Police killed Jacob Harris. But his friends are serving decades in prison for it.

I've spent the past six months trying to unravel what really happened on the night of Harris's death—and what has happened to his friends and family members since then.
theappeal.org/phoenix-police… I obtained personnel records, transcripts of police radio traffic, aerial surveillance footage of the shooting, and interviewed 9 people involved in the case.

A review of those records and 6,000 pages of documents from police, prosecutors, & civil lawsuits reveal the following:

The number of people with mental illness locked up in Los Angeles County jails has skyrocketed in recent years—despite the fact that in 2015 the county created an Office of Diversion & Reentry specifically to keep people with mental illnesses out of jail. theappeal.org/los-angeles-co… Data from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shows that in 2015, more than 3,700 people with mental illnesses were locked up in county jails.

By 2022, that number increased to almost 5,700.

Almost all abortions are now banned in Arizona. A judge allowed a Civil War-era law to go back into effect today.

The law requires two to five years in prison for people who provide abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person.
theappeal.org/almost-all-abo…

https://twitter.com/GeneralBrnovich/status/1573443589509910528

The law makes no exceptions for rape or incest. azleg.gov/ars/13/03603.h…

Yes, we published a piece on exactly this last year which quoted five people who reported sex crimes to the real life Special Victims Division and said Law & Order SVU's false depiction of how police handle sex crimes was harmful to them. theappeal.org/law-and-order-…

https://twitter.com/DianeNeal/status/1569329845380718592

"An accurate dramatization of the unit would depict detectives sitting around the station disparaging rape victims in front of their peers and pressuring them to drop their cases so they could avoid doing work," said @_GinaTron

It was so exciting to see my work cited on @LastWeekTonight with John Oliver in their episode about how problematic the Law & Order franchise is, particularly Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Here's some of the reporting Last Week Tonight pulled from for this piece: this story from last December documenting the dysfunction and chaos at the real life Special Victims Division theappeal.org/nypd-special-v…

Huge hearing on abortion today in Arizona that will determine whether all abortions are banned in the state—or whether abortions will still be allowed up to 15 weeks. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is asking a Pima County Superior Court Judge to allow a civil-war era law banning all abortions except to save the life of the mother to go back into effect. Planned Parenthood of Arizona will be arguing against it.

At 10am, oral arguments will begin in Arizona District Court re ACLU of AZ and Center for Reproductive Rights' request for an emergency injunction on AZ's fetal personhood statute, which gives fetuses the same rights as AZ residents. Jessica Sklarsky, senior staff attorney at @ReproRights, will be arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs.

AZ Attorney General Mark Brnovich tried this week to argue that the motion for an emergency injunction is moot. Judge Douglas Rayes said let the arguments proceed today anyway

Glendale police shot and killed a 15-year-old boy yesterday

https://twitter.com/abc15/status/1544833247036592129

Why would he warn police there was a gun in the vehicle, then reach for it? Weird story from the undercover officer not wearing a body cam

Ok so around this time last year we —
• unionized
• got fired
• told mgmt we can't be fired for unionizing
• got unfired, then were told the The Appeal was shutting down 🥴
• negotiated to get everyone 4 months severance + The Appeal's intellectual property, website, etc

https://twitter.com/theappeal/status/1544450841712680960

And that was like, all in one month 😵‍💫

It's been a crazy, amazing, inspiring year since then.

We've incorporated our own non-profit, secured grant funding, resumed publishing, launched a weekly newsletter, and so much more (building a worker-led newsroom is a lot of work!)

Today the US Department of Justice announced it's launching an investigation into the NYPD's Special Victims Division

Here are the Special Victims scandals that led here—including botched cases that led to additional assaults on women & deaths of children
theappeal.org/nypd-special-v… In 2018, the city's Department of Investigation (DOI) found the SVD had been neglected by the NYPD for years. Internal NYPD documents “acknowledge[d] that many sexual assault cases are not properly investigated due to staffing and resource limitations.” wsj.com/articles/nypd-…

BREAKING: The Department of Justice is launching an investigation into the NYPD's Special Victims Division: theappeal.org/nypd-special-v… This comes after sex crimes survivors who had terrible experiences reporting to the NYPD sent a letter to the DOJ asking them to investigate the NYPD.

FBI crime data shows Phoenix police cleared just 91 out of 1068 reported rapes in 2020. That's 8.5%.

I'm very curious how this stance (to not prosecute abortions in cases of rape or incest) could viably be implemented, since so few rape cases even get to the prosecutors office

https://twitter.com/DaveBiscobing15/status/1541781826825383936

You can view the crime data for yourself here: crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer…

The Arizona Attorney general says he thinks the state’s pre-Roe ban on all abortions (except to save the life of a pregnant person) should be in effect as soon as a court lifts the injunction on it. Its enjoined by a 1973 state appeals court ruling. He wants the injunction lifted

https://twitter.com/generalbrnovich/status/1542275229925249024

Brnovich says his office will move to get the injunction lifted. Once it’s lifted, anyone who provides an abortion in Arizona could be sentenced to 2 to 5 years in prison

Two prominent Arizona publicans ran false statements on abortion law from one of the most powerful prosecutors in the country recently

Here's Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell saying the injunction on AZ's pre-Roe ban doesn't apply to her

And here's the injunction itself The injunction was handed down by the Arizona Court of Appeals and applies statewide. embryo.asu.edu/pages/nelson-v…

Rachel Mitchell spoke w 12News & again dodged giving any real answers re Arizona's fetal personhood law (sadly she was not really asked about it, despite the ACLU's emergency motion asking for an injunction on the personhood law due to the law's vagueness) "I do want to make something clear because I've heard this a lot on television is that the woman can be prosecuted. I've heard somebody say oh we could charge first degree murder. I want to make it clear, this is a very emotional situation on both sides...

Today is #DenimDay, a day of solidarity with survivors of SA.

It's named for a court ruling that overturned a rape conviction bc the victim wore jeans.

Cops have co-opted the day, but the case shows why victims need non-police options after an assault.
theappeal.org/dont-let-cops-… In 1992, an 18-year-old girl said her 45-year-old driving instructor raped her.

When the victim sought justice through the criminal legal system in Italy, where the case took place, the man was acquitted of almost all charges stemming from the assault. irishtimes.com/news/jeans-rap…