Date: Tuesday September 24th

Time: 8pm Est

Location: Virtual

Host: Valerie T.

Contact: info@defenseofdemocracy.org

During this READOUT event we will be joined by investigative journalist Sean Kevin Campbell. We will be discussing his recent article:

Tyre Nichols was brutally killed by five Black police officers. How did we get here?

About Sean Kevin Campbell

Sean Campbell is an investigative journalist living in New York City. His stories are often rooted in data and focus at the intersection of social and criminal justice, race, and public health. His articles have prompted action from members of Congress, change in the CDC, and contributed to changing Twitter's policy, among other forms of impact.

His investigations have covered topics ranging from racism and discrimination in Doctors Without Borders, to disportioncate federal sentences for George Floyd protesters, to children being shot in Flint, Michigan, to nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. His pieces on disproportionate gunshot death rates in New York City sparked conversations about hospital trauma care, promises for action from local politicians, and discussion within the data journalism community on combining gun violence and health reporting. Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, the facility at the center of that investigation, launched a new trauma wing in 2023. His interrogation of the "Craigslist" of gun sales formed the basis for a lawsuit against Armlist.com, and his pandemic reporting has spurred legislation by state lawmakers.

Sean's story on the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s finances was one of the lead features for New York magazine’s “Ten Years Since Trayvon” issue, which was honored with a 2023 National Magazine Award, and his uncovering of the organization's purchase of a $6 million property with donor funds was one of the most widely covered stories of 2022. He's received the 2021 Excellence in Journalism Award by the North Carolina Advocates for Justice, the 2020 Les Payne Award for Coverage on Communities of Color from the Society of Professional Journalists' Deadline Club, and a Sidney Award from the Hillman Foundation, among other recognitions. His feature work has been published by Rolling Stone, ProPublica, The Guardian, and Slate, among other outlets. He's published fiction with the Bellevue Literary Review and Hayden's Ferry Review.

He is an adjunct assistant professor in the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and holds a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida, a master of fine arts in writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and a master of science degree from Columbia Journalism School.

Ready to strike a blow against the forces of darkness banning books in America? Join our Readout campaign during Banned Books Week where Defense of Democracy volunteers across the country will be hosting book readings that feature their favorite banned books. Readout events last year raised awareness of the growing menace of book banning, and raised money to help us overturn these pernicious bans.

If this article were a pamphlet in a school library it would be banned in many jurisdictions.

Tyre Nichols was brutally killed by five Black police officers. How did we get here?

By Sean Campbell

The Guardian, September 7, 2024

This is a deep dive into the generational trauma that created the atmosphere for a particularly brutal murder of an innocent man in Memphis, Tennessee named Tyre Nichols in January 2023. Sean Campbell interviewed a variety of residents, family members, police officials, academics, historians and friends of the indicted police officers who pulled Nichols over for unknown reasons. Nichols was brutally beaten by five police officers even though he was unarmed. The victim and his murderers were all Black men living in Memphis.

Campbell delved into the history of Memphis to reveal that it had been a huge market for the slave trade and after the Civil War, had become a mecca for the newly freed African-Americans. Through their ambition and hard manual labor, the Black residents turned Memphis into a flourishing city. And then came the white backlash in the form of massacres and lynchings. The city police grew out of the old slave patrols that were introduced to recapture runaway slaves. The force collaborated with the mobs of angry, racist white men to hand over men who were scapegoated for crimes they didn’t commit and were beaten, burned and lynched. When the timeline of atrocities reached April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of a Memphis motel by a sniper hired by the Memphis Police Department. The police killings didn’t end in 1968, of course. And the department illegally surveilled private citizens up until they were caught surveilling members of Black Lives Matter in 2017.

Memphis doesn’t offer a large variety of jobs and the two biggest employers are FedEx and the Memphis Police Department. So, young men and women often choose to become police officers. The culture of the police department is anti-Black, reinforcing messages that Black citizens are dangerous and cause trouble. It’s a mentality that incentivizes arrests and aggression toward their fellow citizens. Although diversifying police forces is offered as a panacea to quell police brutality, recruitment of Black officers doesn’t change police culture. A friend of one of the officers who murdered Nichols blamed the officer’s action on the way Memphis police are trained. He was shocked that the man he thought he knew could act so violently toward an unarmed man.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the murder of Nichols and has interviewed many residents. The community has felt traumatized by this murder and by the daily harassment and abuse by Memphis police.

The trending data show an acceleration of police brutality across the nation. It’s a problem our country needs to solve. Now.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/07/tyre-nichols-black-police-officers-memphis-history

Participants in READOUT should read the article and be prepared to ask questions of Sean Campbell at the end of the discussion.

READOUT with investigative journalist Sean Kevin Campbell

By Defense of Democracy, Inc.

READOUT with investigative journalist Sean Kevin Campbell

Celebrate Banned Books Week 2024 - September 24