Stolen Lives: killed by law enforcement

Stolen Lives:

Killed and Brutalized by Police 

There is an epidemic of police brutality in the United States. The victims are overwhelmingly African American, Latino and other people of color. Many victims are youth. Those who are killed and brutalized by police are denied justice and even dignity. 

The Stolen Lives Project is a work in progress.  Stolen Lives belongs to those whose lives have been ended by the police.  They cannot speak for themselves, but we can and we will.  Stolen Lives is a call to people who live with police brutality every day to come forward and tell what they know and experience.  It is a call to people from all walks of life who believe in justice to support the demand to stop police brutality and to take up this fight themselves.

We need to put a national spotlight on police brutality in order to stop it.

We hope that Stolen Lives will strengthen all the ways that many organizations and individuals are fighting against police brutality and compel many, many more people to step out and demand that this brutalization stop. 

Stolen Lives seeks — through speak-outs, public testimonials at churches, schools, union halls, through networking with organizations that already have lists, and getting our form out across the country —  to collect the names of people killed by U.S. police and border patrol since 1990.  (And while police murders since 1990 is our focus, accounts sent to us of incidents prior to 1990 as well as accounts of police brutality that people have survived will also be included.)  On October 22nd, a national day of protest against police brutality, the names of those who have been brutalized and killed by police will be read, honored and remembered.  It is up to us to put a stop to police brutality.

Stolen Lives contains a beginning list of names and accounts of police murder and brutality, followed by an autopsy report and photographs (including autopsy photos) of Angel Castro, a 15-year-old Puerto Rican youth shot dead by Chicago police.  We are including these very graphic photos and autopsy report because they expose so powerfully the human cost of this brutality and in respect for Angel Castro’s family who submitted them to Stolen Lives.