vox--2020-06-19--Police killings can be captured in data. The terror police create cannot.

The ongoing worldwide protest movement was incited by a police killing .
The death of George Floyd , who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer , was the spark .
Floyd ’ s death connected what had been disparate demonstrations over other police killings , like those of Breonna Taylor and Sean Reed , as well as those held demanding justice for Ahmaud Arbery , who was killed by white vigilantes , one a former officer .
As these protests spread , so did demands for serious reforms , including calls to defund the police .
But police killings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests , and all the policy recommendations that have come with them , are pushing back against other systemic problems too .
Some of those injustices are specific and quantifiable : shootings , unfair traffic stops , arbitrary arrests .
Others are vague but no less concerning : feeling you have no recourse for complaints about police , the calculus that can go into the decision to call 911 , the sense that an investigation into a reported crime won ’ t be prioritized , the nervousness and fear that must be tamped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and keep an officer calm — all while wondering if you are living your final moments .
Not all of these problems can be measured .
The number of police killings per year is a statistic that can be tabulated and broken down into easily digested parts : killings per region , per department , per time of day , per ethnicity .
But how police make people feel is not quite as easily captured in data .
There are ways to try — surveys asking whether officers make one tense or whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ questions offer limited insight into what is causing those results or what effect they have .
Meanwhile , the issues behind the answers to those surveys do have a clear effect : They leave many black Americans frustrated with and fearful of police .
That frustration and fear sometimes become anger of the sort that is driving the protests .
Other times , it takes the form of pain and worry , feelings that animate the push for policing reforms .
It can also transform into a kind of terror , pervasive and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a negative — perhaps even deadly — encounter with the police can happen at any time , anywhere , for any reason .
That terror comes from observation and from experience .
Many read of Botham Jean being killed by an officer while eating ice cream on his couch , or recently , of Rayshard Brooks being killed after falling asleep in his car .
And so many have had a negative interaction with police themselves : 55 percent of respondents to Black Futures Lab ’ s 2019 Black Census — which polled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they had .
But even this number does not tell the whole story .
What were those negative interactions ?
Did it begin with an officer cursing at them , a beating , or an arbitrary arrest ?
And were these captured in police reports or on video by bystanders ?
It ’ s difficult to say .
Which makes it important not just to look at the data that exists , but to take a nuanced look at how policing is done — and what complaints black citizens have about how they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abuses — including killings — are a source of terror that erodes trust Police killings of Americans of all ethnicities have trended slightly up recently — but down numerically — according to data collected by the advocacy group Mapping Police Violence .
In 2019 , the group found 1,098 people were killed by police , a number that works out to about three people per day .
When looking at just black victims , there were 259 black people killed — which , if evenly distributed over time , would be nearly five @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true , according to the Mapping Police Violence data , that the high point in police killings of black people over the past six years came in 2015 , when 305 black people were killed , that is cause for limited hopefulness : Sure , the number going down by one could mean that , for whatever reason — be it chokehold reforms or deescalation training — someone who would have been killed is still alive .
But it is not cause for celebration ; 259 people killed is still 259 lives lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests certainly make it feel as though there are five black people being killed by police each week .
George Floyd was killed by now-former police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis on May 25 .
Since then , the public has learned of the killings of Javier Ambler , Maurice Gordon , Manuel Ellis , Tony McDade , Momodou Lamin Sisay , and Rayshard Brooks .
And there are still calls for justice for those who were killed shortly before Floyd , like Breonna Taylor and Sean Reed .
There is research that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killings .
Among the most prominent are studies by Harvard University economist Roland Fryer Jr. , currently suspended from the institution for sexual harassment .
Fryer ’ s work found no bias in police shootings and has been cited frequently of late , including by conservative commentators like Jason L. Riley and a Tulsa , Oklahoma , police officer making inflammatory remarks about the need to shoot more black Americans .
The results of Fryer ’ s work would seem to fly in the face of observed reality , and his methodology has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who have found much larger disparities .
As Vox ’ s Dylan Scott has explained , work by Frank Edwards , Hedwig Lee , and Michael Esposito found black men have a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police , a probability just slightly higher than the average American ’ s chance of drowning .
But while a person may avoid water if they can not swim , it is not possible to avoid police .
Some of Fryer ’ s research supports that intuition : It did find that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to experience force from officers than white people .
The problems in Fryer ’ s work complicate this , but the disparity is clear observationally as well by spending time in black neighborhoods and listening to the narratives of black people .
The Portals Policing Project attempts to do that .
Led by Johns Hopkins ’ Vesla Weaver and Yale University ’ s Tracey Meares and Gwen Prowse , it uses a videoconferencing system set up in 14 neighborhoods in Chicago , Baltimore , Milwaukee , Newark , Los Angeles , and Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interactions through conversations between individuals in those places .
Meares told CityLab the group embarked on the project amid the uprisings in Ferguson , Missouri , following Michael Brown ’ s killing by police , saying , “ We were frustrated that journalists kept saying , ‘ This is what people in Ferguson are saying about the shooting , ’ without really knowing or studying people who live in those places in a systematic way.
” The solution , Weaver said in 2017 , was “ to actually listen to what members of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms — in interactions not with researchers , not with us , but in conversation with others distant physically , but from similar neighborhoods.
” A number of the more than 800 narratives they have gathered have been published in analyses based on the stories , which paint a rich picture of what policing feels like in those cities .
Participants have spoken of the weight and effects of constant existential stress — of how it feels to see a police officer , of spikes of anger and fear and uncertainty that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other times result in being allowed to go free .
One black man from Baltimore spoke of his frustration at feeling the onus of deescalation is placed on the policed rather than the police , saying he shouldn ’ t have “ to worry about , oh if I get smart with this cop , he might punch me and put false charges on me.
” The police , he believes , have forced a mindset on citizens that compels them to “ try and stay as calm as possible , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t end up in a bad situation , a.k.a .
in a bad situation is them planning something , them putting false charges on you , yo .
We shouldn ’ t have to think like that.
” Another man seemed to suggest police interactions as being sort of like a puzzle forced on black Americans , one that solving successfully — and with one ’ s life and health intact — involves “ just giving them what they want and going on your way.
” The trouble with these “ successful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do anything to lessen the terror that surrounds the police .
They are difficult to shake , as there are constant reminders that just because one encounter that does not end in violence or unfair arrest or death is no guarantee that the next will not .
There is no way to know who one is dealing with upon encountering an officer , and that uncertainty is at the core of the problem ; it gives birth to an underlying level of mistrust , bitterness , and fear .
The story of another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well .
This black man , who spoke with a black man from Los Angeles in his session , described how his trust in police had been heavily eroded over time due to his own experiences .
He spoke of how he ’ s “ had evidence planted on me , ” and “ had police get on the stand and flat out lie.
” One of those lies , he said , sent him to prison for a murder he did not commit — he was eventually cleared , but not before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he also spoke of how he was not just failed by police , but betrayed by them in a time of need : It might seem easy to dismiss this man ’ s story as uncommon or as being just one particularly troubling narrative .
But it often feels that every black American has a similar tale , one that , if it did not happen to them personally , happened to someone they know well .
The Portals Policing Project has many similar stories .
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms recently spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and detained .
I have many times seen police behave in the way the man in Baltimore described , both arriving at a tense scene and immediately escalating it with verbal abuse and slurs , and refusing to act in moments requiring their intervention .
And like Lance Bottoms ’ s children do , I know the wild panic that rises in you when your father does not come home — how it feels to spend hours desperately searching for him , your stomach sinking as you frantically worry he may no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anger that seize you when you discover he has been detained for a minor infraction he did not commit .
As is likely evident from stories like these , the memory of such experiences does not fade .
The damage negative encounters have on trust for police is difficult to repair , particularly given that as much as one may hope their experience was a one-time event , there are constant reminders that similarly painful interactions could happen again .
The fear caused by police violence does not discriminate , and it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or years lost to detention ; of beatings and verbal abuse ; of wondering if you are living your last moments — are perhaps not as horrifying as what the world saw with Floyd , his life leeching from his body over eight minutes and 46 seconds , or with Brooks , officers milling about as blood rushed from his motionless body .
But they compound those horrors , they fortify them to form this omnipresent miasma of terror that spares no black American , no matter their wealth or level of education @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call to protect us ?
” a man asked during one Portals Policing Protect session .
“ The people that ’ s here to protect us is pumping fear in our hearts.
” While a person may avoid water if they know they can not swim , it is not possible to avoid police House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn , one of the most powerful black men in the country , had much the same complaint recently , saying on CNN , “ I didn ’ t grow up in fear of police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We never feared the police .
But , all of a sudden now , I do fear the police.
” And that fear has real effects .
It raises tensions with police ; it leads to hesitation in calling them .
But it also raises tension in the body and on the mind .
Researchers have worked to understand the effects of stress and tension on the health of black Americans — which as federal officials have constantly reminded the public amid the coronavirus pandemic , is far worse than that of white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by researchers at Lehigh University , the University of Minnesota , and Brown University notes , research has found links between policing stress and health : The authors in particular cite research from UCLA and Charles R. Drew University , which worked to measure the “ allostatic load ” — a term that refers to the buildup of physical issues as a result of ongoing stress — in black and white Americans .
That research found loads to be greater in black Americans .
The researchers ’ analysis found genetics seemed to play @ @ @ @ @ @ @ societal factors are at fault .
Policing is only one of these factors , but it is fully connected to the others .
For instance , housing discrimination has led to segregated neighborhoods with unequal policing standards .
That discrimination has led to inequality in education , one characterized not only by disparities in achievement but in the use of school resource officers .
The locations of those neighborhoods often lead to a greater reliance on public transportation , offering exposure to officers on the hunt for fare evasion and other minor infractions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ applicants looking for jobs .
The examples could go on , but the point is policing is part of a complex system , and any abuses resonate outward .
Even the most cited research into police violence has serious limitations This complexity — as well as the wide range of what constitutes abuse and the negative outcomes many black Americans fear — is difficult to fully grasp or even describe .
In part , that ’ s because for many black Americans , this fear is simply a part of daily life : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dwelled on too long lest it become all-consuming , but also something so common as to be undeserving of comment .
This is part of the value of the Portals Policing Project : It prompts people to comment on how policing feels and documents those comments for study and dissemination .
But for all the conversations that project has recorded , there are thousands more that have not been shared beyond a small group of family and friends .
For every video of police killing someone , there are hundreds of deaths that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are thousands of negative interactions that aren ’ t recorded by bystanders or by police reports .
An arrest generates paperwork ; police hurling verbal abuse at people , or following them , or putting their hand on their weapon menacingly do not .
And so — despite the terror and trauma — these incidents are not included in most studies , including ones commonly cited .
A paper released in January from two assistant politics professors at Princeton , Dean Knox and Jonathan Mummolo , as well as Hertie School of Governance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these prominent studies .
This study found fault with Roland Fryer ’ s methods , and it offered a sharp appraisal of other policing studies , stating many do not properly account for the “ inevitable statistical bias that results from studying racial discrimination using records that are themselves the product of racial discrimination ” and rely upon “ implicit and highly implausible assumptions.
” The authors argue that events that generate police reports are affected by bias .
Beyond this being a problem for those affected by these events , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the paper sums up like this : Knox , Mummolo , and Lowe use papers by Fryer to help illustrate this point .
For instance , Fryer published a study in 2019 that found black and Latinx Americans are 50 percent more likely to experience force at the hands of police than white people .
But the three researchers find fault with these results , which used police department data from New York City , Los Angeles County , three Texas cities , six counties in Florida , and the Police-Public Contact Survey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interactions ) , arguing this number is an undercount .
The Fryer work , for instance , included handcuffing as use of force , but Knox , Mummolo , and Lowe argued : The researchers acknowledge that the results may be an overcount based on what it describes as a reliance “ on weaker assumptions that in some cases are difficult to verify ” —for example , the belief that violence is more likely to occur in police encounters involving “ severe ” crimes rather than minor offenses .
But they suggest the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variables that affect how officers view compliance with commands , are “ implausible.
” ( Fryer notes that some assumptions were less than ideal , but unavoidable because of a refusal on the part of departments to provide him with data . )
This goes beyond an academic debate .
For one , this research attempts to describe a phenomenon that has an incredible — sometimes existential — affect on people ’ s lives and well-being .
But for another , it is being used to shape debate and public perception .
Data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it reveals I and others have cited research — such as the study finding black men have a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police — to explain what it can feel like to be a black man in America and to suggest the threat of police killings is real and concrete .
Perhaps that has affected readers or policymakers .
But some , such as Heather MacDonald in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal , have used Fryer ’ s research to make the opposite point .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Systemic Police Racism , ” MacDonald writes , “ Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. also found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings .
Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police.
” Putting aside the issue of this first sentence excluding the full span of police violence , the statement about Fryer ’ s research is true .
But it does not get into the assumptions he — and all scientists , engineers , and researchers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their work .
Like other scientists , he lists those assumptions , as well as limits , in the paper MacDonald cited , writing , for instance , that the fact officers “ may be more likely to charge black suspects with crimes such as resisting arrest or attempted assault on a public safety officer rather than misdemeanors , relative to whites , for identical behavior ” is “ an important limitation ” of the dataset he has assembled .
He writes , “ It is unclear how to estimate the extent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statistically.
” The Knox , Mummolo , and Lowe work is , in part , an effort to resolve this issue .
This limitation does not undermine Fryer ’ s work or make him a bad researcher , but it is a reminder that the data can ’ t capture everything , particularly datasets that , as Fryer himself notes , are reliant on police cooperation .
And this is something important to keep in mind when thinking about the second statement MacDonald makes in that excerpt , about crime rates and behavior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from earlier in MacDonald ’ s article , in a section on the “ routine violence ” one sees in black communities , which contains a fallacious argument that “ black-on-black ” crime is worse than police violence against black Americans .
That is separate from this discussion , but Victoria M. Massie and Khalil Muhammad have explained very well for Vox what the argument misses and how it is racist .
MacDonald ’ s reference to crime rates , however , further illustrates the limitations of data .
She writes , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which such data have been published , African-Americans made up 53 % of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60 % of robberies , though they are 13 % of the population.
” This is taken from Department of Justice data , and it is what the data shows .
But this data does not take into account inequities in policing .
If , as Fryer suggests , a black man is three times more likely to be stopped by police , then it would seem that police are stopping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are thus more likely to find a disproportionate number of black criminals .
Other federal data from 2018 that is important to keep in mind is the FBI ’ s database on clearance rates — that is , solved crimes .
In 2018 , the FBI states 62.3 percent of “ murder and nonnegligent manslaughter ” ( the category MacDonald categorized as homicide in her piece ) were cleared .
How many of those 37.7 percent of unsolved murder and manslaughter cases were committed by white offenders ?
And how would having that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cited ?
It is impossible to know because that data does not exist .
This is not to attack MacDonald , but it is to say data can occlude as much as it can reveal ; the same is true of data cited earlier in this piece .
It is valuable , particularly to those without firsthand experience with things like police violence , but it has serious limitations and can not be the sole source of policymaking or an individual ’ s understanding .
The data might show police killings are declining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in policing .
But I have seen that bias , as many Americans of all ethnicities now have .
And when one ’ s own observations , and the realities of communities that bear the brunt of that policing , say something that runs counter to data , that has to be given some weight .
It ’ s important that Americans seek to better understand the issue of policing , but in working to fix it , they must be careful not to oversimplify it , or to discount the familiarity that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is complex and multifaceted — and its effects are real and terrible and traumatic .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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The ongoing worldwide protest movement was incited by a police killing. The death of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, was the spark. Floyd’s death connected what had been disparate demonstrations over other police killings, like those of Breonna Taylor and Sean Reed, as well as those held demanding justice for Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by white vigilantes, one a former officer. As these protests spread, so did demands for serious reforms, including calls to defund the police.
But police killings are not the whole story. The protests, and all the policy recommendations that have come with them, are pushing back against other systemic problems too.
Some of those injustices are specific and quantifiable: shootings, unfair traffic stops, arbitrary arrests. Others are vague but no less concerning: feeling you have no recourse for complaints about police, the calculus that can go into the decision to call 911, the sense that an investigation into a reported crime won’t be prioritized, the nervousness and fear that must be tamped down as one works to stay calm and keep an officer calm — all while wondering if you are living your final moments.
Not all of these problems can be measured. The number of police killings per year is a statistic that can be tabulated and broken down into easily digested parts: killings per region, per department, per time of day, per ethnicity. But how police make people feel is not quite as easily captured in data. There are ways to try — surveys asking whether officers make one tense or whether one trusts law enforcement — but such questions offer limited insight into what is causing those results or what effect they have.
Meanwhile, the issues behind the answers to those surveys do have a clear effect: They leave many black Americans frustrated with and fearful of police. That frustration and fear sometimes become anger of the sort that is driving the protests. Other times, it takes the form of pain and worry, feelings that animate the push for policing reforms. It can also transform into a kind of terror, pervasive and paralyzing, created by the sense that a negative — perhaps even deadly — encounter with the police can happen at any time, anywhere, for any reason.
That terror comes from observation and from experience. Many read of Botham Jean being killed by an officer while eating ice cream on his couch, or recently, of Rayshard Brooks being killed after falling asleep in his car. And so many have had a negative interaction with police themselves: 55 percent of respondents to Black Futures Lab’s 2019 Black Census — which polled more than 31,000 black adults — said they had.
But even this number does not tell the whole story. What were those negative interactions? Did it begin with an officer cursing at them, a beating, or an arbitrary arrest? And were these captured in police reports or on video by bystanders?
It’s difficult to say. Which makes it important not just to look at the data that exists, but to take a nuanced look at how policing is done — and what complaints black citizens have about how they are treated by law enforcement.
Police abuses — including killings — are a source of terror that erodes trust
Police killings of Americans of all ethnicities have trended slightly up recently — but down numerically — according to data collected by the advocacy group Mapping Police Violence. In 2019, the group found 1,098 people were killed by police, a number that works out to about three people per day. When looking at just black victims, there were 259 black people killed — which, if evenly distributed over time, would be nearly five a week.
While it’s true, according to the Mapping Police Violence data, that the high point in police killings of black people over the past six years came in 2015, when 305 black people were killed, that is cause for limited hopefulness: Sure, the number going down by one could mean that, for whatever reason — be it chokehold reforms or deescalation training — someone who would have been killed is still alive. But it is not cause for celebration; 259 people killed is still 259 lives lost.
The events that have incited international protests certainly make it feel as though there are five black people being killed by police each week. George Floyd was killed by now-former police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis on May 25. Since then, the public has learned of the killings of Javier Ambler, Maurice Gordon, Manuel Ellis, Tony McDade, Momodou Lamin Sisay, and Rayshard Brooks. And there are still calls for justice for those who were killed shortly before Floyd, like Breonna Taylor and Sean Reed.
There is research that works to understand this data of police killings. Among the most prominent are studies by Harvard University economist Roland Fryer Jr., currently suspended from the institution for sexual harassment. Fryer’s work found no bias in police shootings and has been cited frequently of late, including by conservative commentators like Jason L. Riley and a Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer making inflammatory remarks about the need to shoot more black Americans.
The results of Fryer’s work would seem to fly in the face of observed reality, and his methodology has been called into question by other researchers, who have found much larger disparities. As Vox’s Dylan Scott has explained, work by Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito found black men have a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police, a probability just slightly higher than the average American’s chance of drowning.
But while a person may avoid water if they cannot swim, it is not possible to avoid police. Some of Fryer’s research supports that intuition: It did find that black people are three times more likely to experience force from officers than white people. The problems in Fryer’s work complicate this, but the disparity is clear observationally as well by spending time in black neighborhoods and listening to the narratives of black people.
The Portals Policing Project attempts to do that. Led by Johns Hopkins’ Vesla Weaver and Yale University’s Tracey Meares and Gwen Prowse, it uses a videoconferencing system set up in 14 neighborhoods in Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Newark, Los Angeles, and Mexico City to gather firsthand accounts of police interactions through conversations between individuals in those places.
Meares told CityLab the group embarked on the project amid the uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, following Michael Brown’s killing by police, saying, “We were frustrated that journalists kept saying, ‘This is what people in Ferguson are saying about the shooting,’ without really knowing or studying people who live in those places in a systematic way.”
The solution, Weaver said in 2017, was “to actually listen to what members of these impacted communities said in their own terms — in interactions not with researchers, not with us, but in conversation with others distant physically, but from similar neighborhoods.”
A number of the more than 800 narratives they have gathered have been published in analyses based on the stories, which paint a rich picture of what policing feels like in those cities. Participants have spoken of the weight and effects of constant existential stress — of how it feels to see a police officer, of spikes of anger and fear and uncertainty that are sometimes punctuated by violence and detention, and other times result in being allowed to go free.
One black man from Baltimore spoke of his frustration at feeling the onus of deescalation is placed on the policed rather than the police, saying he shouldn’t have “to worry about, oh if I get smart with this cop, he might punch me and put false charges on me.” The police, he believes, have forced a mindset on citizens that compels them to “try and stay as calm as possible, I’ma be cooperative so I don’t end up in a bad situation, a.k.a. in a bad situation is them planning something, them putting false charges on you, yo. We shouldn’t have to think like that.”
Another man seemed to suggest police interactions as being sort of like a puzzle forced on black Americans, one that solving successfully — and with one’s life and health intact — involves “just giving them what they want and going on your way.”
The trouble with these “successful” encounters is that they do not do anything to lessen the terror that surrounds the police. They are difficult to shake, as there are constant reminders that just because one encounter does not end in violence or unfair arrest or death is no guarantee that the next will not. There is no way to know who one is dealing with upon encountering an officer, and that uncertainty is at the core of the problem; it gives birth to an underlying level of mistrust, bitterness, and fear.
The story of another Baltimore Portals Policing Project participant illustrates this well. This black man, who spoke with a black man from Los Angeles in his session, described how his trust in police had been heavily eroded over time due to his own experiences. He spoke of how he’s “had evidence planted on me,” and “had police get on the stand and flat out lie.” One of those lies, he said, sent him to prison for a murder he did not commit — he was eventually cleared, but not before spending almost a decade incarcerated. But he also spoke of how he was not just failed by police, but betrayed by them in a time of need:
I see an incident involving a police officer. And, he pulled a guy over for a traffic stop. Man, listen ... I witnessed him call backup, and they beat this man, they beat him. And I—I’m talkin’ to my sister who works for 911, she’s a 911 dispatcher, so she said, “Call the police.” I got off the phone with her, I called 911, and I said I’m at this address, and this is what I’m witnessing. Right? So the lady asked me all kinda questions, the 911 operator, what I’m wearing, this, that and the third. So she says, “Well assistance will be there in a moment.” The assistance came, two officers pulled up in a car—plainclothes officers—and they asked me, “Are you such, such, such?” I said yes. “Are you the one that called about the disturbance?” I said yes. They got out the car with their weapons drawn. “Get the fuck on the ground!” Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! Locked me up and took me to jail.”
It might seem easy to dismiss this man’s story as uncommon or as being just one particularly troubling narrative. But it often feels that every black American has a similar tale, one that, if it did not happen to them personally, happened to someone they know well.
The Portals Policing Project has many similar stories. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms recently spoke of how her husband was racially profiled and detained. I have many times seen police behave in the way the man in Baltimore described, both arriving at a tense scene and immediately escalating it with verbal abuse and slurs, and refusing to act in moments requiring their intervention.
And like Lance Bottoms’s children do, I know the wild panic that rises in you when your father does not come home — how it feels to spend hours desperately searching for him, your stomach sinking as you frantically worry he may no longer be alive, and the relief and anger that seize you when you discover he has been detained for a minor infraction he did not commit.
As is likely evident from stories like these, the memory of such experiences does not fade. The damage negative encounters have on trust for police is difficult to repair, particularly given that as much as one may hope their experience was a one-time event, there are constant reminders that similarly painful interactions could happen again.
The fear caused by police violence does not discriminate, and it has far-reaching effects
These stories — of hours or years lost to detention; of beatings and verbal abuse; of wondering if you are living your last moments — are perhaps not as horrifying as what the world saw with Floyd, his life leeching from his body over eight minutes and 46 seconds, or with Brooks, officers milling about as blood rushed from his motionless body. But they compound those horrors, they fortify them to form this omnipresent miasma of terror that spares no black American, no matter their wealth or level of education or power.
“Who do we call to protect us?” a man asked during one Portals Policing Protect session. “The people that’s here to protect us is pumping fear in our hearts.”
While a person may avoid water if they know they cannot swim, it is not possible to avoid police
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, one of the most powerful black men in the country, had much the same complaint recently, saying on CNN, “I didn’t grow up in fear of police, even in a segregated environment. We never feared the police. But, all of a sudden now, I do fear the police.”
And that fear has real effects. It raises tensions with police; it leads to hesitation in calling them. But it also raises tension in the body and on the mind. Researchers have worked to understand the effects of stress and tension on the health of black Americans — which, as federal officials have constantly reminded the public amid the coronavirus pandemic, is far worse than that of white Americans — and as a 2017 paper by researchers at Lehigh University, the University of Minnesota, and Brown University notes, research has found links between policing stress and health:
Experiencing or witnessing police brutality, hearing stories of friends who have experienced brutality, and having to worry about becoming a victim are all stressors. When faced with a threat, the body produces hormones and other signals that turn on the systems that are necessary for survival in the short term. These changes include accelerated heart rate and increased respiratory rate. But when the threat becomes reoccurring and persistent—as is the case with police brutality—the survival process becomes dangerous and causes rapid wear and tear on body organs and elevated allostatic load. Deterioration of organs and systems caused by increased allostatic load occurs more frequently in Black populations and can lead to conditions such as diabetes, stroke, ulcers, cognitive impairment, autoimmune disorders, accelerated aging, and death.
The authors in particular cite research from UCLA and Charles R. Drew University, which worked to measure the “allostatic load” — a term that refers to the buildup of physical issues as a result of ongoing stress — in black and white Americans. That research found loads to be greater in black Americans. The researchers’ analysis found genetics seemed to play little role, leading them to suggest societal factors are at fault.
Policing is only one of these factors, but it is fully connected to the others. For instance, housing discrimination has led to segregated neighborhoods with unequal policing standards. That discrimination has led to inequality in education, one characterized not only by disparities in achievement but in the use of school resource officers. The locations of those neighborhoods often lead to a greater reliance on public transportation, offering exposure to officers on the hunt for fare evasion and other minor infractions; in employment, those infractions haunt applicants looking for jobs. The examples could go on, but the point is policing is part of a complex system, and any abuses resonate outward.
Even the most cited research into police violence has serious limitations
This complexity — as well as the wide range of what constitutes abuse and the negative outcomes many black Americans fear — is difficult to fully grasp or even describe. In part, that’s because for many black Americans, this fear is simply a part of daily life: something terrifying that can’t be dwelled on too long lest it become all-consuming, but also something so common as to be undeserving of comment.
This is part of the value of the Portals Policing Project: It prompts people to comment on how policing feels and documents those comments for study and dissemination. But for all the conversations that project has recorded, there are thousands more that have not been shared beyond a small group of family and friends. For every video of police killing someone, there are hundreds of deaths that aren’t filmed. And there are thousands of negative interactions that aren’t recorded by bystanders or by police reports. An arrest generates paperwork; police hurling verbal abuse at people, or following them, or putting their hand on their weapon menacingly, does not.
And so — despite the terror and trauma — these incidents are not included in most studies, including ones commonly cited.
A paper released in January from two assistant politics professors at Princeton, Dean Knox and Jonathan Mummolo, as well as Hertie School of Governance research scientist Will Lowe, critiques many of these prominent studies. This study found fault with Roland Fryer’s methods, and it offered a sharp appraisal of other policing studies, stating many do not properly account for the “inevitable statistical bias that results from studying racial discrimination using records that are themselves the product of racial discrimination” and rely upon “implicit and highly implausible assumptions.”
The authors argue that events that generate police reports are affected by bias. Beyond this being a problem for those affected by these events, this creates an issue for researchers, one the paper sums up like this:
Suppose officers exhibited racial bias as follows: they detain white civilians if they observe them committing a serious crime (such as assault, potentially warranting the use of force) but detain nonwhite civilians regardless of observed behavior. When this is true, comparing stopped white and nonwhite civilians amounts to comparing fundamentally different groups. The analyst will observe force used against a greater proportion of stopped white civilians because of the differential physical threat they pose to officers. Under the traditional approach, the analyst would naïvely conclude that anti-white bias exists, yielding an erroneous portrait of racial discrimination in the use of force.
Knox, Mummolo, and Lowe use papers by Fryer to help illustrate this point. For instance, Fryer published a study in 2019 that found black and Latinx Americans are 50 percent more likely to experience force at the hands of police than white people. But the three researchers find fault with these results, which used police department data from New York City, Los Angeles County, three Texas cities, six counties in Florida, and the Police-Public Contact Survey (a publicly searchable dataset on police interactions), arguing this number is an undercount.
The Fryer work, for instance, included handcuffing as use of force, but Knox, Mummolo, and Lowe argued:
While a naïve analysis that assumes no race-based selection into the data suggests only 10,000 black and Hispanic civilians were handcuffed because of racial bias in New York City between 2003 and 2013, we estimate that the true number is approximately 56,000. And while analyses ignoring bias in stopping would conclude that 10% of uses of force against black and Hispanic civilians in these data were discriminatory, after bias-correction, we estimate that the true percentage is 39%.
The researchers acknowledge that the results may be an overcount based on what it describes as a reliance “on weaker assumptions that in some cases are difficult to verify” —for example, the belief that violence is more likely to occur in police encounters involving “severe” crimes rather than minor offenses. But they suggest the assumptions Fryer used, such as the variables that affect how officers view compliance with commands, are “implausible.” (Fryer notes that some assumptions were less than ideal, but unavoidable because of a refusal on the part of departments to provide him with data.)
This goes beyond an academic debate. For one, this research attempts to describe a phenomenon that has an incredible — sometimes existential — effect on people’s lives and well-being. But for another, it is being used to shape debate and public perception.
Data on police violence hides as much as it reveals
I and others have cited research — such as the study finding black men have a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police — to explain what it can feel like to be a black man in America and to suggest the threat of police killings is real and concrete. Perhaps that has affected readers or policymakers.
But some, such as Heather MacDonald in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, have used Fryer’s research to make the opposite point. In a piece titled “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism,” MacDonald writes, “Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. also found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police.”
Putting aside the issue of this first sentence excluding the full span of police violence, the statement about Fryer’s research is true. But it does not get into the assumptions he — and all scientists, engineers, and researchers — are forced to make to do their work.
Like other scientists, he lists those assumptions, as well as limits, in the paper MacDonald cited, writing, for instance, that the fact officers “may be more likely to charge black suspects with crimes such as resisting arrest or attempted assault on a public safety officer rather than misdemeanors, relative to whites, for identical behavior” is “an important limitation” of the dataset he has assembled. He writes, “It is unclear how to estimate the extent of such bias or how to address it statistically.” The Knox, Mummolo, and Lowe work is, in part, an effort to resolve this issue.
This limitation does not undermine Fryer’s work or make him a bad researcher, but it is a reminder that the data can’t capture everything, particularly datasets that, as Fryer himself notes, are reliant on police cooperation.
And this is something important to keep in mind when thinking about the second statement MacDonald makes in that excerpt, about crime rates and behavior. The behavior piece of this comes from earlier in MacDonald’s article, in a section on the “routine violence” one sees in black communities, which contains a fallacious argument that “black-on-black” crime is worse than police violence against black Americans. That is separate from this discussion, but Victoria M. Massie and Khalil Muhammad have explained very well for Vox what the argument misses and how it is racist.
MacDonald’s reference to crime rates, however, further illustrates the limitations of data. She writes, “In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.”
This is taken from Department of Justice data, and it is what the data shows. But this data does not take into account inequities in policing. If, as Fryer suggests, a black man is three times more likely to be stopped by police, then it would seem that police are stopping a disproportionate number of black people and are thus more likely to find a disproportionate number of black criminals.
Other federal data from 2018 that is important to keep in mind is the FBI’s database on clearance rates — that is, solved crimes. In 2018, the FBI states 62.3 percent of “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter” (the category MacDonald categorized as homicide in her piece) were cleared. How many of those 37.7 percent of unsolved murder and manslaughter cases were committed by white offenders? And how would having that data affect the black crime statistics MacDonald cited? It is impossible to know because that data does not exist.
This is not to attack MacDonald, but it is to say data can occlude as much as it can reveal; the same is true of data cited earlier in this piece. It is valuable, particularly to those without firsthand experience with things like police violence, but it has serious limitations and cannot be the sole source of policymaking or an individual’s understanding.
The data might show police killings are declining or that there is no racial bias in policing. But I have seen that bias, as many Americans of all ethnicities now have. And when one’s own observations, and the realities of communities that bear the brunt of that policing, say something that runs counter to data, that has to be given some weight.
It’s important that Americans seek to better understand the issue of policing, but in working to fix it, they must be careful not to oversimplify it, or to discount the familiarity that comes with experience. Because police violence is complex and multifaceted — and its effects are real and terrible and traumatic.


vox--2020-06-19--Why all Americans should celebrate Juneteenth

When American schoolchildren learn about slavery in the US , they are often told it ended with Abraham Lincoln ’ s signature on the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 .
But as late as June 19 , 1865 , enslaved people in Texas were still held in bondage .
On that date , federal troops entered the state and began to punish slave holders and former Confederates who refused to obey the law .
“ Juneteenth is a deeply emotional moment for enslaved people , ” says historian Karlos K. Hill , of the University of Oklahoma .
In Texas and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began celebrating annually , with parades , concerts , and picnics .
“ Being able to go wherever they want and being able to wander about ; for enslaved people , it was an expression of their freedom , ” says Hill .
“ Formerly enslaved people celebrating , in public , their newfound freedom , was an act of resistance.
” However , by 1877 , the federal government had largely abandoned the South .
The lynching era — when hundreds of African Americans were killed by white mobs each year across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soon after .
Today , Hill says , commemorating Juneteenth is important for all Americans because it helps us see all the ways that slavery still shapes this country , including , as he says , “ the desire to master and dominate black bodies.
” Check out the video above to hear Hill explain the history and emotional significance of Juneteenth .
Why celebrating Juneteenth is more important now than ever ( P.R .
Lockhart , Vox , 2018 ) The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory : The Impact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Karlos K. Hill , Cambridge University Press , 2016 ) The Murder of Emmett Till : A Graphic History ( Karlos K. Hill and Dave Dodson , Cambridge University Press , 2020 ) Lynching in America : Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror ( Equal Justice Initiative , 2017 ) The National Museum of African American History and Culture— online collection Portraits of African American ex-slaves from the U.S. Works Progress Administration , Federal Writers ’ Project slave narratives collections ( Library of Congress ) Voices Remembering Slavery : Freed People Tell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Born in Slavery : Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers ’ Project , 1936 to 1938 ( Library of Congress ) Austin History Center General Collection Photographs ( The Portal to Texas History , University of North Texas Libraries )

When American schoolchildren learn about slavery in the US, they are often told it ended with Abraham Lincoln’s signature on the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.
But as late as June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas were still held in bondage. On that date, federal troops entered the state and began to punish slave holders and former Confederates who refused to obey the law.
“Juneteenth is a deeply emotional moment for enslaved people,” says historian Karlos K. Hill, of the University of Oklahoma.
In Texas and across the country, emancipated African Americans began celebrating annually, with parades, concerts, and picnics. “Being able to go wherever they want and being able to wander about; for enslaved people, it was an expression of their freedom,” says Hill. “Formerly enslaved people celebrating, in public, their newfound freedom, was an act of resistance.”
However, by 1877, the federal government had largely abandoned the South. The lynching era — when hundreds of African Americans were killed by white mobs each year across the North and the South — began soon after.
Today, Hill says, commemorating Juneteenth is important for all Americans because it helps us see all the ways that slavery still shapes this country, including, as he says, “the desire to master and dominate black bodies.”
Check out the video above to hear Hill explain the history and emotional significance of Juneteenth.
Sources/further reading
Why celebrating Juneteenth is more important now than ever (P.R. Lockhart, Vox, 2018)
The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory (Karlos K. Hill, Cambridge University Press, 2016)
The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History (Karlos K. Hill and Dave Dodson, Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror (Equal Justice Initiative, 2017)
The National Museum of African American History and Culture— online collection
Portraits of African American ex-slaves from the U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers’ Project slave narratives collections (Library of Congress)
Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories (Library of Congress)
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938 (Library of Congress)
African American Spirituals (Library of Congress)
Florida Memory: State Library and Archives of Florida
New Georgia Encyclopedia (Georgia Humanities)
Austin History Center General Collection Photographs (The Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas Libraries)


vox--2020-06-20--“The oppression doesn’t end, it adapts”: America’s history of lynching and its resonance today

When Robert Fuller was found dead , hanging from a tree in a square across from Palmdale ’ s City Hall , authorities said it was a suicide .
“ It is not the first such incident since the COVID-19 pandemic began , ” the California city said in a statement , according to CNN , adding that “ the city remains committed to addressing mental health issues during these difficult times.
” But family members of the 24-year-old , and others in the community , were deeply skeptical .
As one woman put it at a recent press conference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself in public like that.
” Her comment is a reminder that Fuller ’ s death happened in a country with a centuries-long history of lynching — one that may have changed in recent years but hasn ’ t gone away .
Thousands of black Americans were lynched in the decades following Reconstruction , and although such vigilante killings may have decreased in the 20th century , efforts to pass legislation banning them were repeatedly thwarted .
Meanwhile , these killings were essentially replaced by racist policing and the state-sanctioned execution of black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The oppression doesn ’ t end , ” he said .
“ It adapts.
” Amid worldwide protests against such oppression , Fuller was one of two black men found hanging from trees in Southern California within days of each other .
The first was Malcolm Harsch , found dead less than two weeks before Fuller in Victorville , California .
In response to protests and calls from family members and others , both deaths are now being more fully investigated , and some say they have information suggesting that Harsch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suicide .
But many say that around the country , the deaths of black men are often dismissed by authorities as self-inflicted without a full inquiry .
The NAACP even has a name for such cases , calling them “ quick call suicides , ” as Sue Sturgis reports at Facing South .
And that lack of investigation , too , has an important historical context .
In the 19th and early 20th century , Creary said , lynchings were almost never prosecuted .
Instead , authorities would rule that the victim “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parties unknown.
” For Creary , a quick announcement that someone committed suicide may be just “ a more contemporary twist on that.
” Now the associate director of the Center for Diversity and Enrichment at the University of Iowa , Creary previously studied the history of lynching in Maryland , and helped spearhead the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission , a state-wide body to investigate lynchings .
He spoke to Vox , in a conversation that has been condensed and edited , about the history of racist violence in America , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time — but never disappeared .
Can you define the term “ lynching ” ?
It seems like even within the term itself there ’ s a lot to talk about .
I like to use the NAACP criteria : Number one , somebody had to have been killed .
Number two , it had to have been committed by a group , to distinguish lynching from just straight-up murder .
That recognizes that lynching is fundamentally a community action .
There are a whole lot of people involved and there is coordination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the third criterion : it has to have been done ‘ in the name of the race ’ or ‘ for justice ’ or for something .
So when we talk about lynching , somebody was killed , it was perpetrated by a group of people , and it was done in support of some kind of cause , more than likely associated with white supremacy .
When did lynching begin to appear , and to what extent it has continued across time ?
There were lynchings that happened before Reconstruction .
Just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earliest documented case of lynching that we have goes back to 1856 .
And that was a lynching of a free black man .
But in terms of what we think about as racial terror lynching , a lot of that really began to take off during Reconstruction and particularly in the period following Reconstruction with the rise and implementation and enforcement of Jim Crow .
The numbers just really took off beginning in the 1890s .
This is really a phenomenon that happens in the wake of general emancipation with the passage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tool to keep blacks in their so-called place .
This includes if blacks were being too economically successful .
Take a look at Ida B.
Wells ’ book Southern Horrors .
She laid it out : a lot of this was about black economic success .
And then , a lot of those cases where there were allegations of rape or of black men attacking white women , that was code for the existence of a clandestine , consensual , interracial sexual relationship .
If you look at some of these things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newspaper : “ hey , we ’ re going to be lynching this person this afternoon.
” And literally thousands of people would show up to watch this .
They ’ re just so grotesque .
I read [ descriptions of ] them because the research requires it , but I get to the point where I refuse to watch any more of these videos of black men being murdered .
It becomes a real challenge to be able to go back through and read these things .
These were traumatic events .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coroner or the inquest to investigate the cause of death [ would come to the conclusion that ] “ this person met his death at the hands of parties unknown.
” One of those major elements of the act of lynching is the silencing : the silencing of the black community saying , “ don ’ t talk about this , [ because ] if you do , you run the risk of suffering the same fate.
” But then there ’ s also the silencing that ’ s part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t know who did this.
” Whereas in point of fact , if you read some of these accounts in the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers , either the reporters had to have been there , or they spoke to people who were there .
There is no way that they could have reported the detail of what happened without either having witnessed it firsthand or spoken with people who witnessed it .
We know that people could be identified .
Just in some of the preliminary research that the that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] Truth and Reconciliation Commission has done , they have identified names of people who were involved .
It exposes the lie that “ we don ’ t know.
” I want to come back to the issue of silencing , but I also want to ask : To what extent does lynching persist to the present day ?
Do we see lynchings happening now ?
And what is the connection between racist violence today and lynchings of the past ?
Reports show that the number of lynchings begins to decline substantially in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and they identify a correlating and corresponding increase in the number of legally state-sanctioned executions of black men .
So the oppression doesn ’ t end , it adapts .
It changes .
By the early 20th century , lynching is becoming an embarrassment .
The NAACP is going full-on [ with ] advocacy and activism , trying to get anti-lynching legislation passed .
The Dyer anti-lynching law is introduced in the House [ in 1918 ] .
This is when the machinery of the state , the arrest and the prosecution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a significant vehicle .
And the policing that everybody ’ s talking about now , you can take it all the way back to slave patrols .
It ’ s like , “ do you have a pass to be off your plantation ?
” We call it broken windows now , right ?
But it ’ s basically the same thing .
Are you out of your place ?
The net effect is , you ’ re still killing black people .
It ’ s just now it ’ s officially sanctioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not being done by a vigilante mob .
Another piece of the research that I did [ was ] looking at actual cases where [ perpetrators of ] lynching of black people were tried and convicted .
[ Out of anywhere between 3,500 and over 6,000 cases of lynching ] we found only 18 possible cases where convictions were obtained .
Seven of them , either the convictions were overturned on appeal , or the conviction was thrown out , or they said , “ Okay , time served.
” So the likelihood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Compare that with the numbers of police that are actually convicted or in any way meaningfully punished for having killed black people .
You don ’ t have to do you a whole lot of advanced math to see that those numbers are comparable .
What about killings of black people by civilians , as opposed to by police .
The killing of Ahmaud Arbery , for example , has been described as a modern-day lynching — do you see it as part of this history ?
Absolutely .
The way that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it fits the pattern of a lynching .
If you apply the criteria from the NAACP , the three of them were ‘ concerned for the safety of the neighborhood.
’ I think that ’ s sort of a contemporary riff on ‘ doing it in the name of justice , ’ but it ’ s still fundamentally undergirded by a notion of white supremacy , just using more contemporary coded language .
To get back to this issue of silencing , are there cases where lynchings or suspected lynchings have been explained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the era of lynching , generally no .
There was never an outright denial of the attack .
A mob broke into the prison and took them out and strung them up , or burned them or shot them or all of the above .
There was no denying that .
But inevitably after every one of these things , the state ’ s attorney or the county coroner ’ s office [ would ] investigate , what was the cause of death ?
And as I said , invariably , in every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was , “ he met his death at the hands of parties unknown.
” So to now hear that , “ Oh , well , this is suicide.
” Isn ’ t that basically just sort of a more contemporary twist on that ?
“ He must have committed suicide ” becomes the modern “ died at the hands of parties unknown.
” That leads me to my last question , which is , can you talk a little bit about the impact of deaths like those of Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back through some of these records of lynching , and the trauma of watching videos of men dying at the hands of police .
Can you talk about the effect on black Americans of hanging deaths of black men , given all the history that we ’ ve talked about ?
Immediately , that sends a clear message to black communities .
Even young kids know what this is about .
This is something I got asked about a few years ago , with the increased incidents of nooses being placed in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even have to kill people , just the noose , in and of itself is sending a message .
That piece of rope , it says everything .
It ’ s a message of violence .
It ’ s a message of hate .
It ’ s a message intended to terrorize people .
So to take that and now put bodies in trees , this is the history coming back to life .
And that , I think , says a lot about who we are as a society , who we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to once again make ring hollow all of these great words that we like to use to describe ourselves .
We ’ re the greatest country in the world ?
No , we ’ re not .
You want to talk about terror ?
Let ’ s talk about the racial terror that has been visited upon black people .
If you look at [ NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund President ] Sherrilyn Ifill ’ s book , looking at two [ lynching ] cases in Maryland , she titled it On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these things , they happened literally in front of the courthouse .
And so to have Robert Fuller hung from a tree across the street from City Hall , this is literally taking a page out of that old playbook .
It exposes the lie that we ’ ve made progress .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
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When Robert Fuller was found dead, hanging from a tree in a square across from Palmdale’s City Hall, authorities said it was a suicide.
“It is not the first such incident since the COVID-19 pandemic began,” the California city said in a statement, according to CNN, adding that “the city remains committed to addressing mental health issues during these difficult times.”
But family members of the 24-year-old, and others in the community, were deeply skeptical. As one woman put it at a recent press conference, “No black man would hang himself in public like that.”
Her comment is a reminder that Fuller’s death happened in a country with a centuries-long history of lynching — one that may have changed in recent years but hasn’t gone away. Thousands of black Americans were lynched in the decades following Reconstruction, and although such vigilante killings may have decreased in the 20th century, efforts to pass legislation banning them were repeatedly thwarted. Meanwhile, these killings were essentially replaced by racist policing and the state-sanctioned execution of black Americans, historian Nicholas Creary told Vox. “The oppression doesn’t end,” he said. “It adapts.”
Amid worldwide protests against such oppression, Fuller was one of two black men found hanging from trees in Southern California within days of each other. The first was Malcolm Harsch, found dead less than two weeks before Fuller in Victorville, California. In response, protests and calls from family members led to both deaths being more fully investigated. While a surveillance video confirmed on Friday that Harsch did die by suicide, there have been additional hangings in recent days — a black teenager in Texas and a 27-year-old black man in Manhattan. Many say that around the country, the deaths of black men are often dismissed by authorities as self-inflicted without a full inquiry. The NAACP even has a name for such cases, calling them “quick call suicides,” as Sue Sturgis reports at Facing South.
And that lack of investigation, too, has an important historical context. In the 19th and early 20th century, Creary said, lynchings were almost never prosecuted. Instead, authorities would rule that the victim “met his death at the hands of parties unknown.” For Creary, a quick announcement that someone committed suicide may be just “a more contemporary twist on that.”
Now the associate director of the Center for Diversity and Enrichment at the University of Iowa, Creary previously studied the history of lynching in Maryland, and helped spearhead the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a statewide body to investigate lynchings. He spoke to Vox, in a conversation that has been condensed and edited, about the history of racist violence in America, and how that violence has evolved over time — but never disappeared.
Anna North
Can you define the term “lynching”? For many, it conjures a specific image, but it seems like even within the term itself there’s a lot to talk about.
Nicholas Creary
I like to use the NAACP criteria: Number one, somebody had to have been killed. Number two, it had to have been committed by a group, to distinguish lynching from just straight-up murder. That recognizes that lynching is fundamentally a community action. There are a whole lot of people involved and there is coordination. That sort of gets us to the third criterion: it has to have been done ‘in the name of the race’ or ‘for justice’ or for something. So when we talk about lynching, somebody was killed, it was perpetrated by a group of people, and it was done in support of some kind of cause, more than likely associated with white supremacy.
Anna North
When did lynching begin to appear, and to what extent has it continued across time?
Nicholas Creary
There were lynchings that happened before Reconstruction. Just in the case of Maryland, the earliest documented case of lynching that we have goes back to 1856. And that was a lynching of a free black man.
But in terms of what we think about as racial terror lynching, a lot of that really began to take off during Reconstruction and particularly in the period following Reconstruction with the rise and implementation and enforcement of Jim Crow. The numbers just really took off beginning in the 1890s.
This is really a phenomenon that happens in the wake of general emancipation with the passage of the 13th Amendment. It becomes a tool to keep blacks in their so-called place. This includes if blacks were being too economically successful.
Take a look at Ida B. Wells’ book Southern Horrors. She laid it out: a lot of this was about black economic success. And then, a lot of those cases where there were allegations of rape or of black men attacking white women, that was code for the existence of a clandestine, consensual, interracial sexual relationship.
If you look at some of these things, they would announce it in the newspaper: “Hey, we’re going to be lynching this person this afternoon.” And literally thousands of people would show up to watch this.
They’re just so grotesque. I read [descriptions of] them because the research requires it, but I get to the point where I refuse to watch any more of these videos of black men being murdered. It becomes a real challenge to be able to go back through and read these things. These were traumatic events.
The other thing that invariably happened: the coroner or the inquest to investigate the cause of death [would come to the conclusion that] “this person met his death at the hands of parties unknown.”
One of those major elements of the act of lynching is the silencing: the silencing of the black community saying, “Don’t talk about this, [because] if you do, you run the risk of suffering the same fate.” But then there’s also the silencing that’s part of the cover-up: “Oh, we don’t know who did this.”
Whereas in point of fact, if you read some of these accounts in the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers, either the reporters had to have been there, or they spoke to people who were there. There is no way that they could have reported the detail of what happened without either having witnessed it firsthand or spoken with people who witnessed it.
We know that people could be identified. Just in some of the preliminary research that the research committee for the Maryland [Lynching] Truth and Reconciliation Commission has done, they have identified names of people who were involved. It exposes the lie that “we don’t know.”
Anna North
I want to come back to the issue of silencing, but I also want to ask: To what extent does lynching persist to the present day? Do we see lynchings happening now? And what is the connection between racist violence today and lynchings of the past?
Nicholas Creary
Reports show that the number of lynchings begins to decline substantially in the early decades of the 20th century, and they identify a correlating and corresponding increase in the number of legally state-sanctioned executions of black men. So the oppression doesn’t end, it adapts. It changes.
By the early 20th century, lynching is becoming an embarrassment. The NAACP is going full-on [with] advocacy and activism, trying to get anti-lynching legislation passed. The Dyer anti-lynching law is introduced in the House [in 1918]. This is when the machinery of the state, the arrest and the prosecution and execution of black men, becomes a significant vehicle.
And the policing that everybody’s talking about now, you can take it all the way back to slave patrols. It’s like, “Do you have a pass to be off your plantation?” We call it broken windows now, right? But it’s basically the same thing. Are you out of your place?
The net effect is, you’re still killing black people. It’s just now it’s officially sanctioned by the state, it’s not being done by a vigilante mob.
Another piece of the research that I did [was] looking at actual cases where [perpetrators of] lynching of black people were tried and convicted. [Out of anywhere between 3,500 and over 6,000 cases of lynching] we found only 18 possible cases where convictions were obtained. Seven of them, either the convictions were overturned on appeal, or the conviction was thrown out, or they said, “Okay, time served.” So the likelihood of punishment of lynchers was infinitesimal.
Compare that with the numbers of police that are actually convicted or in any way meaningfully punished for having killed black people. You don’t have to do you a whole lot of advanced math to see that those numbers are comparable.
Anna North
What about killings of black people by civilians, as opposed to by police. The killing of Ahmaud Arbery, for example, has been described as a modern-day lynching — do you see it as part of this history?
Nicholas Creary
Absolutely. The way that he was stalked and basically hunted down, it fits the pattern of a lynching. If you apply the criteria from the NAACP, the three of them were ‘concerned for the safety of the neighborhood.’ I think that’s sort of a contemporary riff on ‘doing it in the name of justice,’ but it’s still fundamentally undergirded by a notion of white supremacy, just using more contemporary coded language.
Anna North
To get back to this issue of silencing, are there cases where lynchings or suspected lynchings have been explained away by authorities as suicides?
Nicholas Creary
In the era of lynching, generally no. There was never an outright denial of the attack. A mob broke into the prison and took them out and strung them up, or burned them or shot them or all of the above. There was no denying that.
But inevitably after every one of these things, the state’s attorney or the county coroner’s office [would] investigate, what was the cause of death? And as I said, invariably, in every single one of those cases, it was, “He met his death at the hands of parties unknown.”
So to now hear that, “Oh, well, this is suicide.” Isn’t that basically just sort of a more contemporary twist on that? “He must have committed suicide” becomes the modern “died at the hands of parties unknown.”
Anna North
That leads me to my last question, which is, can you talk a little bit about the impact of deaths like those of Robert Fuller? You mentioned the trauma of going back through some of these records of lynching, and the trauma of watching videos of men dying at the hands of police. Can you talk about the effect on black Americans of hanging deaths of black men, given all the history that we’ve talked about?
Nicholas Creary
Immediately, that sends a clear message to black communities. Even young kids know what this is about. This is something I got asked about a few years ago, with the increased incidents of nooses being placed in the DC area. You don’t even have to kill people, just the noose, in and of itself, is sending a message. That piece of rope, it says everything. It’s a message of violence. It’s a message of hate. It’s a message intended to terrorize people.
So to take that and now put bodies in trees, this is the history coming back to life. And that, I think, says a lot about who we are as a society, who we are as a nation. It serves to once again make ring hollow all of these great words that we like to use to describe ourselves. We’re the greatest country in the world? No, we’re not. You want to talk about terror? Let’s talk about the racial terror that has been visited upon black people.
If you look at [NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund President] Sherrilyn Ifill’s book, looking at two [lynching] cases in Maryland, she titled it On the Courthouse Lawn. Because for many of these things, they happened literally in front of the courthouse. And so to have Robert Fuller hung from a tree across the street from City Hall, this is literally taking a page out of that old playbook. It exposes the lie that we’ve made progress.


vox--2020-06-20--Brazil could surpass the US as the country worst hit by coronavirus this summer

Brazil reported a new 24-hour record for new coronavirus cases on Friday , pushing the country ’ s total to over 1 million confirmed cases — an indicator that the South American nation could surpass the US as the worst-hit country in the world this summer .
Experts say that President Jair Bolsonaro ’ s anti-scientific attitude toward the virus and resistance to robust social distancing measures have contributed significantly to the accelerating spread of Covid-19 and its mounting death toll .
The 54,771 new cases reported on Friday bring the country ’ s confirmed total to 1,032,913 .
Total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 48,954 , and given the pace of new infections , the country could surpass 50,000 deaths over the weekend .
Experts say the number of actual cases in Brazil is likely significantly higher .
Alexandre Naime Barbosa , a medical professor at the São Paulo State University , told NBC News that he believes there is “ under-reporting of a magnitude of five to 10 times.
” “ There are questions about really how much testing is going on in most of the areas worst-affected , which may also influence the numbers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Latin America ( WOLA ) ’ s director of the Andes , told CBS News .
Sánchez-Garzoli also added she wouldn ’ t “ trust ” the numbers released by the government .
Earlier in June , Brazil ’ s health ministry wiped its running cumulative totals of cases and deaths , and instead showed only data on new cases and deaths on a 24-hour basis .
Bolsonaro tweeted that the change in available data was because “ cumulative data , in addition to not showing that the large part [ of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , does not depict the moment of the country.
” But the move received backlash , and Brazil ’ s supreme court ruled that the government had to report comprehensive data , according to CNN .
According to a University of Washington tracking model , Brazil could surpass the US with the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world as early as August 1 , CNN reports .
The model predicts that the death toll could break the 100,000 mark in less than a month .
The spread of the virus poses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s most socioeconomically vulnerable populations .
Sánchez-Garzoli told CBS that the health care system was poorly equipped to provide adequate care to most people , and that the coronavirus was an “ added factor that is leading to the extinction of different [ indigenous ] groups.
” Experts say that much of the current crisis can be attributed to Bolsonaro ’ s leadership style and policy decisions .
Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the virus , calling it a “ little flu ” and arguing that Brazilians are well-suited for it because they can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t catch a thing.
” The president has also frequently defied social distancing guidelines from his own administration , encouraged massive rallies , and has opposed lockdowns initiated by governors of states , accusing them of exploiting the pandemic for political gain .
In other words , much as Trump ’ s rhetoric about the virus has done in the United States , Bolsonaro has turned the coronavirus crisis in his country into a polarizing culture war .
In April , Bolsonaro fired his popular health minister , Luiz Henrique Mandetta , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distancing and to stay indoors .
The dismissal came after weeks of the two offering diverging prescriptions for how the public should act to slow the spread of the virus , and raised the ire of many Brazilians .
And the health minister who took over after Mandetta resigned just four weeks into the job .
In addition to actively undermining the counsel of public health officials , Bolsonaro has promoted the use of remedies that have not been proven to treat Covid-19 , like chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine .
“ Decisions are being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data but rather on anecdotal reports , ” Denise Garrett , a Brazilian-American epidemiologist who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more than 20 years , told the New York Times .
“ Bolsonaro invested a huge amount of money into an action that has not been proven to be effective at the expense of increasing testing and contact tracing.
” Bolsonaro has also used the pandemic as an opportunity to attempt to undermine other branches of government and amass more political power .
Earlier this spring , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called for military intervention because they view the country ’ s supreme court and legislature as obstacles to his campaign against pandemic lockdown measures .
Brazil ’ s past health ministers predicted the spread of the coronavirus would hit its peak between May and July .
But given Bolsonaro ’ s resistance to adhering to any scientific guidance , it ’ s extremely difficult to predict its course .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a @ @ @ @ @

Brazil reported a new 24-hour record for new coronavirus cases on Friday, pushing the country’s total to more than 1 million confirmed cases — an indicator that the South American nation could surpass the US as the worst-hit country in the world this summer.
Experts say that President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-scientific attitude toward the virus and resistance to robust social distancing measures have contributed significantly to the accelerating spread of Covid-19 and its mounting death toll.
The 54,771 new cases reported on Friday bring the country’s confirmed total to 1,032,913. Total official fatalities due to the coronavirus hit 48,954, and given the pace of new infections, the country could surpass 50,000 deaths over the weekend.
Experts say the number of actual cases in Brazil is likely significantly higher. Alexandre Naime Barbosa, a medical professor at the São Paulo State University, told NBC News that he believes there is “under-reporting of a magnitude of five to 10 times.”
“There are questions about really how much testing is going on in most of the areas worst-affected, which may also influence the numbers,” Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)’s director of the Andes, told CBS News.
Sánchez-Garzoli also added she wouldn’t “trust” the numbers released by the government.
Earlier in June, Brazil’s health ministry wiped its running cumulative totals of cases and deaths, and instead showed only data on new cases and deaths on a 24-hour basis.
Bolsonaro tweeted that the change in available data was because “cumulative data, in addition to not showing that the large part [of patients] no longer has the illness, does not depict the moment of the country.”
But the move received backlash, and Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the government had to report comprehensive data, according to CNN.
According to a University of Washington tracking model, Brazil could surpass the US with the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world as early as August 1, CNN reports. The model predicts that the death toll could break the 100,000 mark in less than a month.
The spread of the virus poses a particularly serious threat to Brazil’s most socioeconomically vulnerable populations. Sánchez-Garzoli told CBS that the health care system was poorly equipped to provide adequate care to most people, and that the coronavirus was an “added factor that is leading to the extinction of different [indigenous] groups.”
Brazil has handled the coronavirus extremely poorly
Experts say that much of the current crisis can be attributed to Bolsonaro’s leadership style and policy decisions.
Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the virus, calling it a “little flu” and arguing that Brazilians are well-suited for it because they can be dunked in sewage and “don’t catch a thing.” The president has also frequently defied social distancing guidelines from his own administration, encouraged massive rallies, and has opposed lockdowns initiated by governors of states, accusing them of exploiting the pandemic for political gain.
In other words, much as Trump’s rhetoric about the virus has done in the United States, Bolsonaro has turned the coronavirus crisis in his country into a polarizing culture war.
In April, Bolsonaro fired his popular health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, because Mandetta urged Brazilians to observe social distancing and to stay indoors. The dismissal came after weeks of the two offering diverging prescriptions for how the public should act to slow the spread of the virus, and raised the ire of many Brazilians.
And the health minister who took over after Mandetta resigned just four weeks into the job.
In addition to actively undermining the counsel of public health officials, Bolsonaro has promoted the use of remedies that have not been proven to treat Covid-19, like chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
“Decisions are being made not based on evidence and empirical data but rather on anecdotal reports,” Denise Garrett, a Brazilian-American epidemiologist who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more than 20 years, told the New York Times. “Bolsonaro invested a huge amount of money into an action that has not been proven to be effective at the expense of increasing testing and contact tracing.”
Bolsonaro has also used the pandemic as an opportunity to attempt to undermine other branches of government and amass more political power. Earlier this spring, he joined a rally of right-wing supporters who called for military intervention because they view the country’s Supreme Court and legislature as obstacles to his campaign against pandemic lockdown measures.
Brazil’s past health ministers predicted the spread of the coronavirus would hit its peak between May and July. But given Bolsonaro’s resistance to adhering to any scientific guidance, it’s extremely difficult to predict its course.


vox--2020-06-20--Trump fires the US attorney investigating his allies

President Donald Trump has fired Geoffrey Berman , the US attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan who has led investigations of the president ’ s inner circle .
Berman had refused to step down from his post Friday after US Attorney General Bill Barr attempted to oust him .
Barr , who has long been accused of protecting Trump ’ s close allies , announced Berman ’ s resignation in a press release late Friday in an apparent effort to draw little attention to the matter .
He named Jay Clayton , the current chairman of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has no experience as a prosecutor , as Trump ’ s pick for Berman ’ s successor .
But within hours , Berman countered that he had not , and would not , tender his resignation and that the first he had heard of it was from Barr ’ s press release .
“ I have not resigned , and have no intention of resigning , my position , ” Berman said in a statement .
“ I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate .
Until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without delay or interruption.
” On Saturday , however , Barr told Berman in a letter that the president had fired him : “ Because you have declared you have no intention of resigning , I have asked the President to remove you as of today , and he has done so , ” wrote Barr .
Berman ’ s deputy , Audrey Strauss , will serve as the acting US attorney in Manhattan until his replacement is confirmed by the Senate , according to the Washington Post .
A donor to Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani , Berman has been investigating Giuliani ’ s efforts to find damaging information in Ukraine about Trump ’ s political opponents to determine whether he violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities .
He has also indicted two of Giuliani ’ s business associates and successfully pursued a case against Trump ’ s former attorney Michael Cohen , who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump ’ s plans to build a skyscraper in Moscow .
Berman is not the first official who the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump also fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson , who played a central role in bringing the whistleblower complaint at the heart of the Democrats ’ impeachment inquiry to light , and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick , who was reportedly investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo .
Berman was appointed as the acting US attorney for Manhattan in 2018 by then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions , taking over after Trump fired his predecessor , Preet Bharara , who also refused to resign .
By law , acting officials are only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 120 days before the Senate confirms a permanent appointee , handpicked by the president .
But Trump , who has said he prefers acting officials because he has more flexibility to replace them , never nominated anyone else to fill Berman ’ s post .
A federal court in Manhattan therefore invoked a rarely used power to appoint Berman to the position permanently in April 2018 , allowing him to remain in the post until the Senate confirms another appointee .
The Justice Department has historically operated independently from the executive branch , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appeared to change .
Sessions , who actively campaigned on Trump ’ s behalf in 2016 , recused himself from investigations into possible Russian interference in the president ’ s election in order to preserve their impartiality — a decision for which Trump publicly berated him .
Barr , by contrast , has repeatedly intervened in legal matters linked to Trump while denying any political motivations .
In February , Barr ’ s DOJ recommended a more lenient , unspecified prison sentence for Roger Stone , a political consultant and Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a seven- to nine-year sentence after the president complained on Twitter that Stone was being treated too punitively .
The move prompted the resignation of several prosecutors within the department who had been working on the Stone case , which led to his high-profile conviction for obstructing a House Intelligence Committee inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election and other related crimes .
In May , Barr decided to drop charges against Trump ’ s former national security adviser , Michael Flynn , who resigned just weeks after his appointment in 2017 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misrepresented his conversations with the Russian ambassador to Vice President Mike Pence .
Flynn had pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI .
Trump , who said he would consider pardoning Flynn , publicly praised Barr ’ s decision .
And earlier this month , Barr sought to block the publication of a memoir by Trump ’ s former national security adviser , John Bolton , which asserts that Trump placed a condition on releasing security aid to Ukraine : that the country publicly pursue an investigation against Joe Biden , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nominee .
If true , Bolton ’ s account would confirm the basis of Democrats ’ failed efforts to remove Trump from office .
A federal judge denied the DOJ ’ s request to block the publication on Saturday .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

President Donald Trump has fired Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan who has led investigations of the president’s inner circle. Berman had refused to step down from his post Friday after US Attorney General Bill Barr attempted to oust him.
Barr, who has long been accused of protecting Trump’s close allies, announced Berman’s resignation in a press release late Friday in an apparent effort to draw little attention to the matter. He named Jay Clayton, the current chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has no experience as a prosecutor, as Trump’s pick for Berman’s successor.
But within hours, Berman countered that he did not, and would not, tender his resignation and that the first he had heard of it was from Barr’s press release.
“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” Berman said in a statement. “I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption.”
On Saturday, however, Barr told Berman in a letter that the president had fired him: “Because you have declared you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so,” wrote Barr. Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, will serve as the acting US attorney in Manhattan until his replacement is confirmed by the Senate, according to the Washington Post.
A donor to Trump’s campaign and former colleague of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Berman has been investigating Giuliani’s efforts to find damaging information in Ukraine about Trump’s political opponents to determine whether he violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities. He has also indicted two of Giuliani’s business associates and successfully pursued a case against Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a skyscraper in Moscow.
Berman is not the first official who the Trump administration has ousted in recent months. Trump also fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who played a central role in bringing the whistleblower complaint at the heart of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry to light, and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who was reportedly investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Berman was appointed as the acting US attorney for Manhattan in 2018 by then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, taking over after Trump fired his predecessor, Preet Bharara, who also refused to resign. By law, acting officials are only supposed to serve for a maximum of 120 days before the Senate confirms a permanent appointee, handpicked by the president.
But Trump, who has said he prefers acting officials because he has more flexibility to replace them, never nominated anyone else to fill Berman’s post. A federal court in Manhattan therefore invoked a rarely used power to appoint Berman to the position permanently in April 2018, allowing him to remain in the post until the Senate confirms another appointee.
How Bill Barr politicized the Justice Department
The Justice Department has historically operated independently from the executive branch, but under Trump, that paradigm has appeared to change.
Sessions, who actively campaigned on Trump’s behalf in 2016, recused himself from investigations into possible Russian interference in the president’s election in order to preserve their impartiality — a decision for which Trump publicly berated him. Barr, by contrast, has repeatedly intervened in legal matters linked to Trump while denying any political motivations.
In February, Barr’s DOJ recommended a more lenient, unspecified prison sentence for Roger Stone, a political consultant and Trump’s friend, overriding prosecutors’ petition for a seven- to nine-year sentence after the president complained on Twitter that Stone was being treated too punitively. The move prompted the resignation of several prosecutors within the department who had been working on the Stone case, which led to his high-profile conviction for obstructing a House Intelligence Committee inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election and other related crimes.
In May, Barr decided to drop charges against Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who resigned just weeks after his appointment in 2017, when reports surfaced that he had misrepresented his conversations with the Russian ambassador to Vice President Mike Pence. Flynn had pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI. Trump, who said he would consider pardoning Flynn, publicly praised Barr’s decision.
And earlier this month, Barr sought to block the publication of a memoir by Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, which asserts that Trump placed a condition on releasing security aid to Ukraine: that the country publicly pursue an investigation against Joe Biden, the former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee. If true, Bolton’s account would confirm the basis of Democrats’ failed efforts to remove Trump from office. A federal judge denied the DOJ’s request to block the publication on Saturday.