theintercept--2020-08-27--Can “Progressive” Prosecutors Bring Justice to Victims of Police Violence?

was elected as St. Louis County ’ s first Black prosecutor two years ago , he ousted a tough-on-crime , old-school incumbent who had held on to his seat mostly unchallenged for nearly three decades .
The police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson , Missouri , had rocked the region and made Bob McCulloch , Bell ’ s predecessor , a pariah and a symbol of prosecutors ’ long-standing failure to hold police accountable .
For months , thousands of people took to the streets to demand justice for Brown , inspiring a nationwide movement that , among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country ’ s racist justice system by electing reform-minded prosecutors .
Bell rode that momentum into office , promising to overhaul the way justice was administered in a place that had become synonymous with police abuse and local governments funding themselves by criminalizing poor residents through a Dickensian system of fines , fees , and jail .
Bell never promised to reopen the investigation into Brown ’ s killing by police officer Darren Wilson — which had ended without charges after a much criticized grand jury process — but that is what many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ month , as a new wave of protests upended the country , Bell announced that he had quietly reinvestigated the case .
And that , once again , there would be no justice for Michael Brown .
“ This is one of the most difficult things I have had to do as an elected official , ” Bell said at a surprise press conference just days shy of the sixth anniversary of Brown ’ s August 2014 killing .
“ Although this case represents one of the most significant moments in St. Louis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this office was a simple one : Could we prove , beyond a reasonable doubt , that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown , he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law ?
After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence , we can not prove that he did.
” Bell noted that the investigation did not exonerate Wilson , arguing that “ the question of whether we can prove a case at trial is different than clearing him of any and all wrongdoing.
” “ If there was more we could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Bell told me in an interview .
“ There are some people who don ’ t like the decision I made , and my response to them is , I don ’ t like the decision that I made .
But I took an oath to follow the law , and in a case like this , as tough as it is , we have to follow those rules of ethics , we have to follow that law , even when it doesn ’ t taste good.
” The announcement reopened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ St. Louis .
Brown ’ s mother , Lezley McSpadden , argued that Bell ’ s team , who did not speak with Wilson again and relied on evidence from the original investigation and a subsequent one by the Department of Justice , did not do “ a proper investigation.
” With the exception of a few small protests , anger and frustration at the decision were drowned out as the country reeled from the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing cries for justice for George Floyd , Breonna Taylor , and countless other Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brown .
The police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha , Wisconsin , on Sunday has once again reignited debate over the enormous legal protections afforded to officers who use deadly force .
But as the movement to turn over prosecutors ’ offices to those pledging to transform the criminal justice system continued to claim victories , including in the city of St. Louis , and as a progressive Ferguson activist unseated a veteran U.S. congressman whose family had represented the district for half a century , advocates who had hoped Bell ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s family were left disillusioned .
Bell ’ s decision not to prosecute Wilson , they warned , exposed the limits of an office that is both inherently political and bound by laws that are stacked in favor of police .
And it raised questions about what it meant for a prosecutor to be progressive and how those who campaigned on progressive promises could be held accountable after they were elected .
“ It was a betrayal , ” said Justin Hansford , a St. Louis activist , law professor , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Center at Howard University .
“ There were a lot of people who spent a lot of time and energy supporting Bell specifically because they expected him to at the very least reopen the case and let the family have their day in court , so that the facts could be put forth in a trial , and so that everyone could see them .
It would have given us a sense of transparency.
” “ A lot of these prosecutors who have been saying they are progressive , they really have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he added , citing the “ mixed feelings ” of many in the justice reform movement about Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris , who has also claimed she was a progressive prosecutor .
“ You can ’ t let people just get away with that rhetoric without backing it up.
” “ His top campaign rallying cry was that he heard the cries of the protesters and that he was going to go into that place and deliver justice and he didn ’ t do that , ” echoed Johnetta Elzie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t know if he got scared , I just think the system — that ’ s what it does , no matter if the person inside it is allegedly progressive or not.
” “ I know there are people who believe in progressive prosecutors , ” added Elzie .
“ I just haven ’ t seen it in action .
I have never seen anyone actually do it .
I ’ ve never seen it in St. Louis , that ’ s for sure.
” Others noted their disappointment but defended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ county , and argued against abandoning a fight for prosecutors ’ offices that have outsize influence over countless lives — a fight that has had a significant impact on the number of people going to jail even as it has failed to put an end to police violence .
“ It was a tough day for folks doing this work because so much of this work was inspired by the demand for justice for Mike Brown , ” Scott Roberts , the senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color of Change , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaigns of a number of reformist prosecutors , including Bell .
“ This is a reality check if you thought that electing prosecutors who were more reform-oriented was going to address this massive problem in our country of racial bias in our justice system , and just the general over-policing and over-incarceration of Black communities.
” “ But this is not slowing us down in terms of strategy , ” he added .
“ Even if you took police accountability off the table , there ’ s still myriad reasons to focus on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ community is being impacted by over-incarceration.
” The Limits of the Law There is little question Bell overhauled St. Louis county ’ s prosecutorial practices .
Hours into his post , Bell announced a barrage of changes to the office .
He ordered his staff to end cash bail requests for misdemeanors and stop prosecuting the possession of small quantities of marijuana and the failure to pay child support .
He encouraged the use of summonses over warrants for many offenses .
He barred prosecutors from overcharging defendants to win pleas , threatening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and imposing further conditions on those who failed to appear in court unless they were flight risks .
He promised he would never seek the death penalty and fired the lead prosecutor in Brown ’ s case .
In the year and a half since , Bell has slashed the number of people jailed over low-level offenses by nearly 30 percent and established a conviction integrity unit that recently led to the release of a man wrongfully incarcerated for 24 years .
Bell also set up a community engagement unit to explain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and could not do , and he has overseen an expansion of diversion programs and partnered with dozens of community groups to offer alternatives to incarceration .
“ Even if you ’ re disappointed , you don ’ t want to go back to Bob McCulloch , ” said Roberts , noting that Color of Change is pushing Bell to pursue bolder bail reform and further reduce the number of people who are jailed in St. Louis County .
As he announced no new charges against Wilson , Bell noted that he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigate police use of force , by assigning those cases to an independent team that is “ walled-off ” from the rest of the office to avoid bias and conflict .
And he said his office would start recording all grand jury proceedings in homicide cases , “ so that all potential defendants get the same protections that Darren Wilson received.
” His office would also provide support , including resources for trauma and mental health care , to the families of victims of police — something that Brown ’ s mother has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s still more to do , ” Bell told me .
“ We ’ re going to take some losses , there ’ s going to be times when we don ’ t get the outcome that we want , but I think we have to measure success by all of the families that we are helping and all of the individuals that we are helping that would otherwise have seen the inside of a jail.
” Changes like these , in St. Louis and elsewhere , were largely made possible after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prosecutorial practices drive mass incarceration and encourage the kind of aggressive policing that too often results in police violence — a dynamic that was laid bare in a scathing Justice Department review of St. Louis County ’ s courts and police departments .
But if some prosecutors elected since then have made strides in curtailing incarceration by declining to prosecute certain offenses or offering alternatives to jail , the other half of what voters hoped they would do — hold police accountable — has proven more arduous .
As The Intercept has reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts of reformist prosecutors ’ efforts , perhaps nowhere more than in St. Louis city , Bell ’ s next-door jurisdiction .
But Bell ’ s decision not to charge Wilson also reveals a reality about police accountability that advocates are coming to terms with : that the law itself is usually on the side of police .
“ This case also exposes the limits of the law , ” Bell said at the press conference .
“ There are a lot of people who see me , and they think , well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want , even in these tough cases , we can just do whatever .
And obviously that ’ s just not the case , ” he told me later .
“ I think what makes a progressive prosecutor is that we understand that we have more tools in the tool belt than just incarceration.
” Bell warned that cutting corners was not only unethical but risked backfiring .
“ Oftentimes , when we don ’ t follow the law , Black and brown and poor people tend to be on the business end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We can ’ t change that because it ’ s a defendant that we don ’ t like .
We have to be consistent , that ’ s what law and justice is about.
” In fact , Bell ’ s decision was criticized both by those who had hoped for a different outcome and those who thought reopening a settled case was a political move .
Bell did little to hide that he had hoped to be able to bring charges , earning him accusations of seeking not the truth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the truth to be.
” “ I won ’ t go so far as to say this is definitely what I wanted to do , ” Bell told me .
“ At the end of the day , we have to follow the facts , but wanting to bring some type of closure to a family who has lost a loved one tragically — of course that ’ s something that we endeavor to do and want to do , on an emotional level.
” The limits of the law in guaranteeing justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a reality across the country and particularly in Missouri , Bell noted , where there is a lower standard for proving self-defense and the burden is on prosecutors to disprove a defendant ’ s self-defense claim .
Missouri also doesn ’ t require an officer to stop chasing a suspect in the event an alleged crime was committed , even if that suspect no longer poses a threat .
“ So even if the officer is no longer in danger , or the community is not in danger , the officer is still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when it ’ s not safe to do so , ” said Bell , declining to discuss the specifics of how this provision related to the events leading to Brown ’ s killing .
“ There is a reasonable nuance that could be added to the law that would disincentivize officers from chasing when it ’ s not safe .
… Where there ’ s no longer a threat , you could just simply wait for backup.
” But critics argued that if the laws are the problem , Bell could have made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ changed .
“ I do agree with him that there are laws on the books that really make it difficult to find police to be accountable in most places , and especially in Missouri , ” said Hansford , the activist and law professor .
“ But he needs to do a better job of speaking out against that instead of just throwing his hands up.
” “ Being a prosecutor is a political job , ” Hansford added .
“ They do have the ability to do more ; it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not just following the law , it ’ s not something that ’ s just a mechanical job , because if so , why would they need to have elected prosecutors ?
They have the power to be more progressive.
” Criminal charges against police officers who have killed unarmed people have remained extremely rare even as an increasing number of incidents have been caught on video .
Where prosecutors have pressed charges against officers — as Baltimore State ’ s Attorney Marilyn Mosby did after Freddie Gray ’ s death in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have exposed just how difficult it is for police to be held criminally accountable for their conduct .
In Gray ’ s case , one trial ended in a mistrial , three officers were acquitted , and prosecutors dropped charges against the remaining officers .
But losing at trial is not the only risk prosecutors face when they charge police officers with crimes , noted Hansford .
“ They can lose an election , they can face a lot of political backlash , it ’ s going to make it more difficult for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said .
“ There ’ s a lot more at stake for them politically than there is legally.
” Recent killings have exposed just how often the law favors law enforcement , and how political the decision to indict can be .
In Minneapolis , Derek Chauvin , the white officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck for eight minutes , was not charged until four days later , after large protests had spread across the country .
But even then , the charges were for third-degree murder and manslaughter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the intent to kill Floyd .
It took several more days of protests and widespread condemnation for Gov .
Tim Walz to transfer the case to the state ’ s attorney general , Keith Ellison , who ultimately raised the charge to unintentional second-degree murder .
Meanwhile , in Kentucky , the killing of Breonna Taylor , a 26-year-old who was shot at least eight times by officers who broke into her apartment while she was asleep in bed , shined a spotlight on the countless legal protections afforded to police .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ executing a “ no-knock ” warrant in connection to an investigation into two men believed to be selling drugs at a different location .
None of the officers were arrested or charged but Taylor ’ s boyfriend , Kenneth Walker , who thought someone was breaking into the apartment and fired in self-defense with his legally licensed gun , was charged with attempted murder of a police officer .
The charge against Walker was ultimately dismissed in May after mass protests and public pressure .
While legal experts have argued that the officers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the legal protections afforded to law enforcement in the state have so far shielded them from accountability .
Taylor ’ s case has also renewed scrutiny of “ qualified immunity , ” a civil doctrine that protects law enforcement from accountability beyond criminal prosecution even in cases where there is no question that officers used excessive force .
This summer , as calls for justice for Taylor grew louder , Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Justin Amash introduced legislation to end qualified immunity , followed by Sens .
Edward Markey , Elizabeth Warren , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to limit the practice have intensified amid a wave of police reforms prompted by the ongoing protests .
But the police shooting of Jacob Blake , a Wisconsin man who was left paralyzed from the waist down after police shot him in the back multiple times in front of his children , once again exposed the protections officers are regularly afforded .
As public defender and justice advocate Scott Hechinger noted , the Wisconsin Department of Justice lays out significant due process for an attempted murder committed by police , including a 30-day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s case , the incident was clearly caught on camera .
Most defendants accused of similar crimes are never afforded such care , even when less evidence is available .
“ Anyone else would already be caged , pretrial , facing decades , ” wrote Hechinger , who argued not for swifter action against officers but for the same protections to be afforded to everyone else .
“ To be clear : I wish everyone received this kind of care and consideration and due process before charges and pretrial caging.
” “ There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s not designed to get justice for Black folks .
It ’ s not designed to hold police officers accountable , ” said Roberts , of Color of Change .
“ When we elect someone , even if they have the best of intentions , it ’ s limited how much change they can bring , ” Rather than focus on prosecutorial races alone , he added , advocates were now taking on the broader system , focusing on judicial elections , law enforcement unions , and efforts to defund @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There ’ s a big focus on transforming the system to a place beyond the point where we can only hold someone accountable after the fact to a point where these injustices are less likely to happen , ” Roberts said .
“ These things go in tandem : The more we can change some of these laws that make it hard to hold police accountable , the more we can limit the size and scope of policing , the more some of these reform-oriented prosecutors will be able to use the power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Time of Abolition If in many ways the calls for justice following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have echoed those that followed the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray , the conversation , on the streets and in organizing spaces , has also fundamentally changed since the Ferguson protests .
Even as they continue to propel the movement to elect progressive prosecutors , many critics of police now understand it as an inevitably limited effort that should exist only in connection to a broader , bolder vision for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice for Floyd and Brown , but they are also asking for the defunding of police and the closing of jails , like St. Louis city ’ s “ workhouse.
” “ After the Ferguson protests , we really walked away with very little structural change at all , ” said Elzie , the Ferguson activist .
“ I hope in the next six years we will have something to show for all this work.
” There is also growing recognition that movements like those to elect progressive prosecutors were just a first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ succeeded , those efforts remain a work in progress .
“ There were a number of progressive prosecutors who were elected , and it ’ s a very important thing to go back and revisit , ‘ What did you guys actually do ?
’ ” noted Hansford .
“ The job of the prosecutor is still to lock people up , and now people on the ground are abolitionists , more so than they were a few years ago , ” he added .
“ So the job of getting involved in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of compromise.
” There seemed to be a paradox , Hansford conceded , in the fact that people so invested in the elimination of police and prisons would feel so let down by a prosecutor ’ s decision not to charge someone .
“ A lot of us are abolitionists now , and here we are , disappointed that there isn ’ t jail time for somebody , ” he said .
“ It was really one of the things that kept me from being an abolitionist for the longest time : the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jail.
” But the confirmation that Wilson would face no legal consequences for killing Brown could still serve as a prompt to imagine a kind of justice larger than that allowed for within the limits of a flawed system .
“ At the beginning of the protest movement , that was the whole point , we knew that they weren ’ t going to bring charges , so justice for Mike Brown had to look like something else , and we were pushing for reforms , and pushing for all these different things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get justice for Mike Brown in the sense of Darren Wilson going to jail , ” said Hansford .
“ I think the same tension is still there : Are there other ways to get some sort of justice , to honor his memory , besides a prosecution ?
”

When Wesley Bell was elected as St. Louis County’s first Black prosecutor two years ago, he ousted a tough-on-crime, old-school incumbent who had held on to his seat mostly unchallenged for nearly three decades. The police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, had rocked the region and made Bob McCulloch, Bell’s predecessor, a pariah and a symbol of prosecutors’ long-standing failure to hold police accountable. For months, thousands of people took to the streets to demand justice for Brown, inspiring a nationwide movement that, among other battles, sought to transform the country’s racist justice system by electing reform-minded prosecutors.
Bell rode that momentum into office, promising to overhaul the way justice was administered in a place that had become synonymous with police abuse and local governments funding themselves by criminalizing poor residents through a Dickensian system of fines, fees, and jail. Bell never promised to reopen the investigation into Brown’s killing by police officer Darren Wilson — which had ended without charges after a much criticized grand jury process — but that is what many in the region expected. Then last month, as a new wave of protests upended the country, Bell announced that he had quietly reinvestigated the case. And that, once again, there would be no justice for Michael Brown.
“There are some people who don’t like the decision I made, and my response to them is, I don’t like the decision that I made.”
“This is one of the most difficult things I have had to do as an elected official,” Bell said at a surprise press conference just days shy of the sixth anniversary of Brown’s August 2014 killing. “Although this case represents one of the most significant moments in St. Louis’s history, the question for this office was a simple one: Could we prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown, he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law? After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did.”
Bell noted that the investigation did not exonerate Wilson, arguing that “the question of whether we can prove a case at trial is different than clearing him of any and all wrongdoing.”
“If there was more we could do, we absolutely would do it,” Bell told me in an interview. “There are some people who don’t like the decision I made, and my response to them is, I don’t like the decision that I made. But I took an oath to follow the law, and in a case like this, as tough as it is, we have to follow those rules of ethics, we have to follow that law, even when it doesn’t taste good.”
The announcement reopened a wound that has never healed in St. Louis. Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, argued that Bell’s team, who did not speak with Wilson again and relied on evidence from the original investigation and a subsequent one by the Department of Justice, did not do “a proper investigation.” With the exception of a few small protests, anger and frustration at the decision were drowned out as the country reeled from the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing cries for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black men and women killed by police after Brown. The police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday has once again reignited debate over the enormous legal protections afforded to officers who use deadly force.
But as the movement to turn over prosecutors’ offices to those pledging to transform the criminal justice system continued to claim victories, including in the city of St. Louis, and as a progressive Ferguson activist unseated a veteran U.S. congressman whose family had represented the district for half a century, advocates who had hoped Bell’s election would bring closure for Brown’s family were left disillusioned. Bell’s decision not to prosecute Wilson, they warned, exposed the limits of an office that is both inherently political and bound by laws that are stacked in favor of police. And it raised questions about what it meant for a prosecutor to be progressive and how those who campaigned on progressive promises could be held accountable after they were elected.
Photo: Robert Cohen, Pool/St. Louis Post Dispatch/AP
“It was a betrayal,” said Justin Hansford, a St. Louis activist, law professor, and director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University. “There were a lot of people who spent a lot of time and energy supporting Bell specifically because they expected him to at the very least reopen the case and let the family have their day in court, so that the facts could be put forth in a trial, and so that everyone could see them. It would have given us a sense of transparency.”
“A lot of these prosecutors who have been saying they are progressive, they really have to have something to show for it,” he added, citing the “mixed feelings” of many in the justice reform movement about Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has also claimed she was a progressive prosecutor. “You can’t let people just get away with that rhetoric without backing it up.”
“His top campaign rallying cry was that he heard the cries of the protesters and that he was going to go into that place and deliver justice and he didn’t do that,” echoed Johnetta Elzie, a Ferguson protester. “I don’t know if he got scared, I just think the system — that’s what it does, no matter if the person inside it is allegedly progressive or not.”
“It was a tough day for folks doing this work because so much of this work was inspired by the demand for justice for Mike Brown.”
“I know there are people who believe in progressive prosecutors,” added Elzie. “I just haven’t seen it in action. I have never seen anyone actually do it. I’ve never seen it in St. Louis, that’s for sure.”
Others noted their disappointment but defended Bell’s reform efforts in the county, and argued against abandoning a fight for prosecutors’ offices that have outsize influence over countless lives — a fight that has had a significant impact on the number of people going to jail even as it has failed to put an end to police violence.
“It was a tough day for folks doing this work because so much of this work was inspired by the demand for justice for Mike Brown,” Scott Roberts, the senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color of Change, a racial justice group that backed the campaigns of a number of reformist prosecutors, including Bell. “This is a reality check if you thought that electing prosecutors who were more reform-oriented was going to address this massive problem in our country of racial bias in our justice system, and just the general over-policing and over-incarceration of Black communities.”
“But this is not slowing us down in terms of strategy,” he added. “Even if you took police accountability off the table, there’s still myriad reasons to focus on the prosecutor’s office if your community is being impacted by over-incarceration.”
The Limits of the Law
There is little question Bell overhauled St. Louis county’s prosecutorial practices. Hours into his post, Bell announced a barrage of changes to the office. He ordered his staff to end cash bail requests for misdemeanors and stop prosecuting the possession of small quantities of marijuana and the failure to pay child support. He encouraged the use of summonses over warrants for many offenses. He barred prosecutors from overcharging defendants to win pleas, threatening witnesses to force them to give testimony, and imposing further conditions on those who failed to appear in court unless they were flight risks. He promised he would never seek the death penalty and fired the lead prosecutor in Brown’s case.
In the year and a half since, Bell has slashed the number of people jailed over low-level offenses by nearly 30 percent and established a conviction integrity unit that recently led to the release of a man wrongfully incarcerated for 24 years. Bell also set up a community engagement unit to explain to the public what his office could and could not do, and he has overseen an expansion of diversion programs and partnered with dozens of community groups to offer alternatives to incarceration. “Even if you’re disappointed, you don’t want to go back to Bob McCulloch,” said Roberts, noting that Color of Change is pushing Bell to pursue bolder bail reform and further reduce the number of people who are jailed in St. Louis County.
As he announced no new charges against Wilson, Bell noted that he had also changed the ways in which prosecutors investigate police use of force, by assigning those cases to an independent team that is “walled-off” from the rest of the office to avoid bias and conflict. And he said his office would start recording all grand jury proceedings in homicide cases, “so that all potential defendants get the same protections that Darren Wilson received.” His office would also provide support, including resources for trauma and mental health care, to the families of victims of police — something that Brown’s mother has advocated.
“We know there’s still more to do,” Bell told me. “We’re going to take some losses, there’s going to be times when we don’t get the outcome that we want, but I think we have to measure success by all of the families that we are helping and all of the individuals that we are helping that would otherwise have seen the inside of a jail.”
Changes like these, in St. Louis and elsewhere, were largely made possible after the Ferguson protests exposed the ways in which prosecutorial practices drive mass incarceration and encourage the kind of aggressive policing that too often results in police violence — a dynamic that was laid bare in a scathing Justice Department review of St. Louis County’s courts and police departments.
But if some prosecutors elected since then have made strides in curtailing incarceration by declining to prosecute certain offenses or offering alternatives to jail, the other half of what voters hoped they would do — hold police accountable — has proven more arduous.
Photo: Jeff Roberson/AP
As The Intercept has reported, police unions have fiercely fought the efforts of reformist prosecutors’ efforts, perhaps nowhere more than in St. Louis city , Bell’s next-door jurisdiction. But Bell’s decision not to charge Wilson also reveals a reality about police accountability that advocates are coming to terms with: that the law itself is usually on the side of police.
“This case also exposes the limits of the law,” Bell said at the press conference.
“There are a lot of people who see me, and they think, well, now we can do whatever we want, even in these tough cases, we can just do whatever. And obviously that’s just not the case,” he told me later. “I think what makes a progressive prosecutor is that we understand that we have more tools in the tool belt than just incarceration.”
Bell warned that cutting corners was not only unethical but risked backfiring. “Oftentimes, when we don’t follow the law, Black and brown and poor people tend to be on the business end of those abuses,” he said. “We can’t change that because it’s a defendant that we don’t like. We have to be consistent, that’s what law and justice is about.”
In fact, Bell’s decision was criticized both by those who had hoped for a different outcome and those who thought reopening a settled case was a political move. Bell did little to hide that he had hoped to be able to bring charges, earning him accusations of seeking not the truth so much as what he “wanted the truth to be.”
“I won’t go so far as to say this is definitely what I wanted to do,” Bell told me. “At the end of the day, we have to follow the facts, but wanting to bring some type of closure to a family who has lost a loved one tragically — of course that’s something that we endeavor to do and want to do, on an emotional level.”
Read Our Complete Coverage Protests for Black Lives
The limits of the law in guaranteeing justice to the victims of police violence are a reality across the country and particularly in Missouri, Bell noted, where there is a lower standard for proving self-defense and the burden is on prosecutors to disprove a defendant’s self-defense claim. Missouri also doesn’t require an officer to stop chasing a suspect in the event an alleged crime was committed, even if that suspect no longer poses a threat. “So even if the officer is no longer in danger, or the community is not in danger, the officer is still allowed to chase that individual, even when it’s not safe to do so,” said Bell, declining to discuss the specifics of how this provision related to the events leading to Brown’s killing. “There is a reasonable nuance that could be added to the law that would disincentivize officers from chasing when it’s not safe. … Where there’s no longer a threat, you could just simply wait for backup.”
But critics argued that if the laws are the problem, Bell could have made a bolder case that they should be changed.
“I do agree with him that there are laws on the books that really make it difficult to find police to be accountable in most places, and especially in Missouri,” said Hansford, the activist and law professor. “But he needs to do a better job of speaking out against that instead of just throwing his hands up.”
“Being a prosecutor is a political job,” Hansford added. “They do have the ability to do more; it’s not just staying neutral, it’s not just following the law, it’s not something that’s just a mechanical job, because if so, why would they need to have elected prosecutors? They have the power to be more progressive.”
Criminal charges against police officers who have killed unarmed people have remained extremely rare even as an increasing number of incidents have been caught on video. Where prosecutors have pressed charges against officers — as Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby did after Freddie Gray’s death in custody in 2015 — the resulting trials have exposed just how difficult it is for police to be held criminally accountable for their conduct. In Gray’s case, one trial ended in a mistrial, three officers were acquitted, and prosecutors dropped charges against the remaining officers. But losing at trial is not the only risk prosecutors face when they charge police officers with crimes, noted Hansford. “They can lose an election, they can face a lot of political backlash, it’s going to make it more difficult for them to win their cases,” he said. “There’s a lot more at stake for them politically than there is legally.”
Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Recent killings have exposed just how often the law favors law enforcement, and how political the decision to indict can be. In Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, the white officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck for eight minutes, was not charged until four days later, after large protests had spread across the country. But even then, the charges were for third-degree murder and manslaughter, which implied Chauvin did not have the intent to kill Floyd. It took several more days of protests and widespread condemnation for Gov. Tim Walz to transfer the case to the state’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, who ultimately raised the charge to unintentional second-degree murder.
Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old who was shot at least eight times by officers who broke into her apartment while she was asleep in bed, shined a spotlight on the countless legal protections afforded to police. In Taylor’s case, police were executing a “no-knock” warrant in connection to an investigation into two men believed to be selling drugs at a different location. None of the officers were arrested or charged but Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who thought someone was breaking into the apartment and fired in self-defense with his legally licensed gun, was charged with attempted murder of a police officer. The charge against Walker was ultimately dismissed in May after mass protests and public pressure. While legal experts have argued that the officers could be charged under Kentucky law, the legal protections afforded to law enforcement in the state have so far shielded them from accountability.
“I wish everyone received this kind of care and consideration and due process before charges and pretrial caging.”
Taylor’s case has also renewed scrutiny of “qualified immunity,” a civil doctrine that protects law enforcement from accountability beyond criminal prosecution even in cases where there is no question that officers used excessive force.
This summer, as calls for justice for Taylor grew louder, Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Justin Amash introduced legislation to end qualified immunity, followed by Sens. Edward Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, and state-level battles to limit the practice have intensified amid a wave of police reforms prompted by the ongoing protests.
But the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Wisconsin man who was left paralyzed from the waist down after police shot him in the back multiple times in front of his children, once again exposed the protections officers are regularly afforded. As public defender and justice advocate Scott Hechinger noted, the Wisconsin Department of Justice lays out significant due process for an attempted murder committed by police, including a 30-day investigation — even though in Blake’s case, the incident was clearly caught on camera. Most defendants accused of similar crimes are never afforded such care, even when less evidence is available.
“Anyone else would already be caged, pretrial, facing decades,” wrote Hechinger, who argued not for swifter action against officers but for the same protections to be afforded to everyone else. “To be clear: I wish everyone received this kind of care and consideration and due process before charges and pretrial caging.”
“There are real limitations to our justice system. It’s not designed to get justice for Black folks. It’s not designed to hold police officers accountable,” said Roberts, of Color of Change. “When we elect someone, even if they have the best of intentions, it’s limited how much change they can bring,”
Rather than focus on prosecutorial races alone, he added, advocates were now taking on the broader system, focusing on judicial elections, law enforcement unions, and efforts to defund police and pass better laws.
“There’s a big focus on transforming the system to a place beyond the point where we can only hold someone accountable after the fact to a point where these injustices are less likely to happen,” Roberts said. “These things go in tandem: The more we can change some of these laws that make it hard to hold police accountable, the more we can limit the size and scope of policing, the more some of these reform-oriented prosecutors will be able to use the power that they do have.”
Justice in the Time of Abolition
If in many ways the calls for justice following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have echoed those that followed the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, the conversation, on the streets and in organizing spaces, has also fundamentally changed since the Ferguson protests.
Even as they continue to propel the movement to elect progressive prosecutors, many critics of police now understand it as an inevitably limited effort that should exist only in connection to a broader, bolder vision for justice. People are still asking for justice for Floyd and Brown, but they are also asking for the defunding of police and the closing of jails, like St. Louis city’s “workhouse.”
“After the Ferguson protests, we really walked away with very little structural change at all,” said Elzie, the Ferguson activist. “I hope in the next six years we will have something to show for all this work.”
Photo: Robert Cohen, Pool/St. Louis Post Dispatch/AP
There is also growing recognition that movements like those to elect progressive prosecutors were just a first step, and that even where they succeeded, those efforts remain a work in progress. “There were a number of progressive prosecutors who were elected, and it’s a very important thing to go back and revisit, ‘What did you guys actually do?’” noted Hansford.
“The job of the prosecutor is still to lock people up, and now people on the ground are abolitionists, more so than they were a few years ago,” he added. “So the job of getting involved in prosecutorial electoral politics is always a sort of compromise.”
There seemed to be a paradox, Hansford conceded, in the fact that people so invested in the elimination of police and prisons would feel so let down by a prosecutor’s decision not to charge someone. “A lot of us are abolitionists now, and here we are, disappointed that there isn’t jail time for somebody,” he said. “It was really one of the things that kept me from being an abolitionist for the longest time: the desire to see Darren Wilson go to jail.”
But the confirmation that Wilson would face no legal consequences for killing Brown could still serve as a prompt to imagine a kind of justice larger than that allowed for within the limits of a flawed system.
“At the beginning of the protest movement, that was the whole point, we knew that they weren’t going to bring charges, so justice for Mike Brown had to look like something else, and we were pushing for reforms, and pushing for all these different things, knowing that it would be hard to get justice for Mike Brown in the sense of Darren Wilson going to jail,” said Hansford. “I think the same tension is still there: Are there other ways to get some sort of justice, to honor his memory, besides a prosecution?”


theintercept--2020-08-27--Senior U.S. Intelligence Official Died by Suicide in June

As NIO for Military Issues , Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community , and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council , which is responsible for producing the intelligence community ’ s most important analytical reports that go to the president and other top policymakers .
Soon after his death , an FBI liaison to the CIA entered Schinella ’ s house and removed his passports , his secure phone , and searched through his belongings , according to his wife , Sara Corcoran , a Washington journalist .
A CIA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Anthony Schinella , 52 , the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues , shot himself on June 14 in the front yard of his Arlington home .
A Virginia medical examiner ’ s report lists Schinella ’ s cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head .
His wife , who had just married him weeks earlier , told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway , trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide .
At the time of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retirement .
One of the nation ’ s highest-ranking intelligence officials died by suicide at his home in the Washington , D.C. , area in June , but the U.S. intelligence community has remained publicly silent about the incident even as the Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a secret investigation of his death .
The National Intelligence Council is now under the control of the Director of National Intelligence , and has recently gained greater public prominence as its analytical work has been caught up in political controversies surrounding the Trump administration , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over intelligence reports about Russian bounties to kill American troops .
On June 26 , the New York Times reported that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan , and President Donald Trump quickly faced criticism for having failed to do anything in response to protect American troops .
Within days , the National Intelligence Council produced a memo that claimed that the intelligence about the bounties wasn ’ t conclusive .
While the memo was not made public , it was quickly picked up in the press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raising doubts about the original news story about the Russian bounties .
The NIC memo appears to have been generated at the urging of John Ratcliffe , the former Republican Texas congressman and Trump supporter who became director of national intelligence in May .
But at the time that the memo became public through press reports , there was no mention of the fact that the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues — the one member of the NIC who should have had the most input into the analysis concerning military operations in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier .
In fact , Schinella was considered an expert on the Taliban and its military capabilities .
Though he was an analyst , Schinella had deployed to four different war zones during his career , his wife said .
A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a graduate degree from Harvard ’ s Kennedy School of Government , Schinella had spent much of his career in the CIA before joining the National Intelligence Council .
In 2019 , the Brookings Institute , a Washington think tank , published a book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” a study of the limits of the uses of air power in modern war .
Tim Kilbourn , a friend and former colleague of Schinella , described him in an interview as an “ American patriot , ” and said that his end was a “ tragedy , ” but declined to comment further .
The Arlington County , Va. police report on the incident was not immediately available .
Ashley Savage , a spokesperson for the Arlington County Police Department , said the department ’ s investigation of the Schinella @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arlington police notified the CIA about Schinella ’ s death , and that the Arlington police provided assistance to the CIA .
“ We will defer any questions related to the CIA investigation to their agency , ” she added .
After his death , Schinella ’ s wife discovered a large collection of bondage and S & M gear that had been hidden in his house , along with 24 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition .
His wife said that one of Schinella ’ s CIA colleagues contacted her recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation into Schinella ’ s death , but didn ’ t provide her with any details .
Schinella had two children from a previous marriage .

One of the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence officials died by suicide at his home in the Washington, D.C., area in June, but the U.S. intelligence community has remained publicly silent about the incident even as the CIA has conducted a secret investigation of his death.
Anthony Schinella, 52, the national intelligence officer for military issues, shot himself on June 14 in the front yard of his Arlington home. A Virginia medical examiner’s report lists Schinella’s cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. His wife, who had just married him weeks earlier, told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway, trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide. At the time of his suicide, Schinella was weeks away from retirement.
Soon after his death, an FBI liaison to the CIA entered Schinella’s house and removed his passports, his secure phone, and searched through his belongings, according to his wife, Sara Corcoran, a Washington journalist. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
As NIO for military issues, Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the intelligence community’s most important analytical reports that go to the president and other top policymakers.
The National Intelligence Council is now under the control of the Director of National Intelligence, and has recently gained greater public prominence as its analytical work has been caught up in political controversies surrounding the Trump administration, including this summer’s public firestorm over intelligence reports about Russian bounties to kill American troops.
On June 26, the New York Times reported that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, and President Donald Trump quickly faced criticism for having failed to do anything in response to protect American troops. Within days, the National Intelligence Council produced a memo that claimed that the intelligence about the bounties wasn’t conclusive. While the memo was not made public, it was quickly picked up in the press and seemed designed to placate Trump by raising doubts about the original news story about the Russian bounties. The NIC memo appears to have been generated at the urging of John Ratcliffe, the former Republican Texas congressman and Trump supporter who became director of national intelligence in May.
But at the time that the memo became public through press reports, there was no mention of the fact that the national intelligence officer for military issues — the one member of the NIC who should have had the most input into the analysis concerning military operations in Afghanistan — had killed himself just days earlier. In fact, Schinella was considered an expert on the Taliban and its military capabilities. Though he was an analyst, Schinella had deployed to four different war zones during his career, his wife said.
A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a graduate degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Schinella had spent much of his career in the CIA before joining the National Intelligence Council. In 2019, the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, published a book by Schinella entitled “Bombs Without Boots,” a study of the limits of the uses of air power in modern war.
Tim Kilbourn, a friend and former colleague of Schinella, described him in an interview as an “American patriot,” and said that his end was a “tragedy,” but declined to comment further. The Arlington County, Virginia, police report on the incident was not immediately available.
Ashley Savage, a spokesperson for the Arlington County Police Department, said the department’s investigation of the Schinella case remains open. She said the Arlington police notified the CIA about Schinella’s death, and that the Arlington police provided assistance to the CIA. “We will defer any questions related to the CIA investigation to their agency,” she added.
After his death, Schinella’s wife discovered a large collection of bondage and S&M gear that had been hidden in his house, along with 24 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. His wife said that one of Schinella’s CIA colleagues contacted her recently and said the CIA has completed an investigation into Schinella’s death, but didn’t provide her with any details.
Schinella had two children from a previous marriage.


theintercept--2020-08-26--GOP Lawmakers Asked Trump for Low Wage, Migrant Worker Visas

But the Georgia Republican has sung a different tune in private messages to the Trump administration .
The lawmaker contacted the Department of Homeland Security and Labor Department in February , urging officials to increase the flow of visas offered to temporary migrant workers to be employed in low wage , nonagricultural jobs .
Sen. David Perdue has long argued that “ strained working-class Americans ” face an uneven playing field as they are forced to compete with “ a steady supply of cheap , unskilled ” immigrant labor .
“ I am writing to request that you exercise authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , citing the statute that governs foreign work visas , “ to increase the numerical limitation on H-2B visas in order to provide relief to American businesses.
” Despite increasing campaign rhetoric by leading Republicans about the downward impact on wages posed by some forms of immigration , many lawmakers are quietly helping business interests lobby for greater access to a pool of low-wage foreign workers .
The Intercept , through a records request , obtained a number of recent requests by GOP lawmakers to the Trump administration .
The legislative letters echo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of available H-2B visas for employers to bring in migrant workers .
North Carolina Republican Sens .
Thom Tillis and Richard Burr , along with the GOP House delegation from North Carolina , requested that the administration “ expeditiously release all 64,716 H-2B visas .
House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney , R-Wyo.
, wrote “ on behalf of business ” that her state needed emergency “ H-2B cap relief.
” Rep. Kenny Marchant , R-Texas , and Rep .
Rob Wittman , R-Va. , wrote similar letters earlier this year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responded to a request for comment .
The letters came a time of increasing political pressure to bring cheap labor into the country .
The Wall Street Journal reported on a broad bipartisan effort in January to increase the number of H-2B visas available for employers .
Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Mark Warner , D-Va. , and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema , D-Ariz. , signed onto the push .
After these letters were sent and following a coalition lobbying effort by employers in the seafood , landscaping , construction , and food services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ additional seasonal work visas in March , bringing the total available this year to 101,000. Business interests also won expedited approval of H-2B visas .
The State Department declared that the program is “ essential to the economy ” and waived in-person interviews for applicants .
But the administration soon changed course , freezing the the flow of new visas as the economy deteriorated in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic .
The H-2B program has come under fire from organized labor and migrant worker civil rights organizations for rampant human rights violations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have reported sexual violence , imprisonment , physical abuse , starvation , wage theft , and conditions akin to slavery .
Though the visa program is required to pay prevailing wages , employers routinely pay wages lower than those offered to Americans working the same jobs .
Not long ago , Perdue openly and sharply criticized migrant worker visas as an exploitative trap that harmed both American wages and foreign migrant workers .
In 2017 , Perdue cosigned a letter with Sens .
Chuck Grassley , R-Iowa ; Richard Durbin , D-Ill. ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rampant abuses in the H-2B program .
The lawmakers noted in the letter that “ a large body of evidence suggests that our increasing reliance on the H-2B program cuts wages , pushes American workers out of jobs , and may , in some cases , discourage them from ever applying again .
Indiscriminate increases in the number of H-2B workers will only exacerbate these problems.
” The letter noted that some employers “ take advantage of H-2B workers ’ unique vulnerabilities , which can result in human trafficking and labor abuse.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found that “ the way H-2 visas shackle workers to a single employer leaves them almost no leverage to demand better treatment.
” The H-2B program is designed to only be available when businesses can not find Americans willing to take on jobs .
But a growing body of research shows the application process can be gamed and that many employers in fact use H-2B to drag down wages for American workers .
Michael Cunningham , a former official with the Texas State Building and Construction Trades Council , has documented a number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I have seen the misuse of construction and production occupations that adversely affects wages paid to guest workers , ” wrote Cunningham in an email to The Intercept .
“ This is the way the employers get the cheapest wage possible that really was created to deter American workers from applying for these jobs.
” Cunningham described systemic problems that allow multibillion-dollar businesses to easily game the system for H-2B visas for work that could be offered to Americans .
“ Also concerning is the lack of enforcement by the Department of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They don ’ t have enough boots on the ground to monitor and enforce each employer to make sure they are in compliance.
” The migrant visa program has only grown in recent years .
The Obama administration sharply lowered the number of H-2B visas provided to U.S. employers , below record highs in 2007 and 2008 during the previous administration .
But the Trump administration has reversed that trend , increasingly expanding the number of visas over the last four years .
Advocates for business interests in Congress have agitated to raise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming close in 2018 to expanding the program from 66,000 to 114,000 visas .
The administration has dutifully offered employers waivers to increase the number of H-2B beyond the annual cap .
But the growing economic crisis has forced a shift in the administration ’ s response .
In June , President Donald Trump suspended a range of work visas programs .
The decision was touted as a major intervention into the economy to save American jobs at risk during the global coronavirus pandemic .
The executive order , in a deference to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impact H-2B workers already in the country for the 2020 season .

Sen. David Perdue has long argued that “strained working-class Americans” face an uneven playing field as they are forced to compete with “a steady supply of cheap, unskilled” immigrant labor.
But the Georgia Republican has sung a different tune in private messages to the Trump administration. The lawmaker contacted the Department of Homeland Security and Labor Department in February, urging officials to increase the flow of visas offered to temporary migrant workers to be employed in low wage, nonagricultural jobs.
“I am writing to request that you exercise authority delegated to you,” wrote Perdue, citing the statute that governs foreign work visas, “to increase the numerical limitation on H-2B visas in order to provide relief to American businesses.”
Despite increasing campaign rhetoric by leading Republicans about the downward impact on wages posed by some forms of immigration, many lawmakers are quietly helping business interests lobby for greater access to a pool of low-wage foreign workers.
The Intercept, through a records request, obtained a number of recent requests by GOP lawmakers to the Trump administration. The legislative letters echo business demands that the government raise the number of available H-2B visas for employers to bring in migrant workers.
North Carolina Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, along with the GOP House delegation from North Carolina, requested that the administration “expeditiously release all 64,716 H-2B visas. House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wrote “on behalf of business” that her state needed emergency “H-2B cap relief.” Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., wrote similar letters earlier this year. None of the lawmakers’ offices responded to a request for comment.
The letters came a time of increasing political pressure to bring cheap labor into the country. The Wall Street Journal reported on a broad bipartisan effort in January to increase the number of H-2B visas available for employers. Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., signed onto the push.
After these letters were sent and following a coalition lobbying effort by employers in the seafood, landscaping, construction, and food services industries, the Trump administration approved 35,000 additional seasonal work visas in March, bringing the total available this year to 101,000. Business interests also won expedited approval of H-2B visas. The State Department declared that the program is “essential to the economy” and waived in-person interviews for applicants. But the administration soon changed course, freezing the the flow of new visas as the economy deteriorated in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The H-2B program has come under fire from organized labor and migrant worker civil rights organizations for rampant human rights violations. Across numerous workplaces, guest workers have reported sexual violence, imprisonment, physical abuse, starvation, wage theft, and conditions akin to slavery. Though the visa program is required to pay prevailing wages, employers routinely pay wages lower than those offered to Americans working the same jobs.
Not long ago, Perdue openly and sharply criticized migrant worker visas as an exploitative trap that harmed both American wages and foreign migrant workers. In 2017, Perdue cosigned a letter with Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Richard Durbin, D-Ill.; and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., decrying rampant abuses in the H-2B program.
The lawmakers noted in the letter that “a large body of evidence suggests that our increasing reliance on the H-2B program cuts wages, pushes American workers out of jobs, and may, in some cases, discourage them from ever applying again. Indiscriminate increases in the number of H-2B workers will only exacerbate these problems.”
The letter noted that some employers “take advantage of H-2B workers’ unique vulnerabilities, which can result in human trafficking and labor abuse.” One labor investigator the Perdue letter cited found that “the way H-2 visas shackle workers to a single employer leaves them almost no leverage to demand better treatment.”
The H-2B program is designed to only be available when businesses cannot find Americans willing to take on jobs. But a growing body of research shows the application process can be gamed and that many employers in fact use H-2B to drag down wages for American workers.
Michael Cunningham, a former official with the Texas State Building and Construction Trades Council, has documented a number of abuses in the H-2B program.
“I have seen the misuse of construction and production occupations that adversely affects wages paid to guest workers,” wrote Cunningham in an email to The Intercept. “This is the way the employers get the cheapest wage possible that really was created to deter American workers from applying for these jobs.”
Cunningham described systemic problems that allow multibillion-dollar businesses to easily game the system for H-2B visas for work that could be offered to Americans. “Also concerning is the lack of enforcement by the Department of Labor,” wrote Cunningham. “They don’t have enough boots on the ground to monitor and enforce each employer to make sure they are in compliance.”
The migrant visa program has only grown in recent years. The Obama administration sharply lowered the number of H-2B visas provided to U.S. employers, below record highs in 2007 and 2008 during the previous administration. But the Trump administration has reversed that trend, increasingly expanding the number of visas over the last four years.
Advocates for business interests in Congress have agitated to raise the statutory cap on H-2B visas, coming close in 2018 to expanding the program from 66,000 to 114,000 visas. The administration has dutifully offered employers waivers to increase the number of H-2B beyond the annual cap.
But the growing economic crisis has forced a shift in the administration’s response. In June, President Donald Trump suspended a range of work visas programs. The decision was touted as a major intervention into the economy to save American jobs at risk during the global coronavirus pandemic. The executive order, in a deference to large employers, however, did not impact H-2B workers already in the country for the 2020 season.


theintercept--2020-08-26--The Troubling History — and Unfinished Work — of the Suffragists

the 19th Amendment ’ s ratification , which granted female citizens the right to vote in 1920 , will be marked with monuments .
On August 26 , 100 years to the day since women ’ s suffrage went into legal effect , a statue will be unveiled in Central Park depicting three prominent suffragists : Susan B. Anthony , Sojourner Truth , and Elizabeth Cady Stanton .
The monument will be the first in the park to feature nonfictional women .
Meanwhile , President Donald Trump , a putrid misogynist and statue fetishist , has thrown his support behind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffragists in Washington , D.C .
In one sense , at a moment of reckoning around which statues and monuments get to occupy public space , stone edifications of women who struggled for suffrage are a welcome and overdue addition to a terrain too often held by desecration-worthy slavers and colonizers .
Both the New York and D.C. sculptures feature Black suffragists , like Truth , alongside white women , like Anthony and Stanton , who have been accorded disproportionate credit compared to their nonwhite counterparts .
Yet , the suffragist monuments , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reduce a complex and troubling history plagued by racism .
It is a problem with the practice of monumentalization more broadly , that statues suggest an idea of finished and settled history — indeed , narratives set in stone .
This is no time to consider the fight for universal suffrage as a closed history , worthy of uncomplicated commemoration .
Trump ’ s ever-growing efforts toward election sabotage are just the tip of the iceberg in a nation that systematically disenfranchises millions along indisputably racist lines .
It ’ s no surprise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-intentioned , to confine the struggle for voting rights to commemorable history .
As Melissa Gira Grant wrote in a recent essay , “ The women who remain locked out of the franchise are the fractured legacy of a fractured movement.
” Over 6 million people in the U.S. are currently disenfranchised due to laws relating to current or former felony convictions ; that ’ s 1 in 40 adults .
Given the vicious racism of our carceral system , the racial bent of disenfranchisement is profound : One in 13 Black Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a 2016 study by the Sentencing Project .
This disenfranchisement is further compounded by voter intimidation and laws requiring voter ID ( which disproportionately shut out poor Black , Indigenous , and other people of color , as well as trans individuals ) .
The problem is not specific to women in these communities , but we are nonetheless talking about millions of women denied the vote , a century after their right to it was constitutionally affirmed .
One could argue that the centenary commemorations are a reminder that the historic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The promise of the 19th Amendment remains worthy and yet to be realized .
This would be American mythmaking par excellence ; the sort that lionizes the universalist claims of the nation ’ s founding documents , but forgets , for example , that the Declaration of Independence described Indigenous people as “ merciless Indian savages.
” A state built on stolen land , by the labor of people owned as property , can not at the same time be a nation founded on the principles of universal rights .
It is high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle for equality and justice as the fulfillment of the great American promise .
Equally , for many prominent white , middle-class suffragists , the promise of the 19th Amendment was never intended toward universal suffrage .
“ Women ’ s suffrage , ” for them , meant middle-class white women ’ s suffrage by design .
To a major extent , this includes Anthony and Stanton , whose tome on the movement , “ The History of Women ’ s Suffrage , ” all but erases the work of Black women like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did correspond and , at times , worked in concert .
Yet Stanton and Anthony were unambiguous with their wish for an “ educated ” female franchise — an ostensibly race-neutral framework that effectively excluded most poor , Black women .
Stanton particularly turned to explicit racist epithets in her argument that the women ’ s vote should come before that of Black men .
As Brent Staples noted two years ago in the New York Times , Stanton “ embraced fairness in the abstract while publicly enunciating bigoted views of African-American men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ and incipient rapists in the period just after the war.
” The decision to sit Stanton and Anthony next to Truth , a formerly enslaved abolitionist , reflects the fact that the three had worked together but ignores their split over Stanton and Anthony ’ s opposition to the 15th Amendment .
“ I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman , ” Anthony famously proclaimed .
The planned D.C. monument will also feature , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Wells , a journalist and anti-lynching campaigner , who refused to march at the back of a racially segregated march for suffrage in 1913 .
The racism that pervaded the suffrage movement can not be excused by virtue of it taking place in a different era .
Abolitionist suffragists like Truth , Wells , and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper were in the struggle at the time and emphatic that the battle for liberation must be intersectional .
It was a choice , and a shameful one , for white suffragists to align @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tacitly ; the 53 percent of white women voters who cast their ballot for Trump in 2016 took part in that same indefensible legacy .
Any commemorations of the 19th Amendment ’ s centenary must reckon with this unbroken history of white women ’ s racism .
It is of note that original plans for the Central Park monument featured only statues of Anthony and Stanton , alongside a scroll containing quotations from more than 20 other suffragists , including Truth .
After some high-profile criticism , Truth was added as a figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraught antagonisms between those women ’ s political visions .
“ You can ’ t ask one statue to meet all the desires of the people who have waited so long for recognition , ” said Pam Elam , the president of Monumental Women , the fund partly behind the statue , in defense of its original design .
She ’ s right .
But what women engaged in antiracist , anti-patriarchal struggle , in the legacy of Truth and Wells , also know is that waiting for recognition from a white supremacist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In this way , the thousands of women who have taken to the streets this summer to fight for Black lives have honored the memory of abolitionist suffragists more than any statue could .

Photo: Ken Florey Suffrage Collection/Gado/Getty Images
The centenary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification, which granted female citizens the right to vote in 1920, will be marked with monuments. On August 26, 100 years to the day since women’s suffrage went into legal effect, a statue will be unveiled in Central Park depicting three prominent suffragists: Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The monument will be the first in the park to feature nonfictional women. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, a putrid misogynist and statue fetishist, has thrown his support behind a bill to create a monument to suffragists in Washington, D.C.
In one sense, at a moment of reckoning around which statues and monuments get to occupy public space, stone edifications of women who struggled for suffrage are a welcome and overdue addition to a terrain too often held by desecration-worthy slavers and colonizers. Both the New York and D.C. sculptures feature Black suffragists, like Truth, alongside white women, like Anthony and Stanton, who have been accorded disproportionate credit compared to their nonwhite counterparts. Yet, the suffragist monuments, like so many statues, obfuscate and reduce a complex and troubling history plagued by racism.
It is a problem with the practice of monumentalization more broadly, that statues suggest an idea of finished and settled history — indeed, narratives set in stone. This is no time to consider the fight for universal suffrage as a closed history, worthy of uncomplicated commemoration. Trump’s ever-growing efforts toward election sabotage are just the tip of the iceberg in a nation that systematically disenfranchises millions along indisputably racist lines. It’s no surprise that Trump would support efforts, however well-intentioned, to confine the struggle for voting rights to commemorable history.
As Melissa Gira Grant wrote in a recent essay, “The women who remain locked out of the franchise are the fractured legacy of a fractured movement.”
Over 6 million people in the U.S. are currently disenfranchised due to laws relating to current or former felony convictions; that’s 1 in 40 adults. Given the vicious racism of our carceral system, the racial bent of disenfranchisement is profound: One in 13 Black Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, according to a 2016 study by the Sentencing Project. This disenfranchisement is further compounded by voter intimidation and laws requiring voter ID (which disproportionately shut out poor Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, as well as trans individuals). The problem is not specific to women in these communities, but we are nonetheless talking about millions of women denied the vote, a century after their right to it was constitutionally affirmed.
Stanton and Anthony were unambiguous with their wish for an “educated” female franchise — an ostensibly race-neutral framework that effectively excluded most poor, Black women.
One could argue that the centenary commemorations are a reminder that the historic struggle for universal suffrage goes on: The promise of the 19th Amendment remains worthy and yet to be realized. This would be American mythmaking par excellence; the sort that lionizes the universalist claims of the nation’s founding documents, but forgets, for example, that the Declaration of Independence described Indigenous people as “merciless Indian savages.” A state built on stolen land, by the labor of people owned as property, cannot at the same time be a nation founded on the principles of universal rights. It is high time we reject narratives that claim the struggle for equality and justice as the fulfillment of the great American promise. Equally, for many prominent white, middle-class suffragists, the promise of the 19th Amendment was never intended toward universal suffrage. “Women’s suffrage,” for them, meant middle-class white women’s suffrage by design. To a major extent, this includes Anthony and Stanton, whose tome on the movement, “The History of Women’s Suffrage,” all but erases the work of Black women like Truth, even though the three women did correspond and, at times, worked in concert.
Yet Stanton and Anthony were unambiguous with their wish for an “educated” female franchise — an ostensibly race-neutral framework that effectively excluded most poor, Black women. Stanton particularly turned to explicit racist epithets in her argument that the women’s vote should come before that of Black men. As Brent Staples noted two years ago in the New York Times, Stanton “embraced fairness in the abstract while publicly enunciating bigoted views of African-American men, whom she characterized as ‘Sambos’ and incipient rapists in the period just after the war.” The decision to sit Stanton and Anthony next to Truth, a formerly enslaved abolitionist, reflects the fact that the three had worked together but ignores their split over Stanton and Anthony’s opposition to the 15th Amendment. “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman,” Anthony famously proclaimed. The planned D.C. monument will also feature, among other renowned suffragists, Ida B. Wells, a journalist and anti-lynching campaigner, who refused to march at the back of a racially segregated march for suffrage in 1913.
The racism that pervaded the suffrage movement cannot be excused by virtue of it taking place in a different era. Abolitionist suffragists like Truth, Wells, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper were in the struggle at the time and emphatic that the battle for liberation must be intersectional. It was a choice, and a shameful one, for white suffragists to align with white supremacy, both explicitly and tacitly; the 53 percent of white women voters who cast their ballot for Trump in 2016 took part in that same indefensible legacy. Any commemorations of the 19th Amendment’s centenary must reckon with this unbroken history of white women’s racism. It is of note that original plans for the Central Park monument featured only statues of Anthony and Stanton, alongside a scroll containing quotations from more than 20 other suffragists, including Truth. After some high-profile criticism, Truth was added as a figure. Unfeatured, though, are the fraught antagonisms between those women’s political visions.
“You can’t ask one statue to meet all the desires of the people who have waited so long for recognition,” said Pam Elam, the president of Monumental Women, the fund partly behind the statue, in defense of its original design. She’s right. But what women engaged in antiracist, anti-patriarchal struggle, in the legacy of Truth and Wells, also know is that waiting for recognition from a white supremacist state is a losing strategy indeed. In this way, the thousands of women who have taken to the streets this summer to fight for Black lives have honored the memory of abolitionist suffragists more than any statue could.


theintercept--2020-08-26--Aaron Coleman's Ex-Girlfriend Says He Slapped and Choked Her in the Past Year

first met Aaron Coleman last November , she was impressed by his drive and his passion for a better world .
“ I had never been with somebody who seemed so focused on a career , and how he wanted to change the country .
He seemed so much more mature than anybody I ’ d ever been with , ” Passow , who is 21 years old , told The Intercept .
Early in their relationship , he told her about his troubled childhood , confessing to her that he had blackmailed a girl in middle school over nude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a restaurant in Topeka , Kansas , said she believed that he had grown and changed , that the behavior was behind him — that he deserved a second chance .
Coleman ’ s story touched off a national debate after his recent upset victory in a Democratic primary in a Kansas state House district and a story by the New York Times , which reported that the 19-year-old winner , when he was 12 , had blackmailed a classmate .
After obtaining a nude photo of her , he demanded more and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one he had if she didn ’ t comply with his demand .
She refused , and he circulated the photo .
Coleman admitted to the offense , adding that he had been cruel to other girls over the next two years .
He told The Intercept ’ s Glenn Greenwald that he hoped by acknowledging what he had done , and condemning it , he might be able to positively influence other angry boys .
The girls that he had hurt , he said , would have to live with that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d have to live with the knowledge of what he ’ d done .
Passow ’ s relationship with Coleman ran into trouble quickly , even as she remained impressed by the drive of the young political candidate , and the two spoke of starting a life together .
According to Passow , one particular incident irreparably broke their relationship .
In a hot tub at an Airbnb in Kansas City , she said , the two were discussing Coleman ’ s interest in a threesome on December 27 , 2019 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing , but maybe as a birthday present she ’ d break up with him for just one day and he could have one .
Coleman didn ’ t like the joke , she recalled .
“ He sat there for a few seconds , then he jumped on top of me , put his hands around my throat and started squeezing , and slapped me three times , and said , ‘ I don ’ t know where the fuck you think you ’ re going , ’ ” Passow recalled and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Next , Passow said , Coleman demanded that she apologize for threatening to break up with him , stormed out of the hot tub , and went to the car .
She didn ’ t want to lose him , she said , and texted him an apology .
He said he was only warming up the car .
“ I ’ m sorry baby I failed your shit test , ” he texted back .
The texts , reviewed by The Intercept , were sent to a number associated with Coleman ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she told her childhood friend about the incident a few days later .
The friend agreed to speak as long as she could remain anonymous and relayed many of the same stories to The Intercept without being prompted , including that Passow told her on New Year ’ s Eve about being slapped and choked by Coleman in Kansas City .
That night , the two were fighting again , and Coleman told Passow over text that she should kill herself .
“ Air out the clip into your head , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mag dump yourself .
Do that midnight tonight .
If I never hear from you again then I ’ ll know what happened.
” In January , Passow told The Intercept , she sent Coleman a long letter breaking up with him , unable to move past the assault .
“ I just didn ’ t feel the same about him anymore , ” she said .
Multiple attempts to reach Coleman through a variety of channels were unsuccessful .
After initially announcing that he was withdrawing from the race , Coleman on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he would remain on the ballot for the general election , campaign door to door , and leave the question to voters .
When the New York Times story ran last week , some believed that if Coleman had changed and grown , he deserved his equal place in society .
Others argued that his crime , regardless of his age , was so heinous that he ought to be barred from public life , at least until he made meaningful amends .
Still others argued that what he did in middle school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of who he is today given his relative youth — still just 19 years old — but that what mattered was how he has comported himself as an adult .
Ultimately , a strong contingent of progressive commentators determined that anything less than a swift condemnation of Coleman was rooted in misogyny .
Passow said that on Sunday night , Coleman had called her to say he was staying in the race , asking what he could do to make amends .
She refused to engage , telling him she would speak publicly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I deeply apologize for any mistakes I might have made .
I know I wasn ’ t a perfect boyfriend , ” he wrote .
“ But I ’ m not dropping out of the race .
I ’ ve been honest with the public about everything that I ’ ve done , if you want to accuse me of something , you ’ re welcome to do that , and I ’ ll be honest then as well .
No one is perfect .
I ’ m not gon na @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to tell your story to the papers or whoever , but I ’ m gon na make sure that story is told truthfully.
” When Coleman had first told her about his troubled and impoverished childhood and the harm he ’ d caused , Passow hoped it was behind him .
“ At the time , I did think he wasn ’ t that person anymore , ” she said .
“ He ’ s not changed ; this isn ’ t in his past .
I just want people to know he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he is , and if you still want to vote for somebody who ’ s like that , I guess that ’ s your prerogative .
”

When Taylor Passow first met Aaron Coleman last November, she was impressed by his drive and his passion for a better world. “I had never been with somebody who seemed so focused on a career, and how he wanted to change the country. He seemed so much more mature than anybody I’d ever been with,” Passow, who is 21 years old, told The Intercept.
Early in their relationship, he told her about his troubled childhood, confessing to her that he had blackmailed a girl in middle school over nude photos. Passow, a host at a restaurant in Topeka, Kansas, said she believed that he had grown and changed, that the behavior was behind him — that he deserved a second chance.
Coleman’s story touched off a national debate after his recent upset victory in a Democratic primary in a Kansas state House district and a story by the New York Times, which reported that the 19-year-old winner, when he was 12, had blackmailed a classmate. After obtaining a nude photo of her, he demanded more and said that he would widely share the one he had if she didn’t comply with his demand. She refused, and he circulated the photo. Coleman admitted to the offense, adding that he had been cruel to other girls over the next two years. He told The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald that he hoped by acknowledging what he had done, and condemning it, he might be able to positively influence other angry boys. The girls that he had hurt, he said, would have to live with that the rest of their lives, and he’d have to live with the knowledge of what he’d done.
Passow’s relationship with Coleman ran into trouble quickly, even as she remained impressed by the drive of the young political candidate, and the two spoke of starting a life together. According to Passow, one particular incident irreparably broke their relationship. In a hot tub at an Airbnb in Kansas City, she said, the two were discussing Coleman’s interest in a threesome on December 27, 2019. Passow said it wasn’t her thing, but maybe as a birthday present she’d break up with him for just one day and he could have one. Coleman didn’t like the joke, she recalled. “He sat there for a few seconds, then he jumped on top of me, put his hands around my throat and started squeezing, and slapped me three times, and said, ‘I don’t know where the fuck you think you’re going,’” Passow recalled and said she pushed him off her.
Next, Passow said, Coleman demanded that she apologize for threatening to break up with him, stormed out of the hot tub, and went to the car. She didn’t want to lose him, she said, and texted him an apology. He said he was only warming up the car. “I’m sorry baby I failed your shit test,” he texted back. The texts, reviewed by The Intercept, were sent to a number associated with Coleman’s campaign finance registration.
Photo: Obtained by The Intercept
Four days later, in text messages with Passow, Coleman disputed her recollection. “You have a funny memory,” he said. “You dumped me and I smacked you and you smacked me and I immediately got up and stormed out of the hot tub.”
Photo: Obtained by The Intercept
Passow said she told her childhood friend about the incident a few days later. The friend agreed to speak as long as she could remain anonymous and relayed many of the same stories to The Intercept without being prompted, including that Passow told her on New Year’s Eve about being slapped and choked by Coleman in Kansas City.
That night, the two were fighting again, and Coleman told Passow over text that she should kill herself. “Air out the clip into your head,” he told her on December 31. “Mag dump yourself. Do that midnight tonight. If I never hear from you again then I’ll know what happened.”
Photo: Obtained by The Intercept
In January, Passow told The Intercept, she sent Coleman a long letter breaking up with him, unable to move past the assault. “I just didn’t feel the same about him anymore,” she said.
Multiple attempts to reach Coleman through a variety of channels were unsuccessful. After initially announcing that he was withdrawing from the race, Coleman on Tuesday morning reversed course, saying that he would remain on the ballot for the general election, campaign door to door, and leave the question to voters. In a statement on Twitter posted after publication, Coleman admitted being “abusive” to his ex-girlfriend but denied choking her. “I know large quantities of alcohol could be affecting both our memories,” he wrote.
When the New York Times story ran last week, some believed that if Coleman had changed and grown, he deserved his equal place in society. Others argued that his crime, regardless of his age, was so heinous that he ought to be barred from public life, at least until he made meaningful amends. Still others argued that what he did in middle school should be factored in to an understanding of who he is today given his relative youth — still just 19 years old — but that what mattered was how he has comported himself as an adult. Ultimately, a strong contingent of progressive commentators determined that anything less than a swift condemnation of Coleman was rooted in misogyny.
Passow said that on Sunday night, Coleman had called her to say he was staying in the race, asking what he could do to make amends. She refused to engage, telling him she would speak publicly, and he followed up by text. “I deeply apologize for any mistakes I might have made. I know I wasn’t a perfect boyfriend,” he wrote. “But I’m not dropping out of the race. I’ve been honest with the public about everything that I’ve done, if you want to accuse me of something, you’re welcome to do that, and I’ll be honest then as well. No one is perfect. I’m not gonna try to stop you if you want to tell your story to the papers or whoever, but I’m gonna make sure that story is told truthfully.”
When Coleman had first told her about his troubled and impoverished childhood and the harm he’d caused, Passow hoped it was behind him. “At the time, I did think he wasn’t that person anymore,” she said. “He’s not changed; this isn’t in his past. I just want people to know he’s not the person he says he is, and if you still want to vote for somebody who’s like that, I guess that’s your prerogative.”
Update: September 8, 2020
The article has been updated to include a statement by Coleman posted on Twitter on September 6.