Two major points. First, I believe that the elected officials of Chicago tried to cover this up and delay justice for political gain. The Cook County prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, must have had probable cause to indict Officer Van Dyke for …
Arizona State University hosts the National Center for Disability Journalism, an excellent group doing important work. The NCDJ offers the only annual journalism award for Disability issues – the Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability – and have announced the 2015 winners. A ProPublica story that uncovered the shocking ways children …
In Kentucky, from the NYT: The A.C.L.U. released what it called a “disturbing video” showing the boy, who it said weighs about 52 pounds, crying as the resource officer handcuffed his arms at the biceps behind his back. In the video, the officer tells the boy, “You don’t get to swing at me like that.”The …
I missed this story of a police officer tasing a man who was having a stroke. This is from May. The officer has resigned.
When Brian Encina slammed Sandra Bland’s head into the ground, this happened: Encinia: Get on the ground!Bland: For a traffic signal!Encinia: You are yanking around, when you pull away from me, you’re resisting arrest.Bland: Don’t it make you feel real good don’t it? A female for a traffic ticket. Don’t it make you feel good …
Neurodiversity is a powerful concept, taking the ideas of intellectual and psychiatric disability and wrestling them into the diversity narratives. In the diversity narratives, we don’t try to cure or fix, but to accept, understand, accommodate, assist, and hopefully eventually move to a place where we recognize same-ness in our differences. Bringing disability into the …
In 2010, Jeremy Hutton, a 17 year-old-boy with Down syndrome, was shot by a police officer who claimed Hutton was driving right at him. That claim held up in the post-incident review. Here’s a video showing that’s untrue (original source), the officer was safely to the side. A video of police shooting a car driven …
This is pretty much as bad as it gets. It’s like a scene from a dystopian novel, as bio-hazard suit clad officers take a schizophrenic woman, one who they have already handcuffed, and tase her to death, killing her as she screams in horror. Except that it happened. A mentally ill woman who died after …
“The [naked] man who appeared mentally ill ran at the officer and ignored demands to stop before the officer shot him twice.” Hill and his parents. Used by permissionof the picture’s owner. Yesterday, in DeKalb, GA, a police officer responded to a call about a naked, unarmed, man at an apartment complex. He was clearly …
Yesterday was the day of mourning for people with disabilities killed by their caregivers. I stood in the cold with a small group of people at the University of Chicago, candles mostly blown out by the wind, reading names. I noticed that some of the names included individuals killed by law enforcement, and while I …