Brakkton Booker
Brakkton Booker is a National Desk reporter based in Washington, DC.
He covers a wide range of topics including issues related to federal social safety net programs and news around the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
His reporting takes him across the country covering natural disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, as well as tracking trends in regional politics and in state governments, particularly on issues of race.
Following the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Booker's reporting broadened to include a focus on young activists pushing for changes to federal and state gun laws, including the March For Our Lives rally and national school walkouts.
Prior to joining NPR's national desk, Booker spent five years as a producer/reporter for NPR's political unit. He spent most to the 2016 presidential campaign cycle covering the contest for the GOP nomination and was the lead producer from the Trump campaign headquarters on election night. Booker served in a similar capacity from the Louisville campaign headquarters of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014. During the 2012 presidential campaign, he produced pieces and filed dispatches from the Republican and Democratic National conventions, as well as from President Obama's reelection site in Chicago.
In the summer of 2014, Booker took a break from politics to report on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.
Booker started his career as a show producer working on nearly all of NPR's magazine programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and former news and talk show Tell Me More, where he produced the program's signature Barbershop segment.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Howard University and was a 2015 Kiplinger Fellow. When he's not on the road, Booker enjoys discovering new brands of whiskey and working on his golf game.
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Brett Hankison, who was terminated in June, has been charged with three counts of wanton endangerment. None of the three men faces state charges directly over Taylor's death.
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"You don't get to shoot somebody 21 times," Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said of the deadly encounter in April. "I cannot defend that."
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U. Reneé Hall will stay on until the end of 2020. She is the latest in a wave of police chiefs to leave their posts after national protests calling for increase law enforcement accountability.
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The "Get Your Knee Off Our Necks" march comes as frustration over police brutality and use of force have sparked national protests following the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd.
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Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. The shootings took place on the third night of protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
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"He, as much as anyone in our history, brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals," former President Barack Obama said of the longtime congressman and civil rights legend.
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The late Georgia congressman's body lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The public viewing for the "conscience of the Congress" is being held outside through Tuesday amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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The cancellation comes as reports surface that a Live PD camera crew's raw footage of the March 2019 death of Javier Ambler, a black man who died in police custody, had been destroyed.
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George Floyd's death at the hands of police sparked protests around the world. His family's private service Tuesday follows public memorials that drew thousands of mourners.
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The former vice president won the Super Tuesday state with the second-largest number of delegates. He only spent around $89,000 there, but his resounding win in South Carolina may have been pivotal.