In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power—the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policymakers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable.

On April 25 NACOLE welcomed Joanna Schwartz, a professor at UCLA School of Law and author of the recently published book Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable. Her book the product of more than two decades of advocacy and research. She will join us to discuss the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code. The webinar will delve into why civil rights litigation so rarely leads to justice or prevents future police misconduct.

Weaving powerful true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants, Schwartz paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, bringing clarity to a problem that is widely known but little understood.