Police Misconduct Blog

On July 28, a former actor with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (“OSF”) filed a lawsuit against Jackson County and three sheriff’s deputies, alleging excessive use of force when he was placed in a jail cell and pinned to a floor grate and chained by the neck after a minor run-in...

A newly released video reveals Austin police shooting an unarmed man on April 24. Michael Ramos, 42, is seen in the video saying he is unarmed while holding his hands above his head. Police soon open fire and killed him.
The video was released just two days after white, armed protestor...

Since March, California’s prison population has faced the threat of COVID-19, a disease spreading quickly among those living in close quarters. Now, there is an additional potentially deadly menace.
As raging wildfires spread throughout the state, those outside the prison system in...

In March 2019, Stacy Kenny, 33, was shot and killed by a Springfield, Oregon police officer while in her own car. On July 17, 2020, her family was awarded a record-breaking $4.55 million settlement in her death, the largest such settlement in state history. Some verdicts have surpassed this amount,...

In April, a black man smoking a cigarette in his own backyard in Salt Lake City was attacked by a police dog on the officer’s orders. Jeffrey Ryans, 36, heard officer Nickolas Pearce, 39, order him to get on the ground or get bitten. Ryans started to kneel when Pearce kicked his leg and...

George Floyd is dead. Nothing can bring him back. The entire nation was horrified by the 9 minute video clip that showed George dying at the hands of the Minneapolis police. Everyone knows his death was preventable.
Many weeks have passed since Floyd’s death. Most of the protests have...

Philip Garcia, 51, pleaded for someone to help him. At the time, the inmate was in California’s Riverside University Health System Medical Center. The facility treats county jail inmates suffering from serious issues, including psychiatric crisis.
That is precisely what Garcia was...

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) holds more inmates than any other U.S. jail system. Currently, 163,000 inmates are incarcerated at BOP facilities. Relatively few of those prisoners are on Death Row, but the BOP’s inadequate response to COVID-19 has caused its prisons to become death...

As violent protests are rocking the nation (and the world) over the tragic death of George Floyd, a California woman has filed a police brutality lawsuit against the City of San Leandro. She says police “stomped” her after she left the hospital which caused her to miscarry and lose her...

[Updated May 29th] Memorial Day is a day when we honor and mourn our soldiers who died while defending our country, In Minneapolis, it is a day to mourn and honor George Floyd. On Monday Floyd died while being detained by several Minneapolis police officers. Most would say tortured.
Police...