Vital City | Calling the Cops Less Often

Polling shows that public safety is among New York City voters’ top concerns. But it’s important to be specific when talking about the issue. Candidates in the recent Democratic mayoral primary focused mainly on quality-of-life issues — homelessness, mental illness, public drug use — and not on violent crime. There’s good reason for that: New York has seen a remarkable drop in murders, with the NYPD reporting shootings at an all-time low through the first half of the year. Of course, there is work left to do, including stemming a years-long rise in felony assaults — but it seems as though lower-level crimes are top-of-mind for many New Yorkers.
— Read on www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/calling-the-cops-less-often

Research: Police uses of lethal force dropped dramatically in US from 2021-23 – News Bureau

The number of police-involved lethal force incidents in the U.S. dropped 24% from 2021 to 2023, according to research from the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The Cline Center’s SPOTLITE project has compiled nearly a decade’s worth of data to track and identify police uses of lethal force across the U.S.
— Read on news.illinois.edu/research-police-uses-of-lethal-force-dropped-dramatically-in-us-from-2021-23/

Police oppose new plan to overhaul qualified immunity

The contentious debate over qualified immunity for police officers returned to Beacon Hill as law enforcement leaders forcefully pushed back against a bill that would ease the path for civil rights claims against officers in Massachusetts courts.
— Read on www.lowellsun.com/2025/08/03/police-oppose-new-plan-to-overhaul-qualified-immunity/

Jacksonville cops in hot water after brutalizing driver • Florida Phoenix

“We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” — The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Aug. 28, 1963

As galling as it has been to watch a Jacksonville sheriff’s deputy break a car window and punch a non-combative man in the face, the feeble justification from the sheriff and a determination from the state attorney that cops did nothing wrong is just as infuriating.

The Feb. 19 videotape of an encounter with William McNeil, Jr. and a posse of rogue officers from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and their brutal response, is a searing reminder of everything wrong with policing in America.
— Read on floridaphoenix.com/2025/08/02/jacksonville-cops-in-hot-water-after-brutalizing-driver/