Conversations on Race and Policing - California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB)

Join us in conversation with Cat Brooks, performer, organizer, activist, and radio host of "Law & Disorder" (KPFA).

From her website (link). "Cat Brooks is host of Law & Disorder on KPFA (link) and a long-time performer, organizer, and activist. She played a central role in the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant, and spent the last decade working with impacted communities and families to rapidly respond to police violence and radically transform the ways our communities are policed and incarcerated. She is the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) and the Executive Director of The Justice Teams Network. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland’s 2018 mayoral election, facing incumbent Libby Schaaf."

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

Healing After Gang Violence: In Conversation with Mia Arredondo and Edwin Cruz

Mia Arredondo (pictured, on left) lost her older brother to gang violence when she was 12 years old. Edwin Cruz (pictured, on right) was sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) at 17 for a gang-related crime that resulted in someone's death, and served 17 years before being resentenced and released in 2024. Together they'll talk about the impact of gang violence, what accountability can look like, and how each of them arrived at their own understanding of justice. They're part of Survivor Action for Equity (SAFE), a coalition of people who have lost loved ones to homicide and who believe that a life without parole sentence handed down to someone barely out of their teens deserves a second look. Audience questions are welcome.

Survivor Action For Equity (SAFE) is a coalition of people who have lost loved ones to homicide and who believe that a life without parole sentence handed down to someone barely out of their teens deserves a second look. Audience questions are welcome.

SAFE welcomes new members who have lost loved ones to homicide. Learn more at SurvivorAction.org. If you're not a survivor but would like to support this work, reach out to learn how.

Mia Arredondo is a survivor and community leader who has dedicated more than 25 years to serving the San Fernando Valley. At just 12 years old, Mia experienced the devastating loss of her older brother to gun violence, a tragedy that forever changed the course of her life. Rather than allowing that loss to define her, she transformed her grief into a lifelong commitment to preventing violence, supporting families, and creating opportunities for young people to thrive. As the Community Violence Intervention Program Manager at Champions in Service, she leads efforts across the San Fernando Valley to interrupt cycles of violence and support young people seeking a different path.

Edwin Cruz is a dedicated professional whose life's work is focused on service, rehabilitation, and community advocacy. Sentenced to Life Without Parole at 17, he faced the prospect of dying in prison. Through the rehabilitation programs available to him, Edwin came to understand the impact of his crimes and the harm caused by the gang lifestyle, and developed remorse. He later benefited from a new law creating the possibility of parole for people who were children at the time of their crime and was released in 2024 after 17 years of incarceration. He has since channeled that experience into a powerful career, using his expertise in peer support and trauma-informed care to help justice and system-impacted individuals heal and reintegrate. Edwin holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication Studies from Cal State LA; he is a Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist with a justice-involved focus, a Certified Anger Management Specialist, a Victim Offender Dialogue Facilitator, and a graduate of Loyola's Law School Independent Forensic Gang Expert College.

Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible! Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound and the CSUSB Pfau Library for their support of this event! Thanks to Thinh Ly, Parker Brooks, and the Information Technology Services team!

What Does True Justice Look Like? In Conversation with Gunner Johnson and Brett May

Gunner Johnson (pictured, on right) survived a home invasion robbery in which he was shot twice and a close friend was killed while sleeping in the next room. He later committed a crime himself, an action for which he takes full responsibility and understands to be connected to the injuries and trauma he experienced as a victim. Brett May (pictured, on left) was convicted of a crime that took someone’s life and served 24 years of a life without parole sentence. He also knows the pain of losing loved ones to homicide, having lost multiple childhood friends while growing up in the street life. For many years, Brett viewed those deaths as inevitable casualties of that world. It wasn’t until much later that he recognized himself as a survivor — someone carrying profound grief and trauma while also confronting the accountability and remorse for the harm he caused. That dual truth shapes how he understands justice today.

Gunner and Brett speak from their experiences and describe what accountability asks of a person. They will speak about how each of them found their way toward healing and an understanding of justice.

Survivor Action For Equity (SAFE) is a coalition of people who have lost loved ones to homicide and who believe that a life without parole sentence handed down to someone barely out of their teens deserves a second look. Audience questions are welcome.

SAFE welcomes new members who have lost loved ones to homicide. Learn more at SurvivorAction.org. If you're not a survivor but would like to support this work, reach out to learn how.

Gunner Johnson is a survivor, restorative justice practitioner, and higher education professional working to advance second chances for justice-impacted people. Having lived through both harm and incarceration himself, he has transformed that experience into a commitment to healing, accountability, and systems change, working alongside survivors, people who have caused harm, and formerly incarcerated individuals to show that accountability and redemption can coexist. Gunner is the director of the UC Davis Underground Scholars Program, where he supports formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students in accessing higher education, building community, and achieving academic success. He also advocates for policies that strengthen public safety by giving people meaningful pathways to accountability, education, and restoration. His work is grounded in the conviction that every person is more than the worst thing they have ever done, and that second chances build stronger individuals, families, and communities.

Brett May is the Founder and Executive Director of the LWOP Foundation, shaped by his lived experience and 24 years served on a Life Without Parole sentence before earning a Commutation from Governor Gavin Newsom. He now works across universities, juvenile halls, and correctional facilities, providing trauma-informed guidance and expanding opportunities for justice-impacted people. Brett is completing his B.A. in Psychology at Cal State San Bernardino and brings firsthand insight into what real transformation requires.

Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible! Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound and the CSUSB Pfau Library for their support of this event! Thanks to Thinh Ly, Parker Brooks, and the Information Technology Services team!

From his website: "Kundnani is a writer interested in race, Islamophobia, surveillance, political violence, and radicalism. A good introduction to his overall political perspective is this article, first published in the Guardian: 'There are two kinds of antiracism.'

"Born in London, Kundnani moved to New York in 2010 and now lives in Philadelphia. The Guardian has described him as 'one of Britain’s best political writers.' Kundnani is the author of What is Antiracism? (Verso, 2023), The Muslims are Coming! (Verso, 2014) and The End of Tolerance (Pluto, 2007), which was selected as a New Statesman book of the year, and co-author of Homeland Security: Myths and Monsters (Common Notions, 2024). He has written for the Nation, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and The Intercept.  A former editor of the journal Race & Class, he holds a PhD from London Metropolitan University and is an Associate of the Transnational Institute.

"Kundnani is currently working on a biography of Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, to be published by Doubleday. The project has been supported with a 2024 Whiting Creative Nonfiction grant, and a grant from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at New York Public Library."

Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible! Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound and the CSUSB Pfau Library for their support of this event! Thanks to Thinh Ly, Parker Brooks, and the Information Technology Services team!

"Policing Empires painstakingly reveals the colonial roots of modern policing across the globe. Dismissing simple narratives of police militarization or individualized racism, Go shows how racialized fear of crime and the mobilization of counterinsurgency practices have been the organizing logics of the institution of policing." ― Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing

"Policing Empires is an important contribution to the rapidly growing field of police history." ― Jonathon Booth , Criminal Law & Criminal Justice Books

"Go provides invaluable depth and specificity to a field that is most commonly surveyed from the vantage-point of grand strategy and macroeconomics. Reading this book as militarized American police forces are mobilized to crack down on students protesting the mass slaughter of Palestinians on university campuses further heightens its clear and immediate relevance." ― Stuart Rollo, International Affairs

Join us for a conversation with Kristian Williams, author of Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, From Settlement to Uprising (AK Press, 2026), among many other books and articles.

"An expert chronicler of police abuse of power, Kristian Williams now turns his focus to law enforcement in his own backyard. It is the city’s progressive veneer, this book argues, that allows the repressive core of its policing machinery to function so effectively, weathering scandals, co-opting critics, and periodically renewing police legitimacy with well-timed and carefully limited reforms."

"A searing and masterful case study of the history and politics of policing. An essential read for anyone who wants to understand the true nature and function of the police institution and why we should be doing everything we can to dismantle it." —Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing

“Overall, Carceral Citizens is an intellectually generative and significant work that effectively argues for a more complete understanding of the afterlives of incarceration in colonial times and beyond.” ― Alberto Ortiz Diaz ― The Americas

A conversation with Mac Muir, co-author of "Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing" (2025).

Mac Muir was raised in Oakland, California. From 2016 to 2022 he rose to become a Supervising Investigator at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board. From 2023 to 2025, Mac served as Executive Director of Oakland’s Community Police Review  Agency.

Book Description for Cop Cop, from the publisher's website: 

When you think about the police, who do you think of: Do you think of one officer, or the police as an institution? From movies and TV to the real world, a police presence looms over most conflict. But if there was a defining feature of the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, it was the collective confusion about how America got to this point. Despite fragmented media coverage about police unions, militarization, and systemic racism, the average citizen’s knowledge remained hazy on what exactly police officers had been doing all along. It’s probably different than you would expect.

There is indeed a “Blue Wall of Silence”, but for the first time, it is possible to get behind it without being the police. The authors were senior investigators at the largest police oversight agency in America, tasked with policing the police in New York City. They are our eyes on the inside, and this book takes us into their world.

Cop Cop lays bare the web of real cases investigated by the authors over nearly a decade working for the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). As the authors combine their unique perspectives as police misconduct investigators, they provide a new way of framing the history of policing, tethering a story that begins in the fields of Ireland and the plantations of Barbados, courses along the cobblestone paths of Charleston, South Carolina, and London, England, flows through the heart of New York City, and bleeds into the present day.

As they unravel cases ranging from stops and frisks to chokeholds and shootings, they illuminate the overwhelming challenges faced by victims of police misconduct and officers alike, spurning both “Defund the Police” and “Blue Lives Matter” as they build a new argument for six concrete solutions to fix American policing.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

A conversation with Father Gregory Boyle, author of Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times (Simon and Schuster, 2024)

Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/csusb-corp2026

From the book's webpage: 

In a world increasingly marked by division and discord, beloved Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle offers a transformative vision of community and compassion—a perfect message for readers of Anne Lamott, Mary Oliver, and Richard Rohr.

Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. In 2024, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’s highest civilian honor. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the acclaimed author of Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, and The Whole Language. Cherished Belonging is his fourth book, and he will be donating all net proceeds to Homeboy Industries. Visit the author at HomeboyIndustries.org.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!