Read it at USA Today

Protesters across the nation swarmed city streets late Thursday to voice outrage and their demands for police and judicial reform in the wake of Eric Garner's death and the refusal by a grand jury to indict the officer who put a chokehold on him. From One Police Plaza in New York City to Oakland, Calif., and from Chicago to Savannah, Ga., people unhappy with the lack of an indictment in the July death of Garner, 43, stopped traffic and staged "die-ins" in which groups of people lay down on sidewalks or floors. The protests were mostly peaceful. Protesters shut down rush-hour traffic on the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, chanting and holding signs bearing slogans such as “Black lives matter” and “hands up, don’t shoot.” Protests also took place outside the Staten Island Ferry station, which was shut down for the night. Other cities where protesters took to the streets included Dallas, Washington, D.C., Louisville, Ky., Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Wilmington, Del., and Asheville, N.C.

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Read it at New York Daily News

Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan did not ask a judge to release testimony or exhibits from the grand jury that looked into indicting the NYPD officer who choked to death Eric Garner. (All grand jury evidence pertaining to Darren Wilson and Michael Brown was released.) Instead, a limited amount of information was released by a Staten Island judge: 50 witnesses and 60 exhibits, including video and autopsies, were admitted as evidence. The grand jury was also instructed on the use of physical force by an officer making an arrest. New York’s public advocate said she’ll fight to make all the proceedings public.


Read it at Brooklyn Eagle

Mayor Bill de Blasio, Police Commissioner William Bratton and other NYPD officials on Thursday unveiled a new, comprehensive three-day training program for recruits, current police officers and supervisors. The program is part of a series of reforms to strengthen relations between the NYPD and the community in the wake of public outcry over the death of Eric Garner and other highly-publicized confrontations involving police nationwide. “Fundamental questions are being asked and rightfully so,” de Blasio said. The program is rolling out “as we speak” in a new facility in College Point, Queens, de Blasio said, and will be completed in June. The program is part of a series of reforms creating “a momentum of change” on top of a revamped stop-and-frisk policy, decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana, the roll out of body cameras, and the involvement of the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the attorney general, de Blasio said.

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Read it at Huffington Post

The Department of Justice said Thursday that the Cleveland Police Department has a pattern of “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force,” as typified in the shooting to death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice last month and a slew of other incidents, including officers punching a 13-year-old shoplifter who was already in handcuffs and shooting at an unarmed kidnapping victim who was wearing only underwear. Cleveland and the Justice Department have signed an agreement to create a court-enforceable consent decree that will include an independent monitor to oversee reforms. The DoJ investigation found that besides unnecessary shootings, cops also use “head strikes with impact weapons” and “excessive force against persons who are mentally ill or in crisis, including in cases where the officers were called exclusively for a welfare check.”
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