police accountability

Reading Time: 7 minutes Insurance companies do exert ultimate authority. Loss of insurance can end a department. In recent years, cities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tenessee, Louisiana, and elsewhere in California have had to disband their police departments after losing coverage. Lawsuits are the ultimate tool for forcing cultural changes in law enforcement agencies.

Reading Time: 6 minutes I have to believe the majority of white people do not understand the relationship between privilege and the police. How can they? You can only see the world through your own eyes. If you’re not trying to understand another person’s experience, as in really making an effort, you won’t. And white people don’t like to talk about things like implicit bias and privilege.

However, when those Starbucks employees picked up the phone and 911 to report two black men loitering, they were legitimately putting the lives of those two black men at risk. Additionally, they were putting lives of everyone else in the store at risk.

Reading Time: 10 minutes Heroes come in unexpected forms. This group of unexpected heroes did something that had never been done before. They put police accountability laws in the hands of the people and won. They laid down a map for other states to do the same.

Nothing will bring their families back. However, they took their power back and empowered not just the people of Washington State, but the entire nation in the process.