January 13, 2026
Dear Readers,
As I write this newsletter, I cannot begin otherwise but with the damnable killing of Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman so casually shot dead by an ICE officer last week—but our own coverage of the killing is still in the works.
I will, however, offer an anecdote. Back when I was a reporter in Philadelphia, circa 2011, I happened upon a (very) short article in the Philadelphia Daily News about a man, unnamed, who had been killed by Philadelphia police officers. The headline ran something like “Meat Cleaver-Wielding Man Fatally Shot by Police,” and offered a narrative of events that had come from one and only one source: the police, who said police had tried to Taser the unnamed man; that the Taser didn’t work; that the man “charged” police; and that it was then that an officer opened fire, killing him.
No witnesses, no family, no community members were interviewed. The man’s entire life had been summed up by the descriptor “meat cleaver-wielding.”
I went to the scene, knowing only the North Philadelphia block on which the incident had occurred, and began knocking on doors and asking questions, until I found the family of Harry Bennett, the 53-year-old military veteran, loving father and grandfather—the “meat cleaver-wielding” Black man who had just been killed by Philadelphia police.
Mr. Bennett’s family offered a very different version of events, corroborated by multiple witnesses. Bennett had been having a mental health crisis and was in danger of hurting himself when police were called. The Taser police fired at Bennett had worked, and Bennett was immobilized when a police officer, not Bennett, “charged” into the house and shot the helpless Harry Bennett dead.
The story I eventually published for the Philadelphia City Paper, “Why Is Harry Bennett Dead?” has always stayed with me as a reminder of the capriciousness with which so many innocent, unarmed people have been killed by trigger-happy law enforcement officials—and the very deliberate circling of wagons and rolling out of a bullshit narrative by law enforcement agencies to cover for their own officers’ disgraceful actions.
As we work on our ongoing coverage of how state violence continues to impact our sector and our people, this week we bring you timely analyses of other topics, from the future of feminism and women’s movements to organizing to resist modern-day “plantation economies” in the South to the impact of federal funding cuts on the nonprofit sector.
As always, we love to hear from you. Email [email protected].
Sincerely,
Isaiah Thompson
Editor
Leadership
