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"Our leaders are using their words and policies to tell you that you don't belong here. That your Black life doesn't matter," Smith said in a Waterloo event.
This year, lawmakers concluded the legislative session without any major laws tackling racial inequities in the criminal justice system.
Racial justice advocates held protests in the Iowa Capitol in June 2020. It’s been a year since Iowans filled the streets of cities across the state to protest George Floyd’s murder by a police officer . They called for changes to prevent police violence and to fix problems like the state’s severely disproportionate incarceration of Black residents. As part of a series on what’s changed in the last year, Iowa Public Radio looked back at how the state legislature has responded to calls for racial justice. Natalie Krebs Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a police accountability bill into law i...
Reporter Jim Flansburg’s mind and notebooks were filled with the odd fact, the strong suspicion, the half-story that he never could develop into a piece that would stand alone in The Register. Yet the stuff was usually interesting — it made great newsroom and barroom speculation and debate in those
Bill on governor’s desk increases penalties for riot-related offenses Iowa City protest, June 4, 2020. (KCRG TV photo) One of the bills to clear the Iowa legislature in its final week raises the penalty for rioting to a felony. Lingering in the crowd when a protest becomes an “unlawful assembly” would become a crime. Representative Jarad Klein, a Republican from Keota, said the bill sends a clear message. “Peaceful protesting is a great and wonderful thing, so many positive results have happened in our country as a result of peaceful protesting, but violence cannot and will not be tol...