Police Misconduct Blog

Last September, Ricardo Munoz, 27, who suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was shot and killed by Lancaster, Pennsylvania police. His mother, Miguelina Pena, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on February 8, 2020 against...

In one of the largest payouts in the city’s history, San Diego settled an excessive force and false arrest claim in February for $2.5 million. Gregory McNally was awarded $1.5 million by a federal judge in November 2020 after an incident where police officers body-slammed and pepper-sprayed...

An Idaho Falls man standing in his own backyard was shot and killed by the police on February 8 after being mistaken for a fleeing suspect. Police did not initially release the name of the victim, as his family requested privacy.
He was later identified as Joe Johnson, a husband, and father...

Preston Chaney, 64, could have been the poster child for a person most vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19. He had diabetes and suffered from heart and liver disease. After his arrest for burglary in the midst of the pandemic, he could have been out on bail had he managed to find $100. He did not...

Following a lengthy investigation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren published a report on the dubious process by which prisons are approved for operation in our country.
For a year and a half, Warren and her staff looked at how the American Correctional Association (ACA) audits prisons. The ACA is an...

Keller, Texas lies roughly 30 miles northwest of Dallas. The city’s population is 87 percent white, and Latino residents often feel targeted by the Keller police. For father and son Marco and Dillon Puentes, that perceived targeting became a reality on August 15, 2020.
That was the day...

It was supposed to be a “Sunday Funday” on August 2 for Britney Gilliam, 29, and four of her young female relatives, ages 17 to 6. Manicures and ice cream were in the plan. The reality for the Black family was a nightmare scenario in which Aurora, Colorado police officers ordered them...

It has been one year since a teenaged Louisiana autistic boy succumbed to the efforts of sheriff’s deputies to restrain him. Now, his parents, Dr. Daren Parsa and Dr. Donna Lou, have filed a lawsuit in United States District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana alleging that authorities...

In late December 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) concluded that there is “reasonable cause” to believe that Lowell Correctional Institution (LCI), Ocala, Florida, fails to protect inmates from sexual abuse by staff members. LCI, which opened in 1956, is the second-largest and...

Introduced by Rep. Don Beyer, the Cost of Police Misconduct Act vows to create a public database of police misconduct settlements and allegations across the country.
Police misconduct settlements have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. When the government settles jail death or police...