The lawyer for a white Chicago police officer charged in the 2014 murder of a black teenager said yesterday that his client had feared for his life. He also said that dashboard camera footage released by police is unreliable, because video “distorts images”.

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The systemic concentrated poverty and police oppression that triggered the Watts rebellion in 1965 still marks the US, from Ferguson to Maryland, writes James Braxton Peterson 

THE last thing the divided community of riot-torn Ferguson, Missouri, and the almost intractable problem of race relations in the US, needed was an exclusively white group of middle-aged, self-appointed vigilantes, each better armed than most European soliders, “patrolling” the streets.

Police have arrested nearly two dozen people in Ferguson, Missouri, during a fourth consecutive night of demonstrations marking the anniversary of the fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown.

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Prosecutors in Ferguson, Missouri, have charged an 18-year-old man with assaulting police officers on the anniversary of the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.

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Hundreds of people observed four and a half minutes of silence yesterday to mark one year since 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a US police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

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The relatives of an unarmed black man who died after being put in a white police officer’s chokehold said yesterday that the nearly $6 million settlement they reached with the city wasn’t a victory as they continued pressing for federal civil rights charges.

Peniel E Joseph sets last week’s massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in the context of a climate of denial in America over national issues of racial inequality

A white man suspected of killing nine people in a Bible study group at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, was arrested yesterday. Officials are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

Police in riot gear have made numerous arrests as protesters took to the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, after a judge cleared a police officer over the deaths of two unarmed black suspects killed in a barrage of gunfire.

Baltimore’s top prosecutor announced criminal charges against all six officers suspended after a man suffered a fatal spinal injury in police custody, saying “no one is above the law”.

Baltimore residents were cleaning up the wreckage from rioting and fires that erupted after the funeral of a 25-year-old black man who died after suffering a spinal injury in police custody.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to demand answers over the police custody death of Freddie Gray.

Lawyers for the parents of Michael Brown, the unarmed, black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer in a St Louis suburb, have filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Ferguson.

Michael Brown’s parents have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Ferguson opening a new chapter in the legal battle over the 18-year-old’s fatal shooting by a white officer that sparked a protest movement about the way police in the US treat black people.

US prosecutors have charged a volunteer law enforcement officer over the death of a man who was shot dead as he lay on the ground at the officer’s feet.

Questions persist about the fatal shooting of a black South Carolina motorist after the release of video taken from the car of the white US police officer charged over the death.

Questions persist about the fatal shooting of a black South Carolina motorist after the release of video taken from the car of the white police officer charged over the death.

A white South Carolina police officer has been dismissed from his job after being charged with murder for shooting an apparently unarmed black man in the back as he fled, the latest death that has brought protesters out to decry racism and police brutality in the United States.

In the United States, demonstrators have gathered in the city of North Charleston to protest at the fatal shooting of a black man by a white police officer.

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe called for an investigation into the arrest of a black college student that left him bleeding from the head and sparked campus protests.

The man accused of shooting two police officers in Ferguson was not targeting officers or aiming at demonstrators, his lawyer said as he countered a police description of the crime that has heightened tensions in the city.

The 20-year-old man charged over the shooting of two US police officers had been at the protest earlier that night.

The hunt for suspects in the shooting of two police officers at a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri, is continuing as community leaders appeal for reconciliation and justice in a town struggling against a legacy of racial tension.

Two police officers shot amid protests in Ferguson — the Missouri city that has become a symbol of tensions between police and black Americans — have been released from hospital.

Half a century after the march that led to voting rights for black Americans, Barack Obama still faces a stiff challenge in his attempt to tackle racial inequality, reports Toluse Olorunnipa

President Barack Obama says America’s racial history “still casts its long shadow” despite a half-century of progress toward a more perfect union.

Lawyers for the parents of an unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot by a white police officer in a St Louis suburb plan to file a civil lawsuit against the city of Ferguson and former officer Darren Wilson.

Former police officer Darren Wilson will not be prosecuted over the shooting death of an unarmed black 18-year-old that led to weeks of protests, the US Justice Department said.

With the dashboard camera in their car rolling, police pulled a Jaguar over for running a stop sign on a dark night. Things turned tense when one of the officers warned his partner he could see a gun in the glove compartment.

A US police video of officers confronting and then fatally shooting a black man in southern New Jersey has stirred anger over another death at the hands of police.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio said it was “disrespectful” for some city police officers to turn their backs to him during two funerals for dead police officers.

Thousands of New York city police officers again turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he spoke at the funeral for an officer shot dead with his partner.

Elected amid fervour and renewed American belief, it was inevitable that the first black president of the US wouldn’t match the hopes and dreams of a nation, writes Elizabeth Drew

Hundreds of officers outside the church where a funeral was being held for a policeman killed along with his partner in an ambush shooting turned their backs on New York’s mayor as he spoke during the service.

A US mayor is pressing for calm in his St Louis suburb after a white police officer fatally shot a black 18-year-old who police say pointed a handgun at the officer.

A man, thought to be a black teenager, has been shot dead by a police officer in the same city where the killing of Michael Brown sparked protests.

A black teenager has reportedly been shot dead by police in the same city where the killing of Michael Brown sparked protests.