This new @crimereads story is structured as a reverse murder mystery, where I learn at the beginning that my great-grandfather killed a Black man and the story is my investigative and moral journey to discover the victim of that crime. crimereads.com/baynard-woods-… Peter J. Lemon, a Black county commissioner in Clarendon County, was one of thousands of Black elected officials or political organizers killed by the Ku-Klux and "rifle-clubs" between 1868-1876.

Great work again from @notrivia and @jaisalnoor in Battleground Baltimore. therealnews.com/battleground-b… There is an interesting thing happening where we are already sort of living in a post-Sun world. As independent outlets grow stronger, break stories that are relevant to residents, keep following up, and do it ethically, the Sun is starting to feel irrelevant in a lot of ways.

Short thread on Stephens' risible arguments about Baltimore and crime and about the rise of illiberalism—his two arguments help elucidate each other. @notrivia my co-author on a book about Baltimore crime pointed out many errors yesterday. So I refer you there for that argument Stephens is essentially saying that that cops should be exempt from following the Constitution or there will be crime . A consent decree, in policing, means a municipality is unable to protect citizens' constitutional rights so a framework is set up to help them do that.

The important question here is how that de-policing of patrol pairs with plainclothes aggression to create crime. We lay some of the ways that cops cause crime in response to reform washingtonpost.com/outlook/baltim…

https://twitter.com/radleybalko/status/1277239364087578625

In Baltimore, elite units targeted violence interrupters, illegally stopping and searching—and when they wouldn’t give info, arresting them. This increased violence and discredited violence interruption as an alternative to police.

People in Baltimore have long called the police an occupying army. People are now seeing that is everywhere. There was the illusion in the white community that they were there to protect and serve us, so white people looked away. As long as we remained segregated—and Baltimore is a very segregated city; America a very segregated country—we mostly didn't notice

When I think about the police abandoning the precinct in Minneapolis last night, I wonder what the worst of them were doing. We know that decorated Sgt Wayne Jenkins stole two trashbags full of pharmaceuticals and delivered them to his dealer while BPD was “standing down.” After that, when cops were supposedly “taking a knee” Jenkins made as many as 50 unconstitutional stops a night—often simply robbing those he stopped. And b/c of the “take a knee” narrative and the rise in gun violence, police brass and prosecutors praised and rewarded him

Some more on Filippou and #KeithDavisJr case. The initial interviews with witnesses make it clear that Filippou was the first on the scene at the garage and the first to start shooting. Her ricochets caused other officers to think Davis shooting.

https://twitter.com/justin_fenton/status/1064933300530307072

Martina Washington, a woman in the garage, gave a statement that day, describing the "police lady" firing into the garage as Washington ran out. "she shot around me or something."