By Rasheed Stewart Associate Editor, Vol. 23 He sued the Philadelphia Police Department over 75 times.[1] As a career civil rights and criminal defense attorney he routinely represented individuals subjected to the oppressive forces of racism pervading law enforcement and the criminal justice system.[2] His nationally acclaimed representation of arrested protestors involved with the “Black […]
police reform
Without My Consent: The Eradication of Protective Consent Decrees
By Rasheed Stewart Associate Editor, Volume 23 The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, passed following the publicly videotaped 1991 beating of African American motorist Rodney King by four LAPD officers and the catastrophic Los Angeles Riots a year later, gave the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice an extraordinary […]
Task Force on Chicago PD Reforms Highlights Race Problems
By Dan Cho Associate Editor, Vol. 21 Contributing Editor, Vol. 22 Last December, after the release of a dash cam video showing Jason Van Dyke, a white Chicago police officer, shooting Laquan MacDonald, an unarmed black teenager and in the midst of the subsequent protests, Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a task force to “review the system […]