Inequality in the Equality State: Race, Racism, and Identity

Thousands of people marched on Sunday in Chicago's Little Village. That's the neighborhood where 13-year-old Adam Toledo was shot and killed three weeks ago.

Police body cam footage released last week shows police chasing Adam down an alley. An officer commands him to show him his hands, but less than a second later, after Adam has stopped running, his hands are up and the officer shoots him.

The shooting has led to demonstrations and demands that the Chicago Police Department make major changes.

Never has so much attention focused on these quiet, leafy eight square miles along the Mississippi River.

Brooklyn Center, Minn., a small inner-ring suburb of modest postwar houses and apartment buildings, is the latest community to feel the heat of the national spotlight in the days since the death of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man shot during a traffic stop by a Brooklyn Center police officer who officials say mistook her handgun for her Taser.

A law professor and former federal prosecutor argues that police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., didn't need to pursue Daunte Wright, who was killed by an officer who said she mistakenly shot him instead of using her Taser.

"They have his license plate. They know where he lives," says Georgetown law professor Paul Butler, author of the book Chokehold: Policing Black Men.

Simon & Schuster has scrapped its plans to distribute a book written by one of the Louisville police officers who shot Breonna Taylor, after news of its publication ignited widespread criticism.

Chicago has released video footage showing the fatal police shooting of Adam Toledo, more than two weeks after the 13-year-old was killed during a foot chase in the Little Village neighborhood.

A graphic and disturbing video captures what police have described as an alleyway confrontation between Toledo and an officer identified as Eric Stillman in the early morning of March 29.

The former Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer charged in the killing of Daunte Wright made her first appearance in court Thursday as members of the Wright family continued their call for consequences.

Police officials have said Kim Potter, a 48-year-old white woman, mistook her handgun for her Taser when she fatally shot Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, on Sunday. In body camera footage, Potter can be heard yelling "Taser!" just before shooting him.

Testimony ended Thursday in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The defendant said he will not testify in his defense in the trial and would invoke his Fifth Amendment right.

Chauvin is facing charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in George Floyd's death after he held his knee on Floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds on Memorial Day last year.

Kim Potter, the former Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer who shot Daunte Wright, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter, according to Minnesota authorities.

The Washington County Attorney's Office announced the charges Wednesday.

In their first public press conference, family members of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man shot and killed by police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., expressed grief and anger, called for accountability and questioned why police felt the need to use any force on their son.

Kenosha, Wis., police said Tuesday that Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake last summer, has been found to have acted within the law and department policy.

The defense called on Officer Peter Chang of the Minneapolis Park Police to testify in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who is on trial on murder and manslaughter charges in the death of George Floyd.

Chang was stationed at a nearby park last May 25 when he heard a dispatch on his radio asking for assistance. He was one of the closer officers to Cup Foods, so he went to the scene.

It's common for park police to assist Minneapolis city police, Chang said, and explained that officers in both forces attend the same police academy.

A use-of-force witness gave a new point of view to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's trial on charges of murder and manslaughter. The defense witness said Tuesday that Chauvin and three other officers' actions were justified during the arrest that ended in George Floyd's death and that they used an appropriate amount of force.

Kim Potter, the Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright, has resigned. Potter had served 26 years on the force before the fatal encounter Sunday where officials said she mistakenly fired her handgun instead of her Taser.

Police Chief Tim Gannon, who on Monday released the body camera footage and characterized the shooting as an "accidental discharge," has also stepped down.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's attorney called on Shawanda Hill to testify on Tuesday morning. Chauvin is on trial on murder and manslaughter charges in George Floyd's death.

Hill told the court she was at the Cup Foods store last May 25 when she ran into Floyd, whom she knew. She described his behavior as "happy, normal, talking, alert."

She said Floyd offered to give her a ride to her house, and she went with him to the car he was driving.

Protests spread across the country Monday night after police officials in Brooklyn Center, Minn., said they believed that the officer who shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright had intended to use her Taser but accidentally fired her handgun instead.

Even as a cold drizzle fell in Minnesota, hundreds turned out for a memorial protest at the police department in Brooklyn Center, a few miles from the scene of Wright's death, despite a 7 p.m. curfew that had been called across much of the Twin Cities area.

The defense of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin began presenting its case on Tuesday over the killing of George Floyd.

The first witness for the defense was former Minneapolis police officer Scott Creighton. The defense showed Creighton's bodycam footage from a traffic stop in May 2019, in which the passenger of the car was Floyd.

Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and use of force expert, told jurors in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin that the actions by the officers involved in George Floyd's killing violated those of a "reasonable officer" throughout the fatal arrest.

Stoughton reiterated many of the findings in his 100-page-plus report, chronicling the pivotal moments in which Floyd's actions affected the officers' response and how what the officers were doing changed Floyd's behavior, as well as the potential threat level of the crowd.

Philonise Floyd, George Floyd's younger brother, took the witness stand on Monday to testify in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Philonise Floyd, 39, lives in Houston, where he is married with two children.

Testifying for the prosecution, he reflected on a childhood in Houston with his oldest brother George as the two played Tecmo Bowl and Double Dribble on Nintendo.

The police officer said to have fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man killed in what started as a traffic stop, has been identified as Kim Potter.

After a fatal police shooting near Minneapolis on Sunday, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's attorney expressed concern that jurors in his murder trial could be swayed by the events. Judge Peter Cahill denied the request to re-question jurors and immediately sequester them.

Cahill said the jury would be fully sequestered beginning next Monday when closing arguments are expected to start.

When jurors report for duty each morning in Derek Chauvin's trial, they do so as a group, escorted into the courthouse building by members of the Hennepin County Sheriff's office using a private entrance. The building itself has been fortified — one of many extraordinary security measures for a high-profile murder trial that is playing out amid a pandemic.

April is National Poetry Month, a celebration of poets and poetry that's been in place for 25 years.

Last month, as the U.S. grieved over attacks against Asian Americans, NPR's Morning Edition collected poems on how people grapple with the increased violence and discrimination.

Tamika Palmer says the art exhibition dedicated to her daughter, Breonna Taylor, is everything she hoped it would be; it's peaceful, she says, "to be able to come to this place and just be filled with her spirit."

It's been nearly 13 months since Louisville Metro Police officers shot and killed Taylor in her home. Now a show in her honor is on view at Louisville's Speed Art Museum. It's called "Promise, Witness, Remembrance." Palmer never imagined her daughter would be memorialized this way.