Two weeks ago, the police officer who shot Laquan McDonald in Chicago was charged with first-degree murder. Since then, the police superintendent was fired, and the Department of Justice announced that it will begin a large-scale investigationinto the Chicago Police Department. Meanwhile, in Baltimore, one of the police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray is standing trial.
You might think these high-profile cases mark a turning point in the nation’s response to fatal police violence. But 1,058 people have been killed by police this year to date alone, and most of the time, no legal charges follow. In my own state of Georgia, 171 people have been shot dead by police since 2010, and there have been zero prosecutions.
As a former federal prosecutor and a criminal procedure professor, I’ve been studying how prosecutors handle police violence cases. How do they deal with the conflict of interest raised by investigating the police departments they work with? Who determines whether a civilian death is justified, as the vast majority are found to be?
