Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Police reform is the issue that made a lawyer named Lori Lightfoot a political presence in Chicago when she was head of the Chicago Police Board. Of course, she is now Mayor Lightfoot of Chicago and said this week that police misconduct and brutality, quote, "tarnish the badge." Mayor Lightfoot joins us now. Mayor Lightfoot, thanks for being with us. LORI LIGHTFOOT: It's my pleasure, Scott. SIMON: You've led investigations into brutality cases when you were head of the police board and the CPD's Office of Professional Standards. Must also be said that as an attorney in private practice, you represented some police officers. How difficult is police reform? LIGHTFOOT: Well, having seen this issue from a lot of different angles - I also prosecuted corrupt police officers when I was a federal prosecutor. So I've been around this issue for a long time, and really, it comes down to this. You can have all the policies that you want,

Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET President Trump dismissed outrage over police killings, saying Tuesday that "more white people" are killed by police than Black people. "So are white people!" Trump said when asked in an interview with CBS News about why so many African Americans have been killed at the hands of police. "So are white people! What a terrible question to ask." Trump added that "more white people, by the way" are killed by police than Black people. More white people may be killed by police annually, but Black Americans are killed at a far higher rate. According to a database of police shootings since 2015 compiled by the Washington Post , 1,301 Black people have been killed by the police in the past five and a half years; 2,495 white people were killed. But, importantly, African Americans, who make up a far smaller portion of the total population than whites, are killed at a rate more than twice that of whites. In another comment also sure to inflame racial tension, Trump said that

Lena Waithe is the screenwriter and creator of the Showtime series “The Chi,” about the South Side of Chicago, but she tells Jelani Cobb, “Getting your own TV show is like getting beaten to death by your own dream.” Her first script for a feature film is “Queen & Slim,” directed by Melina Matsoukas. It’s about a man and woman who are on a not-great first date, during which they unintentionally kill a police officer at a traffic stop that escalates. “I just wanted to write something about us. But unfortunately, if I’m writing about us, how can I ignore the fact that we’re being hunted?” The film arrives in the aftermath two notorious police killings of black people—Botham Jean in Dallas and Atatiana Jefferson in Fort Worth—only the latest in a long line of similar tragedies. “I do not want that kind of publicity for my film,” Waithe says. “I am like every other black person. . . . Every time these stories hit our phones, a piece of us dies, because we know that we could be next.”

A New South Wales Appeals Court judge has condemned violence at the hands of up to seven police officers in relation to the Australia Day arrest of an Aboriginal man.??

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