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After 34 years, a murder conviction quietly reversed in 4 minutes
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James Allen, convicted of three murders on scant evidence, remains a long way from freedom.
Stories about policing, wrongful convictions, and prosecutorial misconduct.
James Allen, convicted of three murders on scant evidence, remains a long way from freedom.
We interviewed past and present police union presidents, activists, and legal scholars for perspectives about the role FOP leaders have played since the organization established itself in Chicago nearly 60 years ago.
Injustice Watch reviewed the tenures of past FOP presidents elected by Chicago police, from the civil rights movement to the Black Lives Matter era. We found a history of police union leaders making inflammatory statements, antagonizing racial justice and police reforms, and shielding allegedly brutal cops from accountability.
Mount Prospect, Ill. is the latest of dozens of U.S. cities and towns to take steps toward restricting use of the ‘thin blue line’ by police and other government agencies. The controversial symbol has become a focal point for community tensions over race and policing in recent years — especially in the wake of the nationwide protests against police violence last summer.
City officials have repeatedly blamed gangs for driving up shootings. But an analysis shows that the Chicago Police Department’s own data doesn’t back up its leaders’ claims.
How many cops have gotten their vaccine shots? The question has a definite answer. But no one in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office or the police department seems able to put a number on it.
Injustice Watch reviewed the new civilian police oversight ordinance and the changes that it will bring to policing in Chicago.
Maira Khwaja, one of the community representatives on Hyde Park Academy’s council, said the vote to remove one of the police officers at her school represented “a huge win for the movement to remove police from schools and support our students in more holistic ways.”
While the state vacated Wayne Washington’s 1996 conviction for Marshall Morgan’s murder, he’s still fighting an uphill battle for an innocence certificate.
Injustice Watch is investigating police misconduct and accountability in Aurora. We need your help.