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The Marshall Project
Meet the New Generation of Unarmed First Responders in This New Podcast Series
One out of every five people shot and killed by police in the U.S. since 2015 was in the middle of a mental health crisis, according to tracking by The Washington Post. These deaths, along with pressure from activists, have prompted cities across the country to change their approach to emergency calls. Instead of armed police, a new generation of first responders, including EMTs and social workers, are handling 911 calls involving mental illness, addiction or homelessness.
What We Know From Sen. J.D. Vance’s Legislative Action on Criminal Justice Issues
In January, days after a Supreme Court decision authorized the U.S. Border Patrol to remove razor wire installed by the Texas National Guard along the U.S.-Mexico border, Sen. J.D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio, introduced legislation to block federal agents from even tampering with the fencing. Since joining the Senate...
How a Supreme Court Ruling Could Affect a Case Involving Police Abuse of Youth
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters. Amid a Supreme Court term that broadly diminished tools for holding powerful corporations accountable for their actions, one decision could have...
Jackson, Mississippi, Wants Curfew Centers to Cut Crime. Here’s What Other Cities Learned.
After a 17-year-old was charged with the fatal shooting of 14-year-old Eugene Kelly in Jackson, Mississippi’s first murder of 2024, one council member made a familiar demand: Impose a nighttime youth curfew to “stop these kids from becoming killers.”. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba then offered an even stronger...
Crime Rates and the 2024 Election: What You Need to Know
As crime data again becomes a flashpoint in the presidential campaign, experts push for better national statistics. As the 2024 presidential election approaches, crime and safety continue to rank high on voters’ minds. But the two presumptive nominees have offered dramatically different accounts of crime trends, and come to opposite conclusions about whether people are more or less safe than they were four years ago. — The dispute started after President Joe Bidenreleased a statement touting a new quarterly report from the FBI showing dramatic crime rate reductions between 2023 and 2024. Experts say the decline is real, but that the interpretation of the numbers is likely exaggerated.
A Death Row Prisoner’s Parting Interview
On Wednesday evening, Texas prison officials plan to execute Ramiro Gonzales, the 41-year-old who kidnapped, raped and murdered Bridget Townsend when they were both 18. The Marshall Project covered a dramatic turn in Gonzales’ murder case two years ago. A psychiatrist named Edward Gripon — who in 2006 had testified that he had antisocial personality disorder and would always be violent — had changed his mind. Citing Gonzales’ willingness to take responsibility for his crimes, Gripon told us, “If this man’s sentence was changed to life without parole, I don’t think he’d be a problem.”
The New Battle Over an Old Institution: Forced Prison Labor
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters. More than half of U.S. states observed a public holiday this past Wednesday for Juneteenth, a celebration dedicated to the end...
Mississippi Wants to Allow Some Votes From Jails and Prisons. Red Tape May Stop It.
A new state law will allow more people in jails and prisons to cast absentee ballots, but many obstacles remain. A new Mississippi law clarifies that some people held in jail or prison may vote in elections, but widespread confusion and a tangle of paperwork will likely continue to block many of them from casting ballots.
The Minneapolis Cop Who Beat Him Pleaded Guilty. He Still Fears the Department Won’t Change.
MINNEAPOLIS — In his mug shot, Jaleel Stallings is smiling. Not his usual wide, easy grin. The situation was far too serious for that: The 27-year-old truck driver faced attempted murder charges and possibly decades behind bars. And the broken eye socket — where Minneapolis police officers had kneed and punched him over and over — made it painful to move his face. Nevertheless, Stallings smiled. For one thing, he was alive. He was a Black man who shot at the police, and he was still breathing to plead his case. In Minneapolis, just a few days after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, this felt like a minor miracle to him. Stallings was also smiling because he believed that once all the facts were out, he’d be released, and this would feel like a bad dream. Surely the justice system, flawed as it is, would see that this was all just a misunderstanding.
More States Restricting ‘Excited Delirium’ as Cause of Death in Police Custody
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters. Last week, Minnesota became the third state to pass legislation restricting the concept of “excited delirium,” a term frequently used by...
Behind the Black Shield: The History of a Cleveland Institution
How one of the oldest Black policing organizations in the country shaped law enforcement in Cleveland. The Black Shield formed in Cleveland nearly 80 years ago. Initially, Black officers came together to support and protect each other from discrimination and retaliation in the mostly White police department. In the 1970s, the association took that battle to court, fighting for a more fair system of hiring and promoting Black officers and pushing for a police force that reflected the makeup of the city. — The Black Shield has also had outspoken leaders who called out civil rights violations or police brutality. One of those leaders was Vincent Montague, who in 2020 decried racism and police brutality at protests, on panels and in the press. But Montague also had his contradictions, and a history that included shooting a Black man at a traffic stop.Read the story of Montague's rise and fall, told by Marshall Project reporter Wilbert L. Cooper.
Serving Time for Their Abusers’ Crimes
Pat Johnson counted the locks on the apartment door. One. Two. Three. There were too many to undo and escape before Rey Travieso got to her. He’d just killed three people — including an infant. He turned to her, her face covered in tears and snot. “Don’t worry, Pat, I ain’t going to kill you,” she remembers him saying. “You believe me?”
5 Takeaways From Our Series on St. Louis Homicide Investigations
From 2014 through 2020, St. Louis had the highest homicide rate in the country among cities with 250,000 people or more. St. Louis Public Radio and APM Reports spent nearly two and a half years fighting to access public information about the police department’s efforts to solve these killings. Here are five takeaways from our reporting.
They Were in a Mental Health Crisis at a Hospital. This Is How They Landed in Jail.
Kevin Page’s flashbacks come at night: Being strapped to a hospital bed, with a nurse’s hands wrapped around his chin to keep his head from flailing. Feeling like he was suffocating and not knowing where he was, or why. “There were so many hands on me, I just...
Why Some States are Trying to Get People Medicaid Before They Leave Prison
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters. On a reporting trip in Indiana some years ago, I met a man who had shot and killed his 2-year-old daughter...
St. Louis Homicide Cases Often Go Unsolved. Victims’ Families Want Justice.
By Shahla Farzan, Rachel Lippmann and Brian Munoz, St. Louis Public Radio; and Tom Scheck, APM Reports. Alex Rice of St. Louis Public Radio, and APM Reports’ Anika Besst, Claire Keenan-Kurgan and Andy Kruse contributed to this report. There were more than 1,900 people killed in St. Louis between...
As Murders Increased, St. Louis Police Struggled for Resources to Solve Cases
In the first months of 2019, St. Louis leaders were facing a crisis. The city had endured the highest homicide rate in the nation for five straight years. By May, 70 people had already been killed, including a quadruple homicide. The city had budgeted for 100 more officers than were on the job; detectives were scrambling to solve cases. Police would solve only about a third of the homicides that year, according to department records.
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The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.
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