Joshua Clark Davis

📢 Tuesday 10/7 7pm PT
@joshuaclarkdavis.bsky.social in conversation w/ Daphne Muse
celebrating POLICE AGAINST THE MOVEMENT: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back
@princetonupress.bsky.social

In-person, or register for Zoom here: citylights.com/events/joshu...

Statue of Trump and Epstein Holding Hands Returns to National Mall

A federal worker "told her that a time-stamped application for a 1st Amendment demonstration can be automatically permitted after 24 hours, if it isn’t explicitly denied.
She submitted another application...When no one responded directly to the permit by Thursday, the group reinstalled the statue."

ICE Records Confirm that Immigration Enforcement Agencies are Using Invasive Cell Phone Surveillance Devices | image: StingRay cell phone surveillance device

LAPD Eyes ‘GeoSpy', an Al Tool That Can Geolocate Photos in Seconds JOSEPH COX • AUG 13, 2025 AT 8:55 AM Emails obtained by 404 Media show the LAPD was interested in GeoSpy, an Al tool that can quickly figure out where a photo was taken.

INSIDE THE NYPD'S SURVEILLANCE MACHINE Your face is being tracked. Find out where. TAKE A WALK IN NYC See how policing tactics intersect (Image: black and white photo of a large crowd in New York City with red squares around their faces to illustrate surveillance)

Truthout NEWS ANALYSIS | PRISONS & POLICING Campus Police Are Using Israeli Spy Tech to Crack Down on Student Protest Israeli-made surveillance technologies are accelerating the militarization of campus police departments across the US. By Tara Goodarzi & Brian Dolinar, TRUTHOUT February 24, 2025

Get found “in seconds”

Today, I spoke w @joshuaclarkdavis.bsky.social about his new book, Police Against the Movement. Joshua recounts how local police infiltrated, surveilled, & sabotaged civil rights orgs, how those orgs fought back, & what it means for modern police reform movements

open.spotify.com/episode/1IVv...

Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back by Joshua Clark Davis. A bold retelling of the 1960s civil rights struggle through its work against police violence—and a prehistory of both the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements that emerged half a century later

By placing activism against state violence at the center of the civil rights story, @joshuaclarkdavis.bsky.social's Police Against the Movement offers critical insight into the power of political resistance in the face of government attacks on protest.

Out Oct 7: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Police Against the Movement A bold retelling of the 1960s civil rights struggle through its work against police violence—and a prehistory of both the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements that emerged half a century...

Pre-order available from @princetonupress.bsky.social here: t.ly/p3Wym

This book promises to be one of those works that cause us to reevaluate what we think we know about the struggle for civil rights.

Cover of Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back by Joshua Clark Davis

POLICE AGAINST THE MOVEMENT retells the '60s civil rights struggle through its overlooked work against police violence and the surveillance, infiltration, and retaliatory prosecutions they faced from police in return. It's a pre-history of both the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements.

Excited to be speaking at wonderful stores like @citylightsbooks.bsky.social @redemmas.org @politicsprose.bsky.social and with some very knowledgable interlocutors like @elizabethkai.bsky.social @chenjerai.bsky.social @jduffyrice.bsky.social

November 6, 2025, 7PM The Word is Change Bookstore In conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika Brooklyn, NY November 10, 2025, 7PM Zinn Education Project—Teach the Black Freedom Struggle Online conversation with Jesse Hagopian Zinn Education Program December 2, 2025 Enoch Pratt Central Library, Wheeler Auditorium In conversation with Jill Carter Baltimore, MD December 4, 2025 Acapella Books at the Auburn Avenue Research Library Atlanta, GA

11/06, Brooklyn: The Word is Change w/ Chenjerai Kumanyika
12/02, Baltimore: Enoch Pratt Central Library w/ Jill Carter
12/04, Atlanta: A Cappella Books @ Auburn Ave Research Center w/ Josie Duffey Rice

Cover of Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back by Joshua Clark Davis

Police Against the Movement Book Tour October 7, 2025 City Lights Bookstore In conversation with Daphne Muse San Francisco, CA October 9, 2025 Skylight Books In conversation with Elizabeth Hinton Los Angeles, CA October 16, 2025, 7PM Red Emma’s In conversation with Judy Richardson Baltimore, MD October 18, 2025 Politics & Prose In conversation with Judy Richardson Washington, DC

Police Against the Movement Book Tour November 6, 2025, 7PM The Word is Change Bookstore In conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika Brooklyn, NY November 10, 2025, 7PM Zinn Education Project—Teach the Black Freedom Struggle Online conversation with Jesse Hagopian Zinn Education Program December 2, 2025 Enoch Pratt Central Library, Wheeler Auditorium In conversation with Jill Carter Baltimore, MD December 4, 2025 Acapella Books at the Auburn Avenue Research Library Atlanta, GA

My new book, POLICE AGAINST THE MOVEMENT, comes out 10/7 and I'm going on a book tour in SF, LA, Baltimore, DC, NYC, and ATL!

10/07, SF: City Lights w/ Daphne Muse
10/09, LA: Skylight w/ Elizabeth Hinton
10/16, Baltimore: Red Emma's w/Judy Richardson
10/18, DC: Politics & Prose w/Judy Richardson

Hoping to check out the only museum in the US dedicated to public housing the next time I’m in Chicago

EXECUTIVE DIRECTIVE NO. 14 Issue Date: September 11, 2025 Subject: Modernizing the Officer Hiring Process to Grow the Police Department The City of Los Angeles is the largest city geographically in the United States at 550 square miles, and the second-largest city in the United States in population, with a population of 3.8 million people. Yet, the LAPD currently has about two officers for every 1,000 residents. By comparison, the City of New York has a force size of 36,000 sworn officers, or about four officers for every 1,000 New Yorkers. The City of Chicago has a force of approximately 11,600 sworn officers for a population of 2.7 million, equating to about 4.3 officers per 1000 residents. We must have enough officers to effectively and sustainably keep Angelenos safe in the coming years, especially as we host major events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games welcoming millions of visitors to our neighborhoods. The City has worked to address officer retention and attrition by securing competitive and fair pay for LAPD officers and personnel. Following this action, the number of LAPD applicants reached a four-year-high. In addition to investing in increased wages, with enhanced salaries for new officers, the City has bolstered the recruiting pipeline to ensure that candidates with a desire to serve their communities are applying to join the force, and augmented its background investigations staff with support from the Police Department to increase the size of Academy classes. Yet, the City's hiring process for officers has prevented many applicants from moving efficiently through the selection process to join the LAPD Academy and ultimately serve in the LAPD. On average, it takes 322 days - nearly one calendar year - for a candidate to get from their Personal History Statement submission to the last step required to be assigned to an academy class. We must work urgently to make change.

By combining process improvements and enhancements to candidate selection processes, it should be possible to fill existing academy classes and overcome the natural attrition in the Department to begin growing the size of the LAPD. To that end, I am hereby directing the Personnel and Police Departments to perform the following actions within 15 days: 1. Develop and implement written protocols and a case management agreement to effectively expedite the Police Officer selection process to increase the number of qualified candidates selected for the LAPD Academy; and 2. Establish benchmarks for the duration of each stage in the City's Police Officer selection process, such as field investigation, medical, polygraph, and psychiatric exams and implement measures to shorten the time required for each stage, aiming for candidates to complete the entire selection process within 180 days; and 3. Ensure that the expedited process maximizes class sizes with a goal of achieving consistently full LAPD Academy classes with highly qualified candidates that are likely to become Police Officers. I further direct the Personnel Department to create and staff a dedicated LAPD Hiring Division within the Personnel Department that has appropriate staffing to work in partnership with the LAPD to ensure that Police Academy candidates move through the selection process swiftly and efficiently and meet the LAPD's standards for graduation. I further direct the Office of the City Administrative Officer to work with the Personnel Department to ensure that the new LAPD Hiring Division has appropriate supervision and staff support to succeed. I further direct the Police Department to examine Academy graduation rates and the sentiment of recruits to determine whether there are refinements or improvements to the training and drill programs to increase the likelihood of graduating qualified recruits to become Police Officers. Executed this 11th day of September 2025 Kaven Bags KAREN BASS Mayor

LA Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive directive today to expedite the hiring process for new LAPD officers. It currently takes a year for applicant to apply and then hired. She wants it cut to 180 days by shortening the psych, background check, and medical exam process.

Author's Pitch: Indefensible Spaces by Rahim Kurwa "Indefensible Spaces offers a case study of the national crisis of the policing of housing, told through a history of Black organizing and resistance in one of Los Angeles’s most overlooked areas."

today we have an author's pitch from @rahimk.bsky.social on his important new @ucpress.bsky.social book on policing and housing in LA, INDEFENSIBLE SPACES carceral-history.ghost.io/authors-pitc...

Judge Finds Attorney General Can't Bring RICO Charges in Cop City Case - UNICORN RIOT Atlanta, GA — A Fulton County judge found Tuesday that Georgia’s attorney general lacked authority to bring racketeering charges against protesters named in the sprawling Cop City RICO case, calling i...

Two years after Georgia AG Chris Carr issued a sprawling RICO indictment targeting the #StopCopCity movement, a judge found the AG's office missed a basic procedural requirement to even be able to bring a RICO case:

It’s stunning how badly all the other outlets soft-pedaled the body-cam footage, missing virtually every important detail in their stories about the it. Now that it has been ruled a homicide, I hope other outlets pay better attention. Grateful to be able to cover this for the Beat.

"Deepest darkest Africa" is a real tell for the way these people see the world

NEW: Wearing masks, no ID, unmarked & blacked out cars, refusing to say what agency they’re from and using profanity with any press & public nearby.

This was at 14th & R in Washington DC, this morning (Sunday).

What the hell is happening to the US?

(🎥 Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post)

ICE documents reveal plan to double immigrant detention space this year Internal documents reveal ICE’s plans to double immigrant detention to more than 100,000 beds, including new detention centers for families.

ICE documents reveal plan to double immigrant detention space this year

Police have set up a checkpoint and appear to be stopping every single car on 14th st NW, between W+V, here in northwest DC. Some cars are being pulled over after being stopped.

Some police are wearing “HSI police” vests (Homeland Security Investigations)

Teach the History of Policing Resources for middle and high school classrooms on the history of policing in the United States.

Here are resources to teach about history of policing including lessons, the Empire City podcast by @chenjerai.bsky.social, Police Against the Movement by @joshuaclarkdavis.bsky.social, interview with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, on "The Condemnation of Blackness: Lies We’re Told About Crime" & more. ⬇️

Opinion
Jeanine Pirro: The fight to make D.C. safe and beautiful
These three laws are detrimental to public safety and to my ability to fight crime.

Jeff Bezos: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

Today's Washington Post opinion page:

Disappearing people to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act, sending the National Guard into U.S. cities, and laying the groundwork for military action against cartels are all elements of the Trump administration’s efforts to militarize policy and frame issues in terms of “war.”

AI thinks the postwar presidents mated with each other to birth future presidents.

Nice piece by @mguariglia.bsky.social on Amazon's efforts to collaborate more with police on surveillance!

Ozzy Osbourne, Rock God Despite Himself (1948–2025) The Prince of Darkness, who gave us heavy metal as we know it, has been laid to rest.

I wrote about John “Ozzy” Osbourne—a working class lad made good, who rose from a slaughterhouse killing floor to the highest echelons of rock stardom in spite of himself, who gave us heavy metal and left a more complex legacy than many realize—for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Johns Hopkins Press will license its books to train AI models Authors at the Johns Hopkins University Press will be able to opt out of the AI licensing agreement until the end of August; if they do not, their work will be used to train AI models.

Johns Hopkins University Press has licensed its books for training AI models.

Authors have until the end of August to opt out.

It is fucking insane that we had a decade of people complaining about the dangers of cancel culture, and now literally hundreds of thousands of people are being purged from government jobs for ideological reasons, but that is not cancel culture.