News & Commentary

It’s been a difficult, painful year. Many feel increasingly heartbroken and outraged with each new death of an unarmed person of color at the hands of police. But that feeling isn’t enough.

While students, parents, faculty and school staff gear up for the excitement of a new school year, a critically important process is unfolding largely out of public view.

The numbers should be a wakeup call, but Orange County officials slumber on.

Three years ago, a San Bernardino County grand jury found that Taser-related deaths “are not uncommon” in the county, and that the “vast majority” of deaths occurred when a person was shocked more than once. The grand jury cited three cases where men died after being shot multiple times with Tasers, including a Lake Arrowhead man who was shot 16 times.

On the same day a female Los Angeles Police officer was sentenced to 36 months for delivering hard kicks to the groin of a handcuffed woman who later died, a homeless woman with mental illness was facing 25 years to life for merely picking up a police baton. How do we account for this disparity? How do we reconcile local prosecutors giving police officers the benefit of every real or imagined mitigating circumstance while civilians are routinely overcharged with crimes carrying the most severe penalties?

Earlier this month, a federal judge released disturbing video of Gardena Police officers shooting an unarmed man to death and wounding another — footage the city and its police department fought to keep from the public. That fight shows why we can’t leave it to police departments’ discretion whether to be transparent on deadly force, but badly need state law to make information like this available to the public.

By Anna Bauer

The Supreme Court issued a historic ruling on June 26, 2015, granting same-sex couples the freedom to marry throughout the United States. As ACLU client Jim Obergefell and his co-plaintiffs stood triumphantly on the Court’s steps, advocates across the country celebrated this victory and the decades of work that brought it to fruition. From filing the very first lawsuit arguing for the freedom to marry in 1970 to representing Edie Windsor in the case that took down the Defense of Marriage Act to being counsel in 16 other federal marriage equality cases since 2013, the ACLU has been at the forefront of the fight for legal recognition of same-sex relationships.

By Jennie Pasquarella and Kate Desormeau