Across Texas, activists and community members protested after video emerged showing a brutal (and fatal) act of violence by the police against a young Black man in Memphis. On Friday evening, the Memphis Police Department released a video that they were warning was a...
Criminal Justice
back to archiveVoting While Innocent: Dallas County Must Do Better
As an elected leader, our highest duty, and what we take an oath to do, is to protect the constitutional rights and freedoms of our constituents. One of the most fundamental of these is the right to vote. Most Texans agree that voting should be safe, easy, and...
Bexar County Sheriff launches investigation into Florida for transporting migrants
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said his department is investigating Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s plan after the governor recruited a woman to fraudulently convince 50 asylum seekers to leave San Antonio and travel from Florida to Massachusetts. According to a...
Updated: HOUSTON COMMUNITY PETITIONS AGAINST Shotspotter surveillance
A coalition of Houston-based non-profit organizations and community members held a Block Party at Emancipation Park on Saturday to demand City and Harris County officials cancel the contract with ShotSpotter, a private surveillance technology company. According...
After Attacks on Asian-owned Businesses, AAPI Community Urges More Action
Violence against Asian Americans has increased exponentially since the coronavirus pandemic. In Texas, many in the AAPI community feel that acutely, heightened by recent attacks in Dallas that were at first overlooked as hate crimes. Last week, the Dallas Police...
Crystal Mason, Texas voter sentenced to five years, gets case sent back to lower court
Civil rights groups are celebrating a decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to remand and send back a lower court decision sentencing a Fort Worth area woman to 5 years in prison for “illegal voting.” In 2018, Crystal Mason was convicted for voting in the...
Mothers protest their children’s unsolved cases at HPD HQ
On Wednesday, April 27, families of unsolved cases protested outside of Houston Police Department headquarters, demanding justice, accountability, and answers in the deaths of Tailor Clark, Alexander “AJ” Silva, Aliyah Wilson, Diamond Alvarez, Xavier Degollado and...
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grants stay of execution for Melissa Lucio
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a South Texas woman believed by many to be wrongly convicted of capital murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter. Lucio was scheduled for execution on Wednesday, April 27....
Harris County gets shoutout as example of successful bail reform
Harris County's misdemeanor bail reform efforts recently got a hat tip from the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan national advocacy group that focuses on mass criminalization. Since 2019, the state’s largest county has taken aim at the money...