# data[].attributes.body
This piece of artwork showing policemen beating a piñata represents the same concept as police using excessive force in society. They are rewarded after they perform their jobs in excessive and biased ways, just like someone might get rewarded after they beat open a piñata.

# data[].attributes.body
This painting was created as an exploration of what has and hasn't changed in the 25 years since the Rodney King beating. As evidenced by the piece, the same feelings of anger and helplessness that were present at the time of the beating remain present in society today.

# data[].attributes.body
This piece of artwork was created by a high school student in response to the theme of Law Enforcement - Police Brutality. The artwork was not received well in the community, with many people seeing it as disrespectful and attacking police officers. Students should be allowed to grapple with current issues in the methods they deem necessary for understanding and this piece of art shows the intense turmoil students are facing.

# data[].attributes.body
This article was published on March 28, 2019. Twelve current and two former officers of the Springfield Police Department are accused of beating a group of four black men over a barroom dispute. This article, and its subject, shows that even at this moment there are acts of police brutality happening all over the country and we might not even be aware of it unless we are closely reading the media.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A Massachusetts grand jury has indicted 12 current and two former officers of the Springfield Police Department who are accused of beating a group of four black men after a barroom dispute or participating in a cover-up of the assault.

The announcement by the state attorney general's office and the F.B.I. on Wednesday is the latest blow to the police force in Springfield, the state's third-largest city.

Last fall, two other police officers in the city were indicted on charges of using unreasonable force while arresting two Hispanic boys. They have pleaded not guilty. Additionally, the Justice Department is investigating whether the Springfield narcotics unit routinely used excessive force and violated residents' civil rights.

Wednesday's indictments stem from an April 2015 confrontation that began inside Nathan Bills Bar & Restaurant, when one of the black men whistled at a bartender to get her attention. One off-duty officer thought the man was whistling at his girlfriend, an officer who was also off duty at the time, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the four black men

To clarify the misunderstanding, the lawsuit said, one of the men offered to buy the male officer a drink but was rebuffed.

The four African-American patrons said they were later attacked by a group of white men down the street from the bar. They were "beaten and kicked and sustained significant injuries as a result of the assault" by six off-duty officers and one of the bar's co-owners, the attorney general's office said.

Shawn Allyn, a lawyer for one of the six officers charged with assault, said Thursday that his client would be vindicated.

"In my 20 years of representing criminal defendants in federal and state courts, I have never seen a case where an attorney general office has gotten the facts so wrong," he said.

"After the local district attorney and the Massachusetts United States attorney declined prosecutions in these cases, Attorney General Maura Healy interjected her office into a barroom brawl for which my client sustained serious bodily injuries and is the victim."

Nine officers as well as two co-owners of the bar are accused of taking part in a cover-up of the assault, the attorney general's statement said. The co-owners were indicted Wednesday for misleading investigators.

The attorney general said that one bar owner misled the F.B.I. during the investigation, and that many of the officers filed false police reports while the investigation was ongoing. They then lied in their testimony to the state grand jury, the attorney general said.

In September, the City of Springfield agreed to pay $885,000 to settle the federal civil rights lawsuits brought by the four black men. The city of 155,000 people has about 480 police officers.

The dozen officers indicted Wednesday will be suspended without pay, the acting police commissioner, Cheryl Clapprood, said. She said that she would weigh further disciplinary action once she learned more details from the grand jury proceedings.

Six officers and one of the co-owners are each charged with four counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon; assault and battery causing serious bodily injury; three counts of assault and battery; and conspiracy. The rest are charged in connection with the alleged cover-up.

The Springfield Patrolman's Union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Of the two former officers, one is retired and the other is now a state trooper. The Massachusetts State Police said that it would have a hearing on Friday to determine the status of the former Springfield police officer on its force, though he has been relieved of duty.

"I am very disappointed and angry - these are very serious charges," said Mayor Domenic J. Sarno. "Police officers are held to a higher standard and as I have stated before, must wear their badges, not only bravely, but with honor, integrity and professionalism."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
14 Officers Indicted on Assault or Cover-Up Charges in Beating of Black Men

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Massachusetts grand jury has indicted 12 current and two former officers of the Springfield Police Department who are accused of beating a group of four black men after a barroom dispute or participating in a cover-up of the assault. The announcement by the state attorney general's office and the F.B.I.

# data[].attributes.body
The Black Lives Matter movement was started as a simple hashtag in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013. While the movement did not begin because of police brutality, it quickly became apparent that it was one of the major issues that the #BLM movement would focus on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After George Zimmerman was acquitted in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2013, members of the black community and activists everywhere needed an outlet for their frustration, as well as a platform where they could call for change.

They found one: Social media and the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which has become emblematic of modern racial injustices.

Exactly five years later, the Black Lives Matter movement is a quintessential example of a movement that's found successful amplification through social media. According to a newly released Pew study, the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter - an average of 17,003 times per day.

"The main thing that stuck out is really the consistent presence since it became popular," said Monica Anderson, one of the study's authors.
More: Sacramento Kings partner with Black Lives Matter amid Stephon Clark protests
Anderson said the hashtag tends to spike after major news events - during the short period of time in 2016 where Alton Sterling and Philando Castile as well as five Dallas police officers were killed, the hashtag was at an all-time high.

"It said what it needed to say so succinctly," said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African American studies at Duke University. "In a moment where black folks are getting killed, just this simple sentiment that black lives matter was important."

#BlackLivesMatter is emblematic of a wider trend - the blossoming role social media plays in all kinds of activist movements. #MeToo, which roared through social media as powerful men in a number of industries were accused of sexual misconduct, is a key example, as are #LoveWins, #JeSuisCharlie and #MAGA (Make America Great Again).
More: Facebook's biggest Black Lives Matter page was reportedly fake, according to CNN
"What's so interesting and so meaningful about social media and social movements is just how quickly people can mobilize through social media," said Rachel Einwohner, a sociology professor at Purdue University.

The Pew study found that 69 percent of Americans believe social media is useful in bringing issues to politicians' attention, while an additional 67 percent see it as effective for creating sustained movements.

On the other hand, 77 percent believe social networks can distract from issues that are really important, and 71 percent agree that "social media makes people believe they're making a difference when they really aren't" - a phenomenon more commonly known as "slacktivism."
More: Black Lives Matter can't be sued, judge rules
Slacktivism relates to a major criticism of social media engagement: Posting a status or sharing an article isn't a viable form of political action. But Einwohner said that's a misguided notion.

"People who are tweeting or liking things on Facebook are also participating in marches," she said. "They're also having face to face conversations with neighbors, and they're also calling their congressmen."

One key finding of the Pew study reveals that black and Hispanic social media users are more likely than white social media users to see social media as an effective tool for political engagement.

That trend, experts say, is likely because those groups don't feel that their views are represented elsewhere - by political institutions or the mainstream media.

"Traditionally, people of color in our society have felt that our political institutions do not represent them, for obvious reasons," Einwohner said. "When we have social media, people can have a voice."

Five years after the hashtag appeared, Black Lives Matter has become an influential movement and a key aspect of today's larger conversation about race. But, Neal said, social media was only the beginning.

Since the movement began, activists have developed specific policy recommendations, and combating police violence against people of color is a key part of the progressive agenda.

"It had to move beyond the hashtag," he said. "It had to move beyond this symbolic coming together - and many of these organizations, national or local, had to begin do work that would have impact in terms of policy."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How social media has shaped Black Lives Matter, five years later

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Black Lives Matter movement is a quintessential example of a movement that's found successful amplification through social media. According to a newly released Pew study, the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter - an average of 17,003 times per day.

# data[].attributes.body
Even after more than 50 years of continuous oppression and violence that has disproportionately affected black communities, the original problem is still unresolved. Police brutality has been present throughout history and that suggests that drastic solutions are needed to combat this problem.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note, May 29, 2020: In 2017, Smithsonian covered the history of police brutality upon the protests over the verdict in the Philando Castile murder case. With the Twin Cities once again under the national spotlight after the killing of George Floyd, we revisit the subject matter below.

Last month, hours after a jury acquitted former police officer Jeronimo Yanez of manslaughter in the shooting death of 32-year-old Philando Castile, protesters in St. Paul, Minnesota, shutdown Interstate 94. With signs that read: "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace," the chant of "Philando, Philando" rang out as they marched down the highway in the dark of night.

The scene was familiar. A year earlier, massive protests had erupted when Yanez killed Castile, after pulling him over for a broken taillight. Dashcam footage shows Yanez firing through the open window of Castile's car, seconds after Castile disclosed that he owned and was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.

A respected school nutritionist, Castile was one of 233 African-Americans shot and killed by police in 2016, a startling number when demographics are considered. African-Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 24 percent of people fatally shot by police. According to the Washington Post, blacks are "2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers."

Today's stories are anything but a recent phenomenon. A cardboard placard in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and on view in the new exhibition " More Than a Picture," underscores that reality.

The yellowing sign is a reminder of the continuous oppression and violence that has disproportionately shaken black communities for generations-"We Demand an End to Police Brutality Now!" is painted in red and white letters.

"The message after 50 years is still unresolved," remarks Samuel Egerton, a college professor, who donated the poster to the museum. He carried it in protest during the 1963 March on Washington. Five decades later, the poster's message rings alarmingly timely. Were it not for the yellowed edges, the placard could almost be mistaken for a sign from any of the Black Lives Matter marches of the past three years.

"There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, 'When will you be satisfied?" said Martin Luther King, Jr. in his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 march. His words continue to resonate today after a long history of violent confrontations between African-American citizens and the police. "We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality."

"This idea of police brutality was very much on people's minds in 1963, following on the years, decades really, of police abuse of power and then centuries of oppression of African-Americans," says William Pretzer, senior history curator at the museum.

Modern policing did not evolve into an organized institution until the 1830s and '40s when northern cities decided they needed better control over quickly growing populations. The first American police department was established in Boston in 1838. The communities most targeted by harsh tactics were recent European immigrants. But, as African-Americans fled the horrors of the Jim Crow south, they too became the victims of brutal and punitive policing in the northern cities where they sought refuge.

In 1929, the Illinois Association for Criminal Justice published the Illinois Crime Survey. Conducted between 1927 and 1928, the survey sought to analyze causes of high crime rates in Chicago and Cook County, especially among criminals associated with Al Capone. But also the survey provided data on police activity-although African-Americans made up just five percent of the area's population, they constituted 30 percent of the victims of police killings, the survey revealed.

"There was a lot of one-on-one conflict between police and citizens and a lot of it was initiated by the police," says Malcolm D. Holmes, a sociology professor at the University of Wyoming, who has researched and written about the topic of police brutality extensively.

That same year, President Herbert Hoover established the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement to investigate crime related to prohibition in addition to policing tactics. Between 1931 and 1932, the commission published the findings of its investigation in 14 volumes, one of which was titled "Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement." The realities of police brutality came to light, even though the commission did not address racial disparities outright.

During the Civil Rights Era, though many of the movement's leaders advocated for peaceful protests, the 1960s were fraught with violent and destructive riots.

Aggressive dispersion tactics, such as police dogs and fire hoses, against individuals in peaceful protests and sit-ins were the most widely publicized examples of police brutality in that era. But it was the pervasive violent policing in communities of color that built distrust at a local, everyday level.

One of the deadliest riots occurred in Newark in 1967 after police officers severely beat black cab driver John Smith during a traffic stop. Twenty-six people died and many others were injured during the four days of unrest. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson organized the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate the causes of these major riots.

The origins of the unrest in Newark weren't unique in a police versus citizen incident. The commission concluded "police actions were 'final' incidents before the outbreak of violence in 12 of the 24 surveyed disorders."

The commission identified segregation and poverty as indicators and published recommendations for reducing social inequalities, recommending an "expansion and reorientation of the urban renewal program to give priority to projects directly assisting low-income households to obtain adequate housing." Johnson, however, rejected the commission's recommendations.

Black newspapers reported incidents of police brutality throughout the early and mid-20th century and the popularization of radio storytelling spread those stories even further. In 1991, following the beating of cab driver Rodney King, video footage vividly told the story of police brutality on television to a much wider audience. The police officers, who were acquitted of the crime, had hit King more than 50 times with their batons.

Today, live streaming, tweets and Facebook posts have blasted the incidents of police brutality, beyond the black community and into the mainstream media. Philando Castile's fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the car with her daughter when he was shot, streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting on her phone using Facebook live.

"Modern technology allows, indeed insists, that the white community take notice of these kinds of situations and incidents," says Pretzer.

And as technology has evolved, so has the equipment of law enforcement. Police departments with military-grade equipment have become the norm in American cities. Images of police officers in helmets and body armor riding through neighborhoods in tanks accompany stories of protests whenever one of these incidents occurs.

"What we see is a continuation of an unequal relationship that has been exacerbated, made worse if you will, by the militarization and the increase in fire power of police forces around the country," says Pretzer.

The resolution to the problem, according to Pretzer, lies not only in improving these unbalanced police-community relationships, but, more importantly, in eradicating the social inequalities that perpetuate these relationships that sustain distrust and frustration on both sides.

'There's a tendency to stereotype people as being more or less dangerous. There's a reliance upon force that goes beyond what is necessary to accomplish police duty," says Holmes. "There's a lot of this embedded in the police departments that helps foster this problem."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A 1963 protest placard in the Smithsonian collections could almost be mistaken for any of the Black Lives Matter marches of today

# data[].attributes.body
Marvin Johnson and his twin brother, Tyler, go to a party that does not go as planned. A police raid and shooting causes the entire guest list to be left scrambling for safety. A few days after the party, Tyler is found dead and Marvin needs to decide whether he will fight for justice or believe what everyone else is telling him: that Tyler was just another thug that deserved to be murdered.

# data[].attributes.body
This book follows the story of Justyce McAllister, an ambitious black student who is juggling the unique challenges of racial micro-aggressions by his peers as well as a difficult home life. When his best friend, Manny, is shot and killed by an off-duty cop, Justyce is forced to reevaluate his mindset about race. He turns to the writings of Dr. King and the book covers the letters he writes to the deceased activist.

# data[].attributes.body
Jerome, a 12 year old boy, is playing in front of his house when he is shot and killed by a police officer who thought he had a gun. This book moves between the past and present, with Jerome finding that he is not alone in wandering the earth postmortem.

# data[].attributes.body
This book follows two high school boys: Rashad, an 11th grade black student in the ROTC program and Quinn, a 12th grade white student. When the two boys are faced with a decision, they must decide if they are strong enough to do what is right.

# data[].attributes.body
When 16 year old Starr Carter attends a party on spring break, she never expects her childhood friend Khalil to be shot and killed; but he is. Starr needs to process her grief, confusion, anger, and fear before she can get herself to advocate for change and get justice for Khalill.

# data[].attributes.body
1. What is police brutality? Why is the black community more affected than others?
2. Is the current justice system fair in theory, but just not application? Or, is the whole system corrupted because of the implicit biases of its facilitators?