Mastodawn

Dan Gillmor Dec 1, 2023

(Revised)

The New York Times is collaborating with local newsrooms on investigative projects. This piece, produced with Mississippi Today, is a brilliant and terrifying look into a Mississippi sheriff's department "goon squad" that operated with violent impunity for years. https://mississippitoday.org/2023/11/30/rankin-county-sheriff-goon-squad-got-away-with-years-of-brutality/?mc_cid=84eb08d38f

Note: The Times' initiative is being run by Dean Baquet, who IMO failed in key ways as the org's executive editor but is doing great stuff with this project. (Sadly, the new NYT editor is no better.)

How a ‘Goon Squad’ of Deputies Got Away With Years of Brutality

For nearly two decades, a band of Rankin County sheriff’s deputies roamed impoverished neighborhoods, meting out their version of justice.

Mississippi Today

Show thread

Dan Gillmor Dec 1, 2023

What journalists -- and everyone else -- need to understand is that if the United States goes full fascist, essentially **every** police agency will get license to do this kind of thing, routinely.

Too many get away with lesser versions of it already. Fascist-guided "law" enforcement isn't just speculation anymore.

And right-wingers can hardly contain their glee at such a possibility.

The stakes are that high. Wake up, journalists, and help us move toward justice, not terror.

Show thread

@dangillmor All that stuff is just crimes of passion. Fascism is so much worse. It makes stuff like that not allowed, not tolerated, but obligatory. It streamlines torture and suffering, making it efficient and uncompromising. Two guys getting beaten, raped and killed? Try a thousand, ten-thousand, all dumped into the same mass grave, with everyone terrified into pretending it never happened, until people really believe that's true.