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The Home Office has launched a scheme to create a digital border as part of its plans for immigration reform.

The governments New plan for immigration: legal migration and border control sets out how it aims to achieve a fully digital end-to-end experience in all aspects of immigration and border crossings.

Over the next four years, we will implement transformational change for everyone who interacts with the immigration system and crosses the border, said the strategy document.

We will deliver a fully end-to-end digital customer experience for people from the way they apply online, how they prove their identity, how they provide evidence that they meet the relevant criteria, to how they receive and use proof of their status to cross the border and demonstrate any entitlements in the UK.

This includes delivering a digital system allowing for online evidence of immigration status.

In addition to reforming the immigration routes, we are continuing to deliver a digital system by removing the use of physical documents to demonstrate status, the document said. We will make further improvements to how applicants access and prove their immigration status to others.

This system has already been put in place for European Economic Area (EEA) nationals to apply for the right to remain in the UK post-Brexit.

We will continue to improve the online immigration status service, and we will enhance our support offer for those who need assistance to use this service, the document said.

We will be taking a phased approach as we move to a fully digital system. As part of this, we are looking at further ways to remove physical documents from the process and streamline the system, such as potentially removing the need for separate vignettes and biometric residence permits, taking out the cost and time for the user and the Home Office and improving security.

The government has a long-standing history with border IT. The Home Office originally launched ane-Borders programmein 2003, aiming to improve the use of information to track people across borders. The programme cost 830m and failed to deliver.

It then launched a replacement programme, Digital Services at the Border (DSAB), in 2014. The original aim was for DSAB to be completed by March 2019, delivering three main systems: Advance Border Control, Border Crossing, and Advanced Freight Targeting Capability.

These would replace two legacy systems: Semaphore, which was delivered by IBM in 2004, and the 26-year-old Warnings Index system. However, during a programme reset in 2019, the Home Office made the decision to upgrade and improve Semaphore.

By March 2019, when the programme was due to be fully operational, only one of the three systems was in live operation Border Crossing and even that was only run as a pilot in up to eight ports.

The latest document said the Border Crossing system has now been piloted and is being rolled out nationally.

The improved capability enables improvements in the operational process at the border, delivering customer and security benefits, it said. By summer 2021, all Border Force staff will have the ability, if required, to check at the PCP [primary control point] whether an individual has applied for, or been granted, status under the EU Settlement Scheme, should they need to do so.

The [border crossing] capability will be extended to the e-gates as they are upgraded during 2021. This modernised system will also bolster our networks with partner agencies when one of their persons of interest is encountered at the border.

The government will also put in place an electronic travel authorisation system, similar to the USs ESTA system as part of a wider universal permission to travel requirement, which will mean everyone wishing to travel to the UK (except British and Irish citizens) will need to seek permission in advance of travel.

To deliver this system, the government is planning to work with academia and technology suppliers on creating innovative solutions for the border, and develop border standards for technology and infrastructure.

In a speech at a conference hosted by liberal conservative think-tank Bright Blue, home secretary Priti Patel said: The UKs immigration system is broken, and we will fix it.

Our new, fully digital border will provide the ability to count people in and count people out of the country. We will have a far clearer view of who is here and whether they should be, and we will act when they are not.

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UK to have digital border by end of 2025 - ComputerWeekly.com

Clarence CrossJr.changed his route after police pepper-sprayed an Army lieutenant on the same highway he often traveled.

Teia Brown feared for her daughtersafter Sandra Bland was pulled fromher car by police and days later ended up dead in a jail cell.

Donya Collins worried about her safety after Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watchman on his way back from the store.

USA TODAY talked to Black Americans across the country about moments ofviolence that resonated with them and had a lasting impact. For some, the death of George Floyd at the hands of police one year ago on May 25, 2020,was one of those moments. There were many others.

The moments reminded them, they said, how vulnerable people of color are and how justice hasn't always been served. These high-profile attacksleft them fearful of police, suspicious of othersand worried for their lives and the safety of their loved ones.

Boots On The Ground: The Black community in Minneapolis finds peace after George Floyd

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Jarrad Henderson and Harrison Hill, USA TODAY

What binds all this together is the false promise of civil rights in this country for Black Americans, said Jason Williams, assistant professor of justice studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The reason why police can pull us over, discriminate against us and kneel on our beings is because they understand that this country still doesn't take our citizenship, our rights, our positionality in this country seriously.

Racial violence in the United Statesisnt new.

The country has a long history of violence against Black people, from the torture of enslaved Africans to lynchingsduring the Jim Crow era to the brutal beatings and killings of protesters during the civil rights movement. Some veterans of the civil rights movement say it was Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy murdered in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 after being accused of flirting with a white woman, that spurred them into action.

Watching the death of Floyd and other Black men and women exacerbates existing fears about encounters with police, Williams said. And with social media offering unfiltered views, more people can witness state-sanctioned deaths right before their eyes, he said.

The smokescreens are now annihilated, Williams said. For Black Americans, it's like, Well, this is what we've been living our entire 400-and-plus years here.

After Blands death, Brown worried more about driving alone or through a white neighborhood where she said you can feel the eyes on you.

Bland, a Black woman, was found dead in a Texas cell in 2015 three days after a traffic stop by a white state trooper.

At the time, Brown sat on the edge of her bed and watched the newscast. It made her nervous, fearful and sad. She prayed Blands family would find peace. She prayed white police officers would stop killing Black people.

How could she have been thought of as a threat? Brown, now 59, wondered. Why are they pulling her out of the car? What is she doing? She's a woman. Stop! That could be my daughter. It could be me.

Years later, Brown, a retired information assistant in Camp Springs, Maryland,doesnt watch the videos posted on social media of unarmed Black men and women being shot or killed by police. She worries her husband, Rob, could be next.

She still gets angry remembering clerks who followed her in stores. Im like dude, I have a pocket full of cash ... Why are you doing this to me?

Sisters Sandra Bland, left, and Sharon Cooper in 2015, the year Bland died in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, after a routine traffic stop.Family photo

The mother of two daughters called it absolutely frightening that one day her children will no longer live in her house and may encounter danger.

How do I protect them or keep them from being victims? she said.

She doesnt understand why some people feel threatened by her brown skin and why they dont understand Black people are trying to strive and thrive just like everybody else.

When will they get it? she said. What is it about my blackness or our blackness that scares you so much?

More: Derek Chauvin trial in George Floyd death compared to Rodney King case 30 years later

More: 'A form of terrorism': Ahmaud Arberys murder is just the latest painful reminder of Georgia's dark history of lynchings

Cross takes a different route now when he drives from his home in Washington, D.C., to visit family in North Carolina. And as a Black man, he said he wont dare take another trip alone across the country.

Clarence Cross, Jr., a retired Veterans Affairs hospital chaplain, said he wouldn't travel alone across the country anymore because as a Black man he feels it's too risky. (Photo courtesy of Clarence Cross, Jr.)Courtesy of Clarence Cross, Jr.

It would be too risky, said Cross, 73, a retired VA hospital chaplain. Im fearful of what could happen.

Cross overhauled his road trip habits after he watched the video of Army Lt. Caron Nazario being pulled over by local police in December, pepper-sprayed, then ordered to lie on the ground at a gas station in Virginia.

It made Cross relive his own experience when he was also stopped along the U.S. Route 460 by a local officer about three years ago while he was traveling home after visiting family in North Carolina.

Cross remembered the officer approached his car and immediately unsnapped his holster. Cross said he was so upset by that move he angrily questioned the officer.

I thought that was over the top, recalled Cross, who said he didnt realize the speed limit in the small town had changed from 55 mph to 35 mph. I said, Why are you doing that? I'm not a threat to you.'

He said his friends later scolded him, calling him crazy for challenging the police officer and warning he could have been shot. Cross said he was issued a ticket for reckless driving. His lawyer challenged the ticket, which he said was reduced to a lesser offense.

Watching Nazarios encounter earlier this year stirred up that anger again. You realize it could have been you, he said.

Cross, who served two years as a policeman in the Army, said he knows in his heart of hearts that not all policemen are bad. But he was trained to tell people why they were being stopped. That didnt appear to happen with Nazario.

I know that we are treated differently and the potential is always there to get harassed or whatever, unnecessarily, he said.

More: Police killings of Black men in the U.S. and what happened to the officers

Anastassia Doctor was planning an outing with girlfriendswhen a news alert popped up on her cellphone that Philando Castile had been killed by a police officer in Minnesota. The day before on July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling had been fatally shot by a policeman in Louisiana.

It was like I had just woken up from the Matrix, recalled Doctor, who at the time was stationed at an Army base in Hawaii. It was like, Where have I been?'

She texted her friends. Many of them had Black sons. You know they killed another Black man, right?

Anastassia Doctor joined a rally in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, last summer after the death of George Floyd.Courtesy of Anastassia Doctor

Doctor, 46, was bothered that her friends werent more upset. She never spoke to them again.

I was like, Wow, they could just hunt us down and kill us and nobody's going to say anything? she said.

Doctor joined chapters of Black Lives Matter and the NAACP when she moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, two years later.

While Doctor recounted police shootings of other Black people, she said the deaths of Castile and Sterling are burned into her memory in part because they were caught on video.

Sterling, who was selling CDs outside a store in Baton Rouge, was shot by a policeman six times, including three times in the back. Police said Sterling was found with a gun. One of the officers was fired in 2018 after an excessive force investigation.

Castiles girlfriend captured part of the encounter on Facebook when an officer shot him in a car in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Her daughter was in the back seat.

It was more traumatizing, recalled Doctor, who now lives in Springfield, Virginia.

She said Floyds death also made her angry. A video showed Derek Chauvin, a former police officer, kneeling on Floyds neck for more than nine minutes.

All of us felt powerless, she said.

The trauma, said Doctor, is made worse when focus shifts to the history of the person killed.

There's never a perfect victim when you're talking about Black people, she said. They're going to find something, some reason why you deserve to die.

Nicholas Gibbs was in the middle of a piano lesson in Los Angeles when his mother abruptly sent his teacher home. News broke that the white police officers who beat Rodney King had been acquitted and the city was burning.

Gibbs sheltered at home for days. He remembers the fire, the anger.

Gibbs was about 11 years old when he watched the video of King being beaten. Even at that age, he knew it was wrong.

It was about him being Black, he said. It was on camera and it was obviously unnecessary.

Soon after, Gibbs learned that a Black girl in Los Angeles not much older than him, 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, had been killed by a Korean store owner, Soon Ja Du.

Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, but instead of jail time she was placed on five years' probation with 400 hours of community service, a $500 restitution and funeral expenses.

The feeling at the time was that our lives didnt matter, recalled Gibbs, 40. Things could happen to us and nothing would happen to the perpetrators.

After the acquittals in Kings case, his mom, an immigrant from Belize, explained what he needed to do so that what happened to King wouldnt happen to him: Be calm, follow the officers directions, dont do anything that could give police a way to assassinate your character.

On May 1, 1992, Rodney King pleads for the end of rioting and looting that plagued Los Angeles after the verdicts in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating him.David Longstreath, AP

She did make me feel like because youre Black you have to be better, Gibbs said.

The lessons sunk in when he started driving as a teenager. They are lessons Gibbs, a teacher in Texas, still uses to ensure he makes it home to his family each night.

You just hope your game plan works, he said.

The day before her eighth birthday, Kadiatou Tubman saw her name on the television for the first time. A woman also named Kadiatou was onthe news because her son, Amadou Diallo, had beenshot to death by police. Diallo had immigrated to New York City from Guinea, just like Tubmans mother.

Four white officers said they feared for their lives because Diallo drew an object that looked like a gun. It was a wallet. All four were charged with second-degree murder amid protests and later acquitted in the Feb.4, 1999, shooting.

Tubman, 30, said it wasnt until she had her first encounter with police a few years later that the pain Diallos death caused her community became personal.

On a warm, almost-summer day, Tubmans mother rushed her and her siblings home from school in a panic. When they arrived at their fifth-floor Brooklyn apartment, their landlord was standing at the door with a police officer. They were being evicted.

The eviction and the five years her family spent in the shelter system inspired Tubman to become a housing advocate. Tubman, who works at a Black history and culture research library, teaches students about less talked about ways policing affects them, including eviction.

Seeing what I saw on the news with police brutality and then coming home to have police officers remove us from our home, it just awakened something in me, said Tubman, who still lives in Brooklyn. I was like: OK, I am Black. This is what its like to be Black in America.

In 2013, K.W. Tulloss helped organize a rally in Los Angeles after a jury thousands of miles away in Florida acquitted George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon.

That was even more of a slap in the face, Tulloss recalled.

Tulloss, who then headed the western region of the National Action Network, a social justice group, had tracked the 2012 case since he saw news reports that Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Florida, had shot and killed Trayvon, who was 17 and Black.

Trayvon had gone to the store for Skittles and was walking home when he was confronted by Zimmerman. During an altercation, Zimmerman shot Trayvon, who was unarmed.

This was literally the moment that really opened up my eyes to the ugliness of hatred in our country, said Tulloss, 43, pastor of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Racism was still alive and well. It was just in a new form. … People werent afraid to shoot no more. They were hiding behind the law of justice, justifying profiling.

Zimmerman was acquitted of charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter the next year.

Tulloss said like many he had been hopeful race relations had improved, particularly after the country elected Barack Obama its first Black president. But Zimmermans acquittal showed otherwise, he said.

Jaylen Reese, 12, of Atlanta, marches to downtown during a protest of George Zimmerman's not guilty verdict in the 2012 shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin, Monday, July 15, 2013, in Atlanta.AP Photo/David Goldman

Many of us were optimistic that this was a post-race society, Tulloss said. Well, it seemed like, no, this was the coming-out party for racism.

And it's coming back out, he said.

Tulloss said Floyds death and the protests that followed came as many people were already in a moment of righteous indignation about the police shootings of other unarmed Black people.

Enough is enough, he said. We have to turn our anger into passion. We have to really change laws.

More: More work to be done: Derek Chauvin murder conviction brings relief, resolve to keep fighting for justice in George Floyd's name

Collins stormed out of the house, sat in the yard and cried. A jury had just acquitted Zimmerman of all charges, and it felt as if a stone had been dropped onto her stomach.

Her mother held her to her chest. How am I going to go to school and live my life? she asked her mother.

Youre going to pray before you go out every day that youll be able to come home, her mother told her.

Collins saw herself in Trayvon.

It set in that they could really kill me and get away with it, said Collins, a 20-year-old Black woman from Indianapolis. I realized Im not safe anymore. I realized that the people I love arent safe. ... I will remember that moment until the day I die.

Eight years later, Collins worst fears came true when she saw her childhood friend staring back at her on the news.

In May 2020, an Indianapolis police officer shot and killed 21-year-old Dreasjon Reed during a pursuit captured on Facebook Live.

Opinions on news, race & identity from a panel of diverse Gen Z hosts

Collins mom used to work with Reeds. She has known him since she was 7 years old. He bought her fries when she forgot her lunch money. When they were older, they babysat their younger siblings and played video games.

It hurts in a way I never knew I could hurt, she said. Your heart cracks, and it breaks you. I watched my friend die.

Collins prayed for Black people not to be killed. She prayed for God to take the world out of peoples hands and fix it. She prayed for a miracle that I know will never come.

She lives with the trauma of that moment.

Every day I live in some sort of fear, she said. Every time I see a cop car, I get a pit of anxiety in my stomach.

Continue reading here:
George Floyd. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. For many Black Americans, these deaths and others have caused lasting trauma - USA TODAY

He died in less than nine minutes, gasping for air before lying motionless on the concrete without a pulse.

People across the country, especially in the Black community, recoiled in horror as video evidence of the police brutality careened across the internet and TV screens. Thousands of protesters would soon surge into the streets, powering up a movement that had been brewing for years.

The murder of George Floyd was nothing new; this one had simply been laid bare for the world to see. And the nation cried out for justice.

Around 8 p.m. on May 25, 2020, the 46-year-old Black man was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes from Cup Foods in Minneapolis.

After the arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, shoved Floyd to the street and knelt on his neck. Pinned to the pavement, Floyd pleaded for his mama. He told Chauvin and three other officers, Im about to die. Please dont kill me. Chauvin, 45, simply told Floyd to relax.

I cant breathe, Floyd replied. Please, the knee in my neck, I cant breathe. He would repeat that he couldnt breathe no fewer than 20 times before he eventually took his last breath, lost consciousness and died.

It wasnt the first time the phrase was uttered by a Black man during an encounter with police. Printed on thousands of T-shirts and banners, it had already become a well-known rallying cry in the movement to fundamentally transform policing and end police violence against the Black community.

In 2013, Eric Garner voiced 11 times that he, too, couldnt breathe after he was wrestled to the ground and put in a chokehold by a New York City police officer on suspicion of illegally selling cigarettes.

Garners death came a year after George Zimmerman, who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on Feb. 26, 2012, was acquitted after claiming self-defense against the unarmed Black teen.

Protesters march from Columbia City Hall to the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina, on May 30, 2020, to protest the killing of George Floyd. (Credit: Crush Rush/Alamy)

Outraged, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi founded the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Few thought the movement had staying power.

But in 2020, tens of thousands of people would march in solidarity for Floyd and BLM in demonstrations that spanned the globe, making it one of the largest movements in history.

The movement inspired the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed the U.S. House in early March and is being negotiated in the Senate. The legislation would ban chokeholds and end qualified immunity the legal protection that limits victims ability to sue police officers for misconduct. The law would also ban no-knock warrants in federal drug cases while mandating data collection on police encounters.

Additionally, the law would create a nationwide police misconduct registry that would help hold problematic officers accountable. Whats more, it would redirect funding to community-based policing programs while prohibiting racial and religious profiling.

To Benjamin Crump, the civil rights lawyer who represents Floyds family, the movement has highlighted what we, as a nation, have always known.

There are two justice systems in America: one for white America and the other for Black America, Crump told the Southern Poverty Law Center. Police brutality against Black people has always existed in our country, but the video of Chauvin slowly taking the life from George Floyd has left a lasting mark on the minds of many Americans.

Benjamin Crump, left, joins Gianna Floyd, daughter of George Floyd, and her mother Roxie Washington, as they speak with reporters following a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on May 25, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

The lasting mark on the Black community was illustrated by a jump in depression and anxiety. Data from the Census Bureau showed that the rate of Black Americans showing signs of anxiety or depressive disorders climbed from 36% to 41% within a week after the video was released. Even today, the Black community is still waiting to exhale.

David Hodge, operations coordinator for the SPLCs Civil Rights Memorial Center and a Black man, said he lives in a constant state of doubt.

Every Black person that I know can tell you a story of police brutality or misconduct that has either impacted them personally or someone that they know, said Hodge, 34. This reality touches everywhere, so for me, there is a degree of uncertainty as to whether Ill be treated in accordance with the law. That is an uncertainty I have to live with.

In the year since Floyds death, fear and uncertainty within the Black community have become unavoidable enemies that swim in the depths of the subconscious.

George Perry Floyd Jr. was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and raised in Houston. In 2014, he moved to the Minneapolis area, where he lived in the suburb of St. Louis Park.

While the video of his murder was shocking and galvanizing for the reform movement the brutality was simply part of a pattern that has been out of public sight until recent years.

Police violence, anti-Black violence, police brutality, theyre not getting worse, theyre getting filmed, said Dr. Lisa Woolfork, an associate professor of English at the University of Virginia and a founding member of BLM in Charlottesville. There are always going to be folks who are absolutely fine with the disposability of Black people. For some, the marginalized will always be an acceptable loss in a democracy.

Indeed, from the Civil War and the fight to uphold white supremacy and the enslavement of millions of Black people, to Bloody Sunday of the civil rights era, when Alabama state troopers attacked unarmed marchers with clubs and tear gas, to the 1992 riots in Los Angeles after four policemen were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King, history has a way of repeating itself.

In a sad twist that is a reality for many, Woolfork a Black woman says she wasnt surprised by Floyds murder.

That doesnt mean that I wasnt wounded or harmed, however, she said. There is a way in which trauma and violence are regularly doled out to Black people, and it shows up in a variety of ways physical violence, or the type of violence that shows up in apathy. Police operate in conjunction with the state and under an umbrella of anti-Blackness that is lethal for Black people of all ages and genders.

In 2014, after BLM was founded, the nation witnessed the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer.

More killings followed, and the victims became household names: Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark and Breonna Taylor. About 10 miles from where Chauvin was on trial for Floyds murder, Daunte Wright was fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop.

As of May 25, Newsweek reported that 229 Black people in the U.S. have been killed by police since Floyds death, according to the research group Mapping Police Violence. As one area mourns a victim, yet another death happens.

Crump, the Floyd familys lawyer, clings to hope a deep faith that the movement can and will catapult the nation into a new era.

Hope is and must always be at the center of our efforts, Crump, 51, said. Hope that justice will prevail. Hope that good people of all races, creeds and colors will speak up and speak out when they see injustice. Hope that a reckoning has begun in America both in its people and in its institutions. If I did not have hope, I would not be able to continue the fight for justice.

But all know that hope is only a necessary mindset.

Hope isnt an action, said Woolfork, 51, whose classes at the University of Virginia explore systemic inequity, racism and white supremacy. Things can be animated by hope, thats a gesture, but Im not of the opinion that hope will get us to the other side. What will free us are the actions, the changes in policy and accountability for wrongdoing. This is the bare minimum.

Echoes Hodge, There are moments when I struggle to find hope.

An independent autopsy, ordered by Floyds family, found that Floyd died by homicide caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain.

Chauvin was arrested on May 29, 2020 four days after the murder.

Officers are trained and sworn to protect and serve, Crump said. Who was Chauvin protecting? George wasnt a danger to anyone. He was begging for his mother, begging for air. How could Chauvin be innocent?

On March 12, a $27 million settlement for Floyds family was approved. And on April 20, as National Guard troops deployed in anticipation of possible violence in Minneapolis, Chicago and Washington, D.C., a jury found Chauvin guilty on all three charges against him second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

The jury got it right, Crump said. Those who still say Chauvin is innocent are basing that belief not on the evidence but on their rush to conclude that a white man would have done nothing wrong in killing a Black man. While the jury verdict doesnt erase centuries of wrong, it does give hope that Georges death can truly be an agent of change across America.

But are the settlement and the verdict justice?

True justice would require the impossible: George back alive, living in the embrace of his loving family, Crump said. But I believe his family sees the verdict as a measure of justice for George. Nothing can ever bring George back, but the verdict and the settlement were important steps in the fight for justice for all of us.

In addition to seeking police reform, the BLM movement has also pushed to remove the iconography of white supremacy the Confederate monuments, the public schools named for Confederate generals and other such symbols that are part of the landscape in this country, particularly in the South.

That movement began in earnest in 2015, when a young white supremacist killed nine Black people at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina. Floyds death and the BLM movement gave it new momentum. In an update of its Whose Heritage? report, the SPLC reported in February that at least 168 monuments and other Confederate symbols have been removed from public spaces since Floyd was killed and more than 300 since Charleston. Some statues were yanked down by protesters; others were removed by local authorities.

Yet, some states have enacted laws that punish local officials for removing symbols that represent an era of racial oppression and brutality whose legacy we continue to see in deaths like Floyds.

Black lives have always been taken from us, Crump said. Black men, women and children are killed every day. I think Georges case put a microscope on the ongoing genocide of minorities in our country.

Woolfork said that instead of acting on petitions to remove Confederate monuments, legislators and legislatures are seeking to enshrine white supremacy.

Theyre calling it heritage, she said. Its not heritage, its hate.

Street art on the side of a building in Minneapolis honors George Floyd. (Credit: Michael Siluk/Alamy)

A year after Floyds murder, racial equity seems out of reach for many Black people who live in fear of the next traffic stop.

As for what Floyds murder taught the nation, Hodge said that we can no longer excuse transgressions by police.

We cannot look away or distract ourselves from the consequences of anti-Blackness and police brutality, he said. Floyds death is a reminder that the systemic devaluation and dehumanization of Black lives has very concrete implications.

Woolfork said the nation must recognize that racism is the countrys original sin and that anti-Black violence at the hands of the state and the nation is not a relic of the past but rather a present threat to be confronted.

Everything surrounding George Floyds murder opened eyes that had for far too long been closed, Crump said. We can only hope we must hope that the lesson for law enforcement agencies is to do better at respecting all individuals they encounter.

Photo at top: People continue to lay flowers on April 6, 2021, at the George Floyd Mural in Houstons Third Ward, where Floyd grew up. (Credit: Sipa USA/Alamy Live News)

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His Last Breath: A year after George Floyd's murder, nation reckons with history of racism, police brutality - Southern Poverty Law Center

On October 26, 2020, police killed Walter Wallace Jr. in West Philadelphia, as his mother stood on the sidewalk, pleading for his life. Over the next few days, the neighborhood erupted in protest and my phone lit up with alerts from Citizen, a public safety app. Writers for the app monitor and transcribe police scanner chatter, which is then converted into push notifications. There was a break-in at Rite Aid, a burglary at a nearby liquor store, a dumpster fire one block over, a trash fire 900 feet away.

As local news has been decimated by budget cuts and layoffs, apps like Citizen and Nextdoor have ascended to fill the void. Citizen in particular has increasingly positioned itself as a news organization. "We act fast, break news, and give people the immediate information they need to stay safe," reads an overview on the company's LinkedIn profile. Citizen often ranks higher than The New York Times among news apps in the Apple store.

In theory, the platform democratizes reporting; it allows anyone with a smartphone to post comments and videos to a neighborhood network. But in practice, these alerts and the neighborhood commentary attached to them often read like police stenography and amplify existing biases. Users are bombarded by discordant notifications of violence, devoid of meaningful context.

Last November, I deleted Citizen from my phone, grossed out by the tenor of the push alerts. But in March, curious about a nearby apartment fire, I downloaded the app again. This time, when I created an account, I was prompted to sign up for a new feature, Citizen Protect. For just $19.99 a month, a virtual safety agent would track me whenever I left my house. If I said my chosen safe word, the safety agent would start a video chat and, if necessary, send my exact location to a 911 call center. The service promised me that help from Citizen's community of users would always be close at hand. "Live monitoring," the ad said, "means you never have to walk alone." (At this point, it seems Citizen Protect is currently only being promoted to some Citizen users. A Citizen spokesperson told me they were aiming to fully launch in mid-June but that they could not comment further at this time.)

As an illustration of what the app would look like in action, I was shown a faux, promotional push alert for a lost dog. More than a thousand people had been alerted about the dog, the screenshot suggested, and 475 people were looking for it.

It is not difficult to imagine the many ways such a system could go wrong, particularly in a neighborhood like West Philadelphia, where in 1985 the city's police bombed its own citizens, members of the Black separatist organization, MOVE. The bombing killed nearly a dozen people and destroyed more than 60 homes along two city blocks. In May of last year, during protests over George Floyd's murder, Philadelphia police drove an armored vehicle into the mostly Black neighborhood and teargassed residents, while the next day, a violent mob of White men roamed Fishtown largely unimpeded. An app like Citizen Protect is aimed at my demographic: I am a White woman, living in a gentrifying neighborhood, who sometimes goes running after dark. If I felt ambiguously threatened by a fellow jogger a Black man, for the sake of argument and alerted my Citizen safety agent and the broader Citizen community, what would happen to him?

I signed up for a free trial of Citizen Protect in order to test out some of the features. What I learned did little to inspire faith that the app would protect everyone equally.

In many ways, Citizen's new Protect feature marks a return to the company's roots. Citizen began as a crime-fighting app called Vigilante that launched in 2016. An ad for Vigilante shows a woman being followed and then assaulted under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. She calls 911 and her call is transcribed by a Vigilante operator listening in on the police scanner. An alert "Suspicious Man Following Woman" is received by a guy playing chess, a rideshare driver, and a man working in a bodega. These three men arrive just in time, conveniently in concert with the police, and two of them shove a camera in the attacker's face just as the perpetrator is knocking the woman to the ground.

The New York Police Department condemned the app, which was subsequently removed from the Apple store. It relaunched the following year as Citizen, a more innocuous app for the professional bystander. (According to The New York Times, the NYPD spokesperson who condemned Vigilante now works for Citizen.)

Citizen's new Protect service features safety agents who, according to one recent job listing, "triage the level of severity of each call and make appropriate assessments of necessary next steps." The agents are required to "offer support and guidance in real-time to any user who feels unsafe." The job qualifications are minimal customer service experience is a priority and experience working as a first responder is a plus.

Citizen connects you to a safety agent call center when you click a button that reads "Get Help." The first agent I spoke with told me that she was able to monitor my exact location, pace, phone battery, and presumably had I connected my phone to, say, an Apple Watch or Fitbit my heart rate. Another safety agent, Erin, told me that if I added emergency contacts, they would be able to alert those people if I were ever in trouble. "Let's say you got into a car accident," said the safety agent, "if you asked us to contact 911 and your emergency contact contacts even if we had to hang up the phone because 911 had arrived and you were being stabilized we could then reach out to your contact, to let them know what's going on."

As cities face a rise in murder rates and budget shortfalls, this Uber-for-private-security feature feels like an ominous sign of what's to come during the post-pandemic recovery. Covid-19 killed nearly 600,000 people in the United States over the past year, while the government put down uprisings for racial justice across the nation with a heavily militarized police force. The post-pandemic landscape feels both hopeful and post-apocalyptic. What has become clear over the last year is that safety in this country is just an illusion. How much would you be willing to pay for that illusion, though? To some, $19.99 a month might seem reasonable.

A feature like Citizen Protect strikes me as mass surveillance disguised as a public good, poised to funnel generalized fear into something more nefarious. It will almost certainly lead to unnecessary police stops and, inevitably, to police violence. It will likely encourage vigilantes like George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

In the wake of the 1918 pandemic and World War I, the U.S. moved into the Roaring 20s, a period characterized as much by debauchery and cultural development as it was by income inequality and punitive policing. The Pinkertons, a private detective agency known for strike-breaking, and for serving as a goon squad for the wealthy, were omnipresent. If we are now entering our own Roaring 20s, it seems a new kind of Pinkerton is coming with them.

* * *

Rebecca McCarthy is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She's on Twitter @reemccarthy.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

Excerpt from:
As neighborhood watch apps ascend, so do the threats they pose - Salon

NEWARK, NJ A key toward achieving racial equality in communities could come through means of reform in policing and public safety, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka highlighted during a panel discussion with former President Barack Obama.

Baraka was joined on Wednesday by the former U.S. president and community leaders across the nation to participate in a conversation hosted by My Brother's Keeper Alliance, aimed to share ideas and best practices to continue to center racial equity," the activism the country has seen since George Floyd was killed, and the need to revamp public safety.

The virtual discussion came just a year after the tragic death of Floyd, when a viral video of former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin was seen kneeling on his neck which led to his death. Protests and rallies erupted nationwide in the following weeks, including Newark, as calls rang out for social justice and policing reform.

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During Wednesday's discussion,Baraka notedthat measures for reformhavealready been undertaken in his city for years through a consent decree agreement.

[The consent decree] was a good thing for our city, and we began to push to begin putting reforms in place in our police department, immediately, Baraka said.

Under the consent decree, an agreement which Newark police and the U.S. Department of Justice entered into in 2016, it served as a shift for the citys authorities to improve their quality of policing through various facets of training and reforms.

Since Newark police entered into the agreement, they have reported several improvements in their policing efforts.

In a quarterly consent decree report, it highlighted that city police and its monitoring team have made considerable efforts to establish remote auditing capabilities while pandemic-related restrictions on in-person meetings remained in place.

The report also highlighted a decision from the police earlier this year to issue body cameras for all plainclothes officers after Det. Rod Simpkins shot and killed a man minutes into New Years Day - an incident investigators said was difficult to assess due to a lack of footage from the scene.

Last year, the city moved nearly $12 million of its public safety budget into a newly-created Office of Violence Prevention as a means to impede hate activity and violence within Newark. The plan is to close the Newark Police Departments 1st Precinct by Dec. 31 and transition the building into a museum chronicling local activism in Newark and positive police changes. It will also hold a trauma center for health recovery and healing, and workforce development.

Newark police also established two Community Service Officers in each of the city's seven precincts. Officers are responsible for addressing the needs within the neighborhoods they serve.

In order to quell more incidents of violent crimes, the mayor pointed to notable changes made under the consent decree and by bringing police and community together.

Making sure that police are part of the larger public safety strategy as opposed to the only public safety strategy, he said. It doesnt mean we dont have any mistakes or problems But we are continuing to get better because we are working together collaboratively to make sure we reimagine what public safety looks like.

However, as the unjust killings of Black people in the country persist, Obama explained that the work of communities nationwide hasnt necessarily solved the issue of racial injustice just yet.

Touching on the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old unarmed African-American from Miami who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman during an altercation, the former president said he hopes to see proven efforts in the public addressing racial injustice come to fruition.

We have seen people come together to not just talk about the problem, but to try and come up with concrete solutions and implement those solutions, Obama said. What I have consistently drawn inspiration from is to see how the process hasnt been static but has continually evolved with people learning from what works and what doesnt work, pushing the envelopes of what is possible and challenging all of us to see how we can do better.

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Newark Mayor Highlights Transformation of Public Safety During Panel With Barack Obama - TAPinto.net