A History of Police in America by Marc Appell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2 Timeline adapted from the Podcast, "American Police" by Throughline from NPR https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869046127/american-police en-us 2021-04-27 17:26:48 UTC 2025-09-30 22:11:35 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f526.png 1600's Early America mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465561763 The "Boston Watch" was formed, essentially a neighborhood watch group. Watchmen patrolled the streets of Boston at night to protect the public from criminals, wild animals, and fire.]]> 2021-04-27 17:31:42 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465561763 1829 London, England mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465585768 The British Parliament passes a bill, the Metropolitan Police Act, creating the first modern police force to oversee life within London, England.

Police forces across American cities are inspired by their emphasis on crime prevention, control of communities, a strong visibility in everyday life by patrolling the streets and their militaristic structure with things like uniforms, rank designations and a code of command and discipline.

]]> 2021-04-27 17:36:14 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465585768 Slave Patrols mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465622965 Some of the first police forces in the American South were created to control enslaved black people. They would come to be known as slave patrols.

By law, almost all white men had to serve in these patrols. White men from every level of society between the ages of 21-45 were targeted to serve for a period of time up to a year as a Slave Patrolman. These men often moved between serving a stint on a slave patrol versus a local militia because it was the same population the two drew from.

]]> 2021-04-27 17:43:23 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465622965 Slave Codes mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465651881 Around the American South, slave patrols enforced what were called slave codes, laws which controlled almost every aspect of the lives of enslaved people.]]> 2021-04-27 17:48:35 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465651881 1835 Louisiana, USA mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465658462 A Slave Patrol Statute from Louisiana in 1835 declares that slave patrols are to...

"Arrest any slave or slaves whether with or without a permit who may be caught in the woods or forest with any fire or torch which slave or slaves thus arrested shall be subjected to corporal punishment not exceeding 30 stripes."

Ingrained into early law is the ability for any white man to inflict corporal punishment to an enslaved person and essentially act as a deputized police officer. 
]]> 2021-04-27 17:49:48 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465658462 The Black Codes mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465791896 Even though slavery would end in 1865, the American South soon began passing restrictive and dehumanizing laws known as the Black Codes.


]]> 2021-04-27 18:12:37 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465791896 1865 mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465810637 The end of the U.S. Civil War and Slave Patrols in the South.

Congress passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery except as punishment for a crime.]]> 2021-04-27 18:16:27 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465810637 Late 1840's mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465837792 As European immigration increases in the United States, immigrant groups begin policing each other. 

English Americans are policing the Irish or the Germans are policing the Irish. The Irish are policing the Poles. Black people are getting policed by everyone, but their numbers are fewer. This dynamic leads to police officers as a critical feature for establishing a racial hierarchy, even among white people.



]]> 2021-04-27 18:22:06 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465837792 1860's-1880's mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465885907 The growth of big cities on the East Coast leads to bigger police departments. 

In the more rural South, vigilante groups are empowered to surveil and police the black populations. ]]> 2021-04-27 18:31:52 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465885907 1866: The Birth and Growth of the Ku Klux Klan mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465968000 The growth and importance of southern vigilante groups lead to the birth of the KKK in Pulaski, Tennessee. 

Many members of the Klan represented property and business owners, some political elites, and many either directly involved or aware of and complicit in the violent attacks on blacks in the South. The KKK took about the business of terrorizing, policing, surveilling and controlling black people.

The Klan totally dominates the machinery of justice in the South, upholding justice in what has been called "Klan courts." ]]> 2021-04-27 18:49:38 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465968000 Jim Crow laws in the South mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465972299 To battle the violent racism in the South, Congress passes the 14th and 15th Amendments to ensure equal rights and voting for black citizens.

Even though these measures created a generation of relative peace and prosperity for black citizens, it would quickly change again as Southern states adjusted by creating the Jim Crow laws, state and local laws ensuring white supremacy and racial segregation in America. 


]]> 2021-04-27 18:50:37 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465972299 1894: Police Brutality Commission, NYC mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465991045 The first police brutality commission in the United States happens in 1894 in New York City. It's the first major investigation of police violence.

They issue 300 subpoenas, call in 600 witnesses, produce 10,000 pages of testimony. The findings conclude that officers are beating up people in the same way that they're dispensing corporal punishment in the South.  There is unmistakable evidence of systemic corruption and violence in the police system.


]]> 2021-04-27 18:54:36 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1465991045 The Great Migration: 1915-1975 mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466019589 Tens of thousands of southern blacks migrate North and West to escape Jim Crow and seek peace and prosperity. 

"Police officers receive African American migrants in the same way that their white neighbors and community peers did, which is with contempt and hostility." -Throughline   

African Americans have little police protection as violence and discrimination run rampant in the North. ]]> 2021-04-27 19:00:59 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466019589 1917-1919: Race Riots mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466349851 Racial tensions between blacks and whites in the North boil over and lead to race riots in cities like East St. Louis, Philadelphia, and the largest one in Chicago.

For 13 days Chicago was in a state of turmoil. By the time the riot ended, 23 blacks and 15 whites were dead, 537 injured, and 1,000 black families were left homeless. The Chicago riot was part of a national racial frenzy of clashes, massacres, and lynchings throughout the North and the South.  Despite fighting on both sides of the color line, police arrest mostly black residents and do little to protect black property or lives. ]]> 2021-04-27 20:25:39 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466349851 1920's mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466366856 Black scholars and researchers study and document injustices committed by the police. 

W.E.B. Du Bois, writing for the NAACP magazine, compiled a police blotter which systematically details all the examples of police brutality directed against African Americans everywhere in the country.

The National Urban League, the other civil rights organization of the period, look closely at policing around the country and overwhelmingly determine that police officers are doing essentially stop-and-frisk policing in the 1920's. They're arresting people for charges that are not actually crimes such as "suspicious character."]]> 2021-04-27 20:30:59 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466366856 1920-1933 mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466396609 The U.S. passes the 18th amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol. 

The police force becomes fully professionalized with cars and new equipment, but corruption and organized crime increase dramatically. ]]> 2021-04-27 20:40:37 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466396609 1931 Police Report mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466412726 Attorney general, George Wickersham, puts together the first national commission to look at every aspect of the criminal justice system. It's a massive study and they recommend a number of things to take on is this problem of police violence and police torture.

The report states a decrease in police brutality when it came to African Americans. The black community saw this and bitterly complained about the omission of the violence directed towards their own community. There were over 500 documented cases of police brutality left out of the report. ]]> 2021-04-27 20:46:17 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466412726 1935 mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466442756 “Too often the policeman's club is the only instrument of the law with which the Negro comes into contact,” wrote Howard University criminologist Kelly Miller in a 1935 op-ed. ]]> 2021-04-27 20:57:02 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466442756 1930's - 1990's mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466451119 Police science begins to draw on crime statistics and sociological research about the innate or cultural tendencies of black people to criminality. This begins a process where police professionalization and academic research legitimize racist notions of black people as a race of criminals.


]]> 2021-04-27 21:00:05 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466451119 1967- The "Long, Hot Summer" mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466505401 July and August of 1967 became known as the “long, hot summer” as dozens of mostly Black communities erupted in what some called riots and others called rebellions. 

According to journalists Jess Engebretson and Matthew Green, “Nearly every instance of unrest was ignited by the same kind of spark:  an individual local incident involving an unarmed Black man (or men) beaten or killed by White police officers for a seemingly minor infraction.”]]> 2021-04-27 21:20:39 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466505401 2004 Ferguson, Missouri mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466511492
In August of 2014, police confronted an 18-year-old Black man, Michael Brown, for walking in the street with his friend.

The accounts of the White police officer, Darren Wilson, and Brown’s friend, Dorian Johnson, differ about what happened next, but at some point, both Johnson and Brown tried to run away, and Wilson shot his gun. Wilson shot Michael Brown six times, and killed Brown. His body was left lying — and bleeding — in the street for more than four hours.
Over the next two weeks, protests and violent clashes erupted in the streets of Ferguson, leading to a national conversation about the relationship between law enforcement officers and African Americans, the militarization of police, and the use-of-force law in Missouri and nationwide.]]> 2021-04-27 21:22:36 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466511492 The Killing of George Floyd mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466526262 May 25th, 2020: After allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill in a corner market and being detained by police, George Floyd is killed when Officer Derek Chauvin kneels on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. 

The world reacts in horror from the video footage. One year later in a court of law, Derek Chauvin is found guilty for three counts of murder. ]]> 2021-04-27 21:24:17 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1466526262 1992 L.A. Riots mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1480134231 On March 3rd, 1991, four LAPD officers were videotaped beating an unarmed African American motorist, Rodney King, after a high speed traffic stop. The 89-second video caught the police beating King with their batons and kicking him long after he was capable of resistance. The video, released to the press, caused outrage around the country and triggered a national debate on police brutality.

On April 29, 1992, the four officers were found not guilty on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force. The city of Los Angeles erupted into riots and violence over the next three days, as residents protested the lack of police accountability, looted businesses, and rioted.

Three days of disorder killed more than 60 people, injured almost 2,000, led to 7,000 arrests, and caused nearly $1 billion in property damage, including the burning of more than 3,000 buildings.]]> 2021-04-30 22:28:19 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1480134231 What now? Add links to your hometown news below. See examples from my city of Portland. mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1483015147 Police shootings database 2015-2021, Washington Post


Police reform, defunding, and abolition, explained, Vox.com, 6/16/20


Five Reforms Every Police Department Should Make, Institute for Policy Studies, 6/3/16



Portland Police Bureau: Flier on "Where We Stand"


Oregon lawmakers OK police accountability measures, but face calls for bigger change, OPB, 4/27/21


]]> 2021-05-02 19:58:51 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/1483015147 End of Podcast mappell https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/2094626645 The events hereafter are not included in the Throughline podcast. They have been added to provide contemporary events. Many more can be included, probably including events from your own hometown. ]]> 2022-03-14 20:31:54 UTC https://padlet.com/mappell/2j9v927iecyp3yp2/wish/2094626645