The Stunning Police Violence At Last Year’s Protests

Sonali Kolhatkar speaks with Alex Vitale about the stunning police violence at last year's protests.

As jury selection in the Minneapolis trial of Derek Chauvin has finally finished, the verdict on policing of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests appears to be in. Police Departments in city after city where mass protests against racist police brutality—as symbolized by Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd—were found to have aggressively overreacted. Reports of police responses in New York City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Dallas, Chicago, and more prove the protesters’ point: that police in America are out of control, often escalate violence instead of the opposite, and need to be held accountable. Interestingly, a new report this week found that in those cities where Black Lives Matter protests were strong over the past five years, police also ended up killing 20% fewer people.

Alex Vitale, Professor of Sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. His writings about policing have appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, USA Today, the Nation, and Vice News. He is the author of The End of Policing.

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