Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Cops Can Be Convicted of Murder, If Prosecutors Follow the Law
Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
10 Apr 2018
🖨️ Print Article

Stephanie Morales, Portsmouth, Virginia’s 34 year-old top prosecutor, succeeded in sending a cop to prison for two and a half years for shooting an unarmed suspected Black shoplifter. She does not accept the conventional wisdom: that it’s near-impossible to prosecute killer cops. Prosecutors should stop excusing their own inaction pr blaming defects in the law. “We cannot say, we want to do this, but the law doesn’t allow it; otherwise, I would not have been able to” get a voluntary manslaughter conviction against the officer.

Police brutality

Related Podcasts

Robert Brooks memorial
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Robert Brooks, Rikers Island and the Fight Against New York Incarceration
10 January 2025
The subject of our discussion is mass incarceration in New York City and New York State.
Black Agenda Radio March 10, 2023
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio March 10, 2023
10 March 2023
This week we hear about the absence of home rule in Washington DC and the congressional and white house decision to overturn its city council’s cri
Community Control of Police in Chicago
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Community Control of Police in Chicago
09 December 2022
Frank Chapman is Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: When to fight, when to care, Floyd Dunn, 1993
    03 Dec 2025
    “The [AIDS] epidemic continued to gobble up the first phase of us…”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki Stands with Sudan
    03 Dec 2025
    Eritrean President Isais Afwerki arrived in Port Sudan on November 29 to stand with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan for the unity of Sudan.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Reclaiming our time back from February 30th Fighters
    03 Dec 2025
    "Reclaiming our time back from February 30th Fighters" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Jon Jeter
    Everything Must Change: Roles Reversed as Western Imperialist’s Gory, Glory Days Come to an End
    03 Dec 2025
    Europe celebrated defeating fascism in 1945 but immediately resumed its colonial control of the Global South. Now, eighty years later, the West is bankrupt financially and morally and is discovering…
  • Accra
    Dhoruba bin-Wahad
    5th Pan-African Congress Commemoration 2025
    03 Dec 2025
    Delegates gathered in Accra, Ghana to commemorate the 1945 Pan-African Conference, affirm their commitment to fighting neo-colonialism, and to demand reparations for African people throughout the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us