Good morning. Minneapolis plans to dismantle its police force. New York City is starting to reopen. And Tropical Storm Cristobal has made landfall. Let’s start with a look at false reports from the police. |
 | | Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester, lays on the ground after he was shoved by two police officers in Buffalo, New York.Jamie Quinn, via Reuters |
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An encounter in Buffalo last Thursday — in which two police officers shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground and left lying him there while blood poured out of his ear — was troubling partly because of the original police account. |
The account claimed that the man “was injured when he tripped and fell.” If a video hadn’t existed, the truth might never have come out. |
That’s a widespread problem: |
Philip Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University, who has analyzed thousands of police reports, told CNN that lies like these were fairly common. |
Activists in the current protest movement have begun to focus on how they can turn the rallies of the past 10 days into lasting change, to reduce both racism and police brutality. And reducing the frequency of false reports by the police is likely to be a key issue. |
Already, reform-minded prosecutors and police chiefs have taken some steps in the last few years. The top prosecutor in St. Louis, Kim Gardner, has stopped accepting new cases or search warrant requests from officers with a history of misconduct or lies. In Philadelphia and Seattle, prosecutors are creating similar “do not call” lists, The Marshall Project has reported. |
Chris Magnus, the police chief in Tucson, Ariz., told the Marshall Project: “If I had my way, officers who lie wouldn’t just be put on a list, they’d be fired, and also not allowed to work in any other jurisdiction as a police officer ever again.” Often, though, police-union contracts prevent firing even officers with a record of brutality and dishonesty — which then casts a shadow over the many police officers who tell the truth. |
False police reports are not a new problem. What’s new are the videos that have caused people to realize how common they are. “When I was a reporter, it was the police officer’s word against the victim’s or suspect’s,” Jamie Stockwell, a deputy national editor at The Times, told me. “Cellphone video has changed the debate over policing.” |
1. Minneapolis to rethink policing |
The Minneapolis City Council pledged yesterday to dismantle the Police Department. Council members said that they did not yet have specific plans for a new public safety system and would study models being tested in other cities. |
It is the biggest response to the protests so far. In New York and Los Angeles, city officials have vowed to shrink police budgets in coming months. |
In other protest developments: |
- Democrats in Congress plan to unveil legislation today that would make it easier to prosecute police misconduct and recover damages from officers who violated people’s constitutional rights.
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2. New York emerges from its virus lockdown |
 | | Closed Brooklyn businesses ln April.Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
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New York City will take the first steps toward reopening today, a moment of optimism in a city battered by the coronavirus. Nonessential construction and manufacturing can resume, and retail stores can open for pickup. As many as 400,000 workers could return to their jobs. |
The milestone comes 100 days after the city reported its first case. Since then, more than 211,000 residents have been infected and more than 21,000 have died. The confirmed infection rate has dropped sharply since the peak in mid-April. |
In other virus developments: |
3. Distance learning isn’t working |
Education experts believe that distance learning in most school districts is not working and that students are falling behind at alarming rates. “We know this isn’t a good way to teach,” a seventh-grade teacher in Colorado said. Black, Hispanic and low-income students are falling behind the fastest, research suggests. |
“The richest and poorest parents are spending about the same amount of hours on remote school,” Dana Goldstein, a Times reporter who has written a book on teaching, told us. But “wealthier parents are inevitably able to provide more books and supplies at home, more quiet space, educational toys and often more knowledge of the curriculum.” More high-income school districts are also providing strong remote instruction, rather than basic worksheet-like activities. |
Here’s what else is happening |
 | | Lake Pontchartrain’s Orleans Harbor in New Orleans on Sunday, as Tropical Storm Cristobal approaches the Louisiana Coast.Gerald Herbert/Associated Press |
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- Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall in southeast Louisiana yesterday, hours after pouring several inches of rain on the New Orleans area. The storm is expected to head north to Arkansas and Missouri by Tuesday.
- James Bennet, the editorial page editor of The Times, has resigned over the publication of an Op-Ed by Senator Tom Cotton last week that called for the military to crack down on “lawbreakers” in the protests. (Ben Smith, The Times’s media columnist, looked at the revolts inside the country’s big newsrooms.)
- Lives lived: It was the late 1970s, and the hip-hop scene was just emerging. Robert Ford Jr., better known as Rocky, was there to chronicle it as a journalist and then promote it as a producer and mentor to early stars like Kurtis Blow. Ford’s breakout record? A Christmas single. He has died at 70.
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| BACK STORY: TAKING A KNEE |
Four years ago, Kurt Streeter — then an ESPN writer — published a profile of Nate Boyer, an unusual football player. Boyer was homeless as a young man and later served in the Army as a Green Beret, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For the Seattle Seahawks, he was the long-snapper, who played only on some kicks. |
Boyer’s place in football history, however, won’t be about what he did on the field. It will be about the fact that he gave Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid the idea to protest police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. Boyer, who’s white, said he would never kneel during the anthem. But he thought it was a symbol of reverence and had seen a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. protesting in Alabama by kneeling. |
“If you’re not going to stand,” Boyer remembers telling Kaepernick and Reid, as the three of them sat in a hotel lobby, hours before a game in 2016, “I’d say your only other option is to take a knee.” |
 | | Winnie Au for The New York Times |
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All you need is a tin of fruit and a food processor to create a refreshing summer treat: sorbet in an instant. |
Some tips: Choose fruits in heavy syrup, and make sure they are pitted and seedless. You can also add a liqueur or other spirit, such as Campari (with frozen grapefruit) or tequila (with lime juice with oranges). Find more flavor combinations here. |
A roadblock for baseball’s comeback |
As sports leagues around the world finalize plans to return, Major League Baseball still has not. Owners have asked players to take a second pay cut — not only to reflect a shorter season but also for less money per game — and the players have said no. The two sides are so far apart that it’s possible there may not be baseball until next spring. |
And in basketball … One thing to watch when the N.B.A. resumes play July 31: Will Zion Williamson, the league’s most exciting rookie, help his New Orleans Pelicans make a late run to the playoffs? |
 | | Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in 2016Andre D. Wagner |
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Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
You can see today’s print front page here. |
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about the George Floyd protests in New York City. And the latest Book Review podcast talks with the critic A.O. Scott about a great, underappreciated novelist: Wallace Stegner. |
The Times is providing free access to much of our coronavirus coverage. Please consider supporting our journalism with a subscription. |
Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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