![]() ![]() ![]() She was found hanged to death in her cell three days after she was jailed following a traffic stop. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Sandra Bland’s death continues to be controversial five years after died in the Waller County jail, in the Houston area, in 2015. Because these deaths occurred before trial, the victims were still considered innocent under the law. Gerritt’s Pulitzer work included 10 editorials under a series called “Death Without Conviction.” He focused on the high rate of deaths - averaging 100 a year - among people being held in the state’s 250 local jails. His biography also notes extensive foreign travel, including an interview with Yassar Arafat in 2001, and a pre-newspaper career as a professional drummer.Ĭongratulations to the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners He often wrote about prison and criminal justice reform. He spent 17 working as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer at the Detroit Free Press, and was deputy editorial page editor of the Toledo Blade. He went out for a cup of coffee as the Pulitzer announcements rolled out.īut Gerritt came to the Palestine paper toting a few decades of journalism experience and an impressive list of previous awards - a string he added to as soon as he landed in Texas. And his editorials centered on a subject that often has to fight to get attention: the high rate of deaths in Texas county jails.Įven Gerritt figured he was the longest of shots. Gerritt was relatively new to the newspaper and the town, having moved there just two years before he wrote his winning work. His newspaper, the Palestine Herald-Press in Texas is tiny: daily circulation about 3,500. It’s unlikely there was much money riding on Jeff Gerritt to win the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing. Jeffery Gerritt of the tiny Palestine, Texas, Herald-Press, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing ![]()
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