Read the full article from WKBW, here.
“I was shocked, not surprised,” said Dr. Henry Taylor, the director for the Center of Urban Studies at the University at Buffalo, about the verdict of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Race was one of the central issues in last year’s protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Friday’s verdict had Taylor thinking about race once again.
By Sarah Holder
Read the full article from CityLab, here.
One of several reforms aimed at reducing fatal interactions between police and those with behavioral emergencies, D.C.’s pilot aims to route more 911 calls to social workers.
By Sarah Holder
Read the full article from CityLab, here.
One of several reforms aimed at reducing fatal interactions between police and those with behavioral emergencies, D.C.’s pilot aims to route more 911 calls to social workers.
By Jonathan D. Epstein
Read the full article from The Buffalo News, here.
The money will target underserved communities most affected by the health, economic and housing consequences of the pandemic.
By Rod Watson
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
When the annual State of the City speech is given next year, presumptive five-term Mayor Byron Brown will no doubt laud what his administration has done for Buffalo in explaining how his write-in campaign vanquished “radical socialist” India Walton, the Democratic primary victor.
But assuming Brown receives every single write-in vote once they are counted, it means that a first-time candidate with a trunk full of baggage still got at least 41% – and won three of nine city districts – against a former Common Council member, state senator and four-term incumbent.
By Marianela D’aprile
Read the full article from Jacobin, here.
Public buildings — all buildings — perform social functions; they organize people and their activities. Prisons remove people from their environment and therefore their humanity; they discipline and isolate. In a capitalist state, where schools are charged largely with creating orderly and disciplined future workers, it follows that they would share their form with prisons.
Architecture serves as a billboard for the priorities of its commissioners — and generous, welcoming public buildings are low on their list. That’s how we end up with schools and libraries that look like prisons — and prisons that don’t.
By Matthew Spina & Mike McAndrew
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Republican John Garcia appears to be the likely winner of the Erie County sheriff race over Democrat Kimberly Beaty after elections workers counted mail-in ballots and posted new results late Tuesday.
Garcia had a 3,078-vote lead over Beaty after 11,848 absentee ballots were counted Tuesday. Beaty grabbed more than half of the absentee ballot votes, but was unable to catch Garcia.
The Erie County Republican Committee posted congratulations to Garcia on Facebook at about 10 p.m.
By Robert J. McCarthy
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Demands that Mayor Byron W. Brown resign from the Democratic National Committee are growing, especially from a left-leaning group that this week heard India B. Walton vow to intensify her efforts to strengthen the party’s progressive base in Buffalo.
In her most extensive comments to date following her apparent mayoral loss to Brown on Nov. 2, Walton late Monday told a virtual meeting of the Our Revolution organization linked to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that she will continue working to strengthen the local party’s progressive base.
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Read the full article from The New Yorker, here.
Remote work turned out to be advantageous for people looking to leak information to reporters. Instructions that once might have been given in conversation now often had to be written down and beamed from one home office to another. Holding a large meeting on Zoom often required e-mailing supporting notes and materials—more documents to leak. Before the pandemic, if you thought that an anti-racism seminar at your workplace had gone awry, you had to be both brave and sneaky to record it. At home, it was so much easier. Zoom allowed you to record and take screenshots, and if you were worried that such actions could be traced you could use your cell phone, or your spouse’s cell phone, or your friend’s. Institutions that had previously seemed impenetrable have been pried open: Amazon, the I.R.S., the U.S. Treasury. But some less obviously tectonic leaks have had a more direct political effect, as was the case in July, 2020, when an employee of the city of Seattle documented an anti-bias training session and sent the evidence to a journalist named Christopher F. Rufo, who read it and recognized a political opportunity.
By J. Miles Gresham, J.D.
Drawing on decisions from the New York State Court of Appeals, this brief argues that the City of Buffalo has an untapped power to discipline police officers, outside of the provisions in its contract with the police union. Both court decisions and Buffalo’s legislative history grant it this authority. However, elected officials have not pursued reforms through collective bargaining agreements, or created new disciplinary systems outside of the police contract—such as civilian oversight with disciplinary power. Taking full advantage of the legal powers that municipalities already have can help remedy some of the fundamental flaws in our criminal justice practices.