Sitting in my house this summer as I listened to helicopters patrol anti-police protests in Oakland, I started reading old newspaper clips about a Minneapolis cop named Michael Sauro. In the 1990s, Sauro, who is white, repeatedly used his steel-toed boots to kick a handcuffed student in the head at a New Year’s Eve party. A court ruled that he’d used excessive force, and the city tried to fire him. But his police union intervened, and he was rehired. He went on to run the sex crimes unit, where women accused his team of ignoring some of their rape cases.
It’s an infuriating story, but it’s actually not that uncommon. Around the country, police unions still regularly make it difficult to fire officers or hold them accountable. But there’s a renewed effort to change that. In the September+October print edition of Mother Jones, which you can now preview online, I investigated how police unions became so powerful, and how the uprisings of 2020 may have finally cracked their invulnerability.
Much of this print issue was dedicated to exploring problems with law enforcement, and possible ways forward. Madison Pauly investigated a company called Lexipol that writes policies for many police departments. Seth Freed Wessler wrote about local sheriffs who are driving Trump’s deportation agenda. And Tim Murphy wrote about the disturbing history of the Texas Rangers.
One big task for the police-abolition movement will be convincing politicians that we don’t need more cops to drive down violent crime. To this end, the magazine explores how Oakland successfully cut shootings in half in recent years—not by arresting more people, but by investing in social services and helping people build relationships in their community. “If you can find the money to pay police officers up to $300,000 a year to patrol the streets with guns, why can’t we find the resources to stipend community members to take time away to also reduce violence?” says Ben McBride, a former pastor and police abolitionist in Oakland.
It’s the question we should all be asking right now. I hope the stories in this magazine help show why this kind of change is necessary, and possible.
—Samantha Michaels
P.S. If you don't already have a Mother Jones subscription, now would be a great time to get one! They also make great gifts.
Election advocates said those changes are part of a deliberate attempt to sabotage the agency.
BY INAE OH
BY INAE OH
BY TIM MURPHY
BY BECCA ANDREWS
BY DAN FRIEDMAN
Its 3-year probe links Paul Manafort to Russian intelligence and finds Trump’s campaign helped Vladimir Putin’s 2016 attack.
BY DAVID CORN AND DAN FRIEDMAN
SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE
If you missed Michelle Obama’s powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, catch it here. She vividly summed up “the story of America” by anchoring it in the lives of “all those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much.” “The story of America” is an expansive phrase that calls up endless places, people, and subplots, and it’s the subject of Mark Ruffin’s brilliant short-story collection about justice and equality in baseball and music. Bebop Fairy Tales is his first book in his 40-year career as a radio broadcaster, most recently a SiriusXM host, and it’s a detail-rich work of historical fiction that sets real athletes and artists in imagined circumstances.
One climactic story, “The Sidewinder,” alludes to Lee Morgan’s 1964 album and takes us to Philly, where a 12-year-old explores his passion for baseball and bebop and navigates racial, cultural, and class lines. The story arc is challenging and risk-taking, all the brilliance you can expect from Ruffin (who once wrote a screenplay in which Fats Waller is kidnapped by Al Capone). Michelle Obama here, Ruffin here.
—Daniel King
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