Author: Christopher Marier

It’s a fundamental principle of American life: People accused of wrongdoing have a chance to defend themselves. They’re innocent until proven guilty. That is, unless they’re a child attending a public school. An NBC News investigation into student discipline policies found that children’s ability to fend off deeply damaging punishments depends on where they live…

Tennessee’s Republican-led Legislature is meeting in special session this week to consider a package of public safety proposals, including some stemming from a deadly shooting at a Nashville elementary school earlier this year. Though the session is not expected to result in any new firearms restrictions, it nonetheless highlights the widely divergent response among states…

Still dominated by white males, New Jersey law enforcement agencies have made a little progress in diversifying their ranks to better mirror the racial and ethnic makeup of the communities they serve, according to new data from the state attorney general’s office. At the end of 2022, non-Hispanic white people remained the vast majority among…

After nearly a decade of sometimes contentious discussions and negotiations, the Portland Police Bureau ends its tenure Monday as the nation’s largest municipal police agency without body-worn cameras. About 150 officers will don the devices for a 60-day pilot program starting this week. “This is huge and it’s long overdue,” said police spokesperson Lt. Nathan…

Sexual assault often goes unpunished when victims fail to fight back. But investigators, psychologists, and biologists all describe freezing as an involuntary response to trauma. What is tonic immobility? It’s an extreme response to a threat that leaves victims literally paralyzed. They can’t move or speak. Tonic immobility is a survival strategy that has been…

Gun-related deaths among children in the U.S. reached a distressing peak in 2021, claiming 4,752 young lives and surpassing the record total seen during the first year of the pandemic, a new analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found. The alarming statistic clearly indicated that America’s gun violence epidemic has gotten worse,…

Body cameras first began to be used by police departments in the United States following their adoption by law enforcement in the United Kingdom in 2005. But it was not until the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., which was not captured on video, that the United…

Last year, federal officials charged more people over public threats – against elected officials, law enforcement and judicial officials, educators and health care workers – than in any of the previous 10 years, according to research from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. This year the trend…