States Move To Change Laws On Police Use Of Lethal Force Laws
June 2020
Producer, Co-Reporter, Editor
The death of George Floyd has upped the pressure on states to change their use-of-deadly-force laws, some of which are more than 40 years old.
I had covered the 2015 police killing of Sam DuBose in Cincinnati, and there had been a lot of misconceptions in the public about what it takes for an officer to be charged with a crime -- some holding the prosecutors or police departments or juries accountable, but not their own state law. As the country looked again at reform, I thought it was important for the public to understand how different state laws give officers various amounts of protection, and what had changed since the police killiing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. So, I pitched this story, co-reported, produced and edited it in the early months of the pandemic and soon after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd.