5 Things Friday
A not so merry look at cops, corruption and guns. Here are your antiracism action steps for decemeber 15.
Last week this 5 Things was downright merry. Today we are talking about guns and cops. Not so merry. But as 2022 comes to a close, some sobering statistics are dropping like the Times Square Ball. And we can't get to work on making changes until we know damn well exactly what needs changing.
Here are your 5 Things.
KNOW THIS. Let’s start with those sobering stats, kicking it off with a doozy: 2022 year was the most violent on record by police. Police have killed 1098 people in 2022 — a higher rate than any year on record. There have only been 14 days in 2022 where police didn’t kill someone. 98.1% of killings by police from 2013-2022 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime. Black people are 3X more likely to be killed by police than white people and 1.3x more likely to be unarmed. 1 in every 3 people killed by police were running away, driving away or otherwise trying to flee, while Black and Brown people were more likely to be killed while fleeing.
DONATE HERE. The stats above are courtesy of Grassroots Law Project, whose aim is to radically transform the legal system—to stop prisons and police from wrongfully injuring, imprisoning and executing people. Donate to their important work here.
WATCH THIS. At just 22 years old, Sean Monterrosa was shot and killed with a silenced assault rifle, fired from the back of an unmarked police car. That made him the 33rd person killed by the Vallejo, California, police department since 2000. The Vallejo Police Department, which serves a city of about 125,000 in northern California, has killed more people per arrest than 97% of departments, according to the city’s Police Scorecard, which compares the department to those that serve a similar population size. And at its peak, the Vallejo PD’s rate of officer-involved shootings that resulted in deaths was about 38 times the national rate. Watch this Vice News investigation that goes inside one of America's deadliest police departments—the Vallejo PD.
READ THIS. Sexual misconduct. Domestic violence. Name-calling. These are among accusations against officers who have been in limbo at a windowless room called the Department Operations Center. San Francisco police brass stash these officers in what for some is a detention center while figuring out whether to return them to the streets, fire them or continue keeping them there.
The process can drag on for years at great expense, held up in part by the special protections officers have under state law. The SF Standard found that police brass sent 57 officers to this unit by chief’s order since the beginning of 2016 at an estimated price tag of $17 million in total compensation. Read the full investigation by SF Standard here.
READ THIS. Ok, some decent news: The former Fort Worth police officer, Aaron Dean, who murdered Atatiana Jefferson, was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting of Atatiana Jefferson. Atatiana had been playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew when heard a noise and grabbed her gun as she went to look out her bedroom window. Mr. Dean, who had been called by a neighbor who had reported open doors at the house late at night, yelled at Ms. Jefferson to put her arms up and immediately fired a single shot through her window. The jury in Fort Worth did not convict the officer, Aaron Dean, on the murder charge that prosecutors had sought. He could face up to 20 years in prison after the two-week trial that took place after years in delays.