Category Archives: US

Racist ‘man-child’ Kyle Rittenhouse Walks free after killing 2 protesters

White supremacist Kyle Rittenhouse has walked free from his court case despite killing two people at a protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha Wisconsin.

From start to end, the trial has been set up to deliver no guilty verdicts of the five felon counts for which the teenager was standing trial.

The judge in the case – Bruce Schroeder – was revealed to be a radical conservative when his ringtone went off in the court to the strains of a song beloved of conservatives: God Bless the USA.

But if court watchers were made abundantly aware of the biases of the judge when he refused to allow the prosecution to refer to the defendant as a white supremacist.

Evidence of Rittenhouse’s racism is seen in the picture of him out drinking with the fascist gang the Proud Boys and flashing a sign used by white supremacists.

But the prosecution was not allowed to refer to Rittenhouse with the truthful words “white supremacist” but the defence was able to refer to peaceful protesters as looters and arsonists.

Killer Rittenhouse hanging out with Proud Boy white supremacists

It gets worse. When the prosecution lawyer referred to the dead and shot as victims he was admonished by the conservative judge.

Last week Rittenhouse began sobbing when he took the stand and the judge went to a recess, presumably in sympathy with the racist defendant. The sub-text is of course that it is the vigilante killer armed with an AR-15 automatic rifle who is the real victim .

The Jim Crow laws may have been consigned to history but the racism that underpinned them lives on.

The “self-defence” ploy that saw Rittenhouse walk free is based on the racist assumption about the need to use excess force when confronted with protesting Black people and their supporters.

In this view Rittenhouse is the innocent man-child.

If Rittenhouse were Black, his tears would have gotten him nowhere. Even when Black children are victims of racial violence, they receive little compassion and are perceived as adults rather than minors. During a 2012 bail bond hearing, George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin, told Martin’s parents, “I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am.” Martin was 17. Zimmerman was 28.

When two Cleveland cops killed Tamir Rice in 2014, they said they believed the 12-year-old Black child was much older, a sentiment echoed by a prosecutor who said Rice was “big for his age,” as if that justified his death. No charges were brought against the officers.

Renée Graham, Boston Globe

In good old Jim Crow style, Kinosha is 25% non-white but the jury was 95% white. The jury was selected in unusually rapid time and Rittenhouse was allowed to draw lots during the selection process.

The litany of biases and open sympathy for the defence saw the judge support the claim of the defence that video evidence submitted by the prosecution was distorted by Apple software and its was for the the defence to prove that this was not the case.

Prosecution layer Thomas Binger was repeatedly attacked by the judge. On one occasion when Binger asked Rittenhouse why he had remained silent since his arrest the judge reprimanded him, screaming at the lawyer, “Don’t get brazen with me”.

US police killing of Black people should see America in international court

An international report by human rights experts from around the world has called for the US to be taken to the International Criminal Court over the police killings of African Americans.

The 100-page report details the ongoing catalogue of murders and brutality that is systemic to the US and continues as part of its legacy of slavery and the racist white supremacists attitudes and practices it gave birth to.

The report highlights:

  1. violating its international human rights obligations, both in terms of laws governing policing and in the practices of law enforcement officers
  2. tolerating an “alarming national pattern of disproportionate use of deadly force not only by firearms but also by Tasers” against Black people
  3. operating a “culture of impunity” in which police officers are rarely held accountable
  4. police routinely subjecting African-Americans to torture

Six dead within 24 hours of Chauvin murder verdict

Within 24 hours of the guilty verdicts against Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd six more people were killed by police, not all of whom were Black. Thos deaths follow the US police killing of Daunte Wright just 10 miles away from the trial as the court was sitting.

From the US News and World Report:

A 16-year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio.

An oft-arrested man in Escondido, California.

A 42-year-old man in eastern North Carolina.

The deaths, in some cases, sparked new cries for justice. Some said they reflect an urgent need for radical changes to American policing — a need that the Chauvin verdict cannot paper over. For others, the shootings are a tragic reminder of the difficult and dangerous decisions law enforcement face daily.

An unidentified man in San Antonio.

Another man, killed in the same city within hours of the first.

A 31-year-old man in central Massachusetts.

more

US police killing of Ma’Khia Bryant

On Tuesday last week a Black teenage girl Ma’Khia Bryant was shot dead by police in an instant in Columbus, Ohio.

Cops were called to a fight outside her foster home. In the body-cam release by the police the teenager is seen lunging at someone with what appears to be a knife. She lunges at a second and the officer – Nicholas Reardon – shouts “Hey! Hey! Get down! Get down!” and then shoots her dead as the chaotic scene unfolds.

After the four shots are discharged, a shocked onlookers shouts: “You didn’t have to shoot her! She’s just a kid, man!”

The officer replies with his explanation: “She had a knife. She just went at her.”

Another neighbour verbally accosts the officers: “Do you see why Black lives matter? Do you get it now?”

Nope, they don’t get it. Sure, she has what looks like a knife but why didn’t;t the policeman shoot in the legs, why shoot to kill?

The same question could be asked of many many other murders carried out by the police. That’s to say, as far as Black people are concerned they deem it as always the preferred option to shoot to kill.

The fact that Ma’Khia was a child has been deliberately lost by the media and the defenders f the police who prefer to describe her as “a big woman’, “out of control” etc.

Her treatment in life and death is the same as that experienced by other black girls, who are often held to adult standards in the weird racist ‘adultification’ that goes on in America.

For more on the racist adultification of Black girls read what Dr. Jamilia Blake, a co-author of the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality report and a psychology professor at Texas A&M University has to say.

There have also been a number of recent incidents of children as young a five being handcuffed and brutalised by police in the US.

…and another US police killing: Andrew Brown Jr ‘execution’

Then there was the killing at the hands of the police of Andrew Brown Jr. in North Carolina.

This from CNN:

Andrew Brown Jr., 42, was fatally shot by Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies in Elizabeth City on Wednesday when they attempted to serve him with an arrest warrant, the sheriff’s office said.

Few details — and no video — have been released publicly about the shooting.

In dispatch audio from that day, first responders can be heard saying a man had gunshot wounds to the back. A copy of his death certificate says he died as a result of a gunshot wound of the head.

On Monday afternoon, after an earlier delay, Pasquotank County Attorney Michael Cox showed Brown’s family and attorneys a short clip from one deputy’s body camera that family attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter said showed an “execution.”

And it isn’t just Black people being killed. Brown people are disproportionate targets also. Adam Toledo – just 16 years old – was shot dead by Chicago police as he raised his hands. more

Maxine Waters is right: Chauvin is guilty and we need to step up our action

America and the world waits pensively for the verdict from the jury in the trial of racist ex cop Derek Chauvin who killed George Floyd.

Although the evidence against him was overwhelming given what we all saw with our own eyes, such is the depth of racism in the US that police are still given great leeway in their dealings with black people.

The sad reality is that all black people in the US are seen as a problem to be controlled. This is a mindset that goes back to slavery and continues to underscore the racist attitudes of police but also of many ordinary white people.

Attempts to blame Floyd’s history of drug taking and the impact that may or may not have had on his physiology for his death were desperate, or to suggest that Chauvin acted “reasonably”, were laughable.

But it only takes one jury member to decide there is sufficient doubt in the prosecution case for Chauvin to be acquitted.

Defend Maxine Waters for telling the truth

However, there is another risk that has emerged following comments made by congresswoman Maxine Waters and the interpretation put on them by the judge in the trial.

In an unusual statement from the judge, he explicitly claimed that the statements by Waters attending the scene of the killing of Daunte Wright just 10 miles way from the court, may somehow provide grounds for an appeal seeking mistrial.

Judge Peter Cahill described Waters words as “disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch”. So what did she say exactly?

Waters merely said she hoped Chauvin would be found “guilty, guilty, guilty”, just like the rest of us.

But if he walked free from the court Waters said, “we’ve got to stay on the street, and we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”

In other words the BLM movement will have to step up the fight. Again, there is nothing controversial in any of this but the racist republicans are now using it as an excuse to indulge in one of their favourite sports: attacking black women.

On this occasion Waters is to be applauded. However it should also be noted how few congressmen and women actually take part in protests on the streets.

Break from the Democrats

Leadership is about taking risks but also speaking truth to power. Waters deserve our support and the support of the rest of the ~Democrtas in Congress. But more than that we need black leaders to take to the streets regardless of the verdict from the jury.

Furthermore, the movement needs to stop putting its faith in Democrat politicians and the left more widely needs to break from that party, which after all has its roots as the vehicle of the slave power for the pivotal moments of US history.

America needs a truly progressive political formation that puts the struggle first not getting elected to office.

Daunte Wright killed by Minneapolis cops for driving while being black

Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man is dead after being shot by racist police in a Minneapolis suburb.

The murderous shooting took place during a traffic stop on Sunday and shortly after the man had phoned his mother, Katie Wright, to say he was being pulled over by cops.

The community has risen up in protest against the latest police killing of an innocent black person.

Protests broke out last night and continued into Monday morning, with the Brooklyn Center suburb at the centre of the rebellion.

Underlining the horror of the latest shooting is the fact that it took place a mere 10 miles from where the cop – Derek Chauvin – who murdered George Floyd is on trial, just before the 11th day of that trial.

Justice for Daunte Wright protests met by more violence

As is typical of racist America, the authorities instead of arresting the killer cops, have launched a repressive push back against protesters, firing rubber bullets and other weapons at members of the community.

Brooklyn Center’s mayor has put in place a curfew until 6am

Even with the eyes of the world on the Minneaplos police force, their impunity still knows no bounds.

As is usual for such police crimes, the cops got in their narrative (lies) first.

Chief Tim Gannon of the Brooklyn Center Police Department said that as the traffic stop unfolded the police discovered that there was a warrant out for the arrest of the motorist, as if this was excuse enough for the shooting dead of Wright.

Katie Wright said her son told her he had been pulled over “for having a dangerous air freshner on his car window”.

The ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] said his mother heard the cops tell him to get out of the car but they refused to say why. Then she heard scuffling followed by gunshots.

The bodycam of the latest police murder has yet to be released, despite calls from family members and the community.

The killing of Duante Wright follows outrage over the treatment by racist police of US Army Lieutenant Caron Nazario, who was assaulted and threatened with being shot by cops in Virginia. Nazario is of mixed Africa-American and Hispanic heritage.

Racism in the USA: cops handcuff 5-year-old black child

Racism in the USA brings forth more shocking scenes, this time from a newly released body camera footage from January 2020 showing two police officers in Montgomery County, Maryland, berating and handcuffing a 5-year-old child.

You won’t be surprised to know that the child is black. But what is perhaps more surprising is the fact that the cops responsible for the child abuse were themselves African-American.

Such is the deep institutional racism of the police in the US that even the black cops conform to type and learn to see all black people as worthy or ‘special treatment’ – even five-year-old boys.

The police officers have still not been disciplined, let alone sacked.

The officers were responding to a call to bring back the child, who left school after allegedly breaking a computer. The child’s mother has filed a lawsuit against the police department.

A few minutes into the footage, the following interaction take place:

“I don’t care if you don’t want to go to school — you do not have that choice, do you understand?” says one of the two cops, before he decides to get more aggressive. “Get back over there! Now!” he screams.

The boy does not respond, so the cop grabs him by the arm and begins walking him back to the school. The boy starts coughing and crying uncontrollably.

“There is no crying!” the female officer yells.

The male officer, who has the boy by the arm, tells him: “Cut it out!”

George Floyd murder trial: ‘When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad’

The trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd has put America on trial for its institutional racism.

Already the Chauvin defence strategy is clear – assassinate the character of the victim and insist on the unblemished professionalism of the killer police officer.

In this weird police union world it is not the knee on George Floyd’s neck that killed him but his poor heart condition and alleged drug use.

All this simply piles pain on the family, despite the ‘financial compensation’ they have received from Minneapolis city authorities. But no amount of money will bring George back from the dead.

The trial is expected to last a month and will prove to be both tortuous and painful.

One thing is certain – if the jury fails to convict Chauvin on the second degree murder charge, which is too weak a charge in any case – there will be hell to pay, both in the US and around the world. BLM will make sure of that.

Witnesses to George Floyd’s killing: ‘It seemed like he knew it was over for him’

The most powerful testimony at the first day of the trial came from Darnella Frazier, the teenager who was one of the bystanders filming the murder and is now 18 years old.

Having witnessed the killing, she is still traumatised by the experience and sometimes finds it hard to sleep as she thinks over if it she could have saved George’s life by intervening.

She spoke of how she would lay awake “apologising to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life.”

“When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad,” she added. “I look at my brothers. I look at my cousins, my uncles because they are all Black. I have a Black father. I have a Black brother. I have Black friends. And I look at that, and I look at how that could have been one of them.”

“It seemed like he knew it was over for him. He was terrified. He was suffering. This was a cry for help, definitely.”

The onlookers at the scene were understandably scared to intervene and noted how all the police on scene refused to respond to warnings from bystanders about the threat to George’s life their restraint clearly showed.

Calling the police on the police

Donald Williams, 33, a mixed martial arts fighter called the police on the police, such were his fears, as he saw the life being squeezed out of George. “I believe I witnessed a murder,” he informed the 911 phone operator.

Genevieve Hansen, 27, was another. witness to the murder. She is a firefighter and just happened to be passing by.

Hansen told the police to check George’s pulse but they told her to go away. “I would have been able to provide medical attention to the best of my abilities, and this human was denied that right,” Hansen stated to the court.

Chauvin’s lawyer Eric J. Nelson tried to claim that the police officers on the scene were being threatened by the small crowd of onlookers.

Hansen probably had the best response to that twisting of the truth: “I don’t know if you’ve seen anybody be killed, but it’s upsetting.”

Another thing that is emerging already from the trial is the bias of the judge, who took issue with several comments from witnesses, telling them not to argue with the court, and admonishing Hansen for daring to point out the trauma of watching someone being killed in front of their eyes.

Racist police handcuff and pepper-spray 9-year-old Black girl

A 9-year-old girl was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed by racist cops but still none of them have been disciplined, as the racist impunity of law enforcement in the US continues.

Sadly this is apart and parcel of the everyday racist violence from police that Black people continue to suffer in the US.

On Friday, January 29, several officers from the Rochester police department responded to a family disagreement. Instead of resolving the dispute, the responding officers quickly escalated the situation and it ended with police hand-cuffing and pepper-spraying a nine-year-old girl. 

Here’s what we know: 

Three RPD officers pepper-sprayed a child. The child’s mother, Elba Pope, called the police for a domestic dispute. When the police arrived, Pope’s daughter was experiencing a mental health emergency. Bodycam footage shows officers tackling the nine-year-old to the ground before placing her in handcuffs and later pepper-spraying her in the back of the squad car. 

The situation called for trauma-informed care, not state-sanctioned violence. The bodycam footage reveals a pattern of historically anti-Black racism within the Rochester Police Department.  Last year, Daniel Prude, a Black man experiencing a mental health emergency was murdered by RPD, which we only discovered months later because his family demanded the footage be released. RPD has a long history of violent racism, police brutality, and attempted cover-ups. In a very similar situation — a family member calling for help — officers responded with excessive force instead of community care. 

The implication that a Black child should have the capacity to respond calmly while being handcuffed, pepper-sprayed, and berated by a gang of police officers is unacceptable. It’s infuriating that multiple police officers (grown men and women) would brutally attack a child. 

We stand in solidarity with the families traumatized by the Rochester police department, and the Black community in Rochester as they demand justice after the violent assault of a 9-year-old child experiencing a mental health crisis. Every officer involved is guilty of prioritizing violence before community care. 

We demand justice.

Release the names of the officers involved 

Terminate all officers who responded to the scene 

Ban the practice of handcuffing children 

Ban the use of chemical weapons by RPD: prohibit the use of CS gas (tear gas), PepperBalls, and any chemical weapon that threatens the health and safety of community members  

Add your name to the petition demand justice now! 

Below is the letter we will send to the Mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren& Police Chief Cynthia Harriot-Sullivan.

Sign the Petition against racist police:

Dear Mayor Lovely Warren & Police Chief Cynthia Harriot-Sullivan: 

I’m standing in solidarity with the families traumatized by Rochester police officers, the Black community in Rochester, and Color of Change to demand justice for the 9-year-old girl who was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed by officers on Friday, January 29th. The criminalization of Black children and the irresponsible use of state-sanctioned violence on our communities will not be tolerated. 

We demand justice, 

Release the names of the officers involved 

Terminate all officers who responded to the scene 

Ban the use of chemical weapons by RPD: prohibit the use of CS gas (tear gas), PepperBalls, and any chemical weapon that threatens the health and safety of community members 

If police officers are protected by anonymity, internal investigations, and paid administrative leave they will continue to harm Black people with impunity.  

We demand that the Rochester Police Department is held accountable publicly. Your community demands immediate changes and we won’t stop fighting until you move towards our collective vision of safety and dignity. 

Sincerely 

[Your Name]

Thanks to the Color of Change (sign the petition):

https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/care_not_cops/?t=3&ak_proof=1&akid=49080%2E8946524%2EVBRuzG#

Covid racism: Being poor or Black means no vaccine

Covid racism by the authorities means there is a huge disparity in getting the vaccine if you are from a poor, Black or Asian background.

On 20 February the Financial Times published an article entitled Racial Inequality Plagues US Vaccine Rollout.

Change US to UK and the headline would fit for the UK too.

The FT article contains some striking graphic representations of that disparity, with contrasting maps of the major cities showing the incidence of deaths and infections (blue) and the incidence of vaccine administration (green).

Being poor or black means no vaccine for you

The shocking truth that it is black and poor people doing most of the dying but rich white people getting the best vaccine coverage. BAME and frontliners are in the Covid firing line but seemingly at the back of the queue for the vaccine.

To repeat, what is true for the US is also true for the UK, but try as we might we cannot find similar maps of the UK, presumably because our millionaire owned press does not think it worthy of investigation.

And vaccine hesitancy among African Americans does not explain the gross disparity. Although that metric is higher among the demographic because of the history and current practice of racism in the delivery of US healthcare, it is the weakest factor explaining the low take up.

Instead, the way in which the vaccine rollout has been executed is the problem. Although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended ‘priority groups’ get the vaccine first, this has been ignored by the individual states administering the rollout.

Vaccine hesitancy doesn’t explain rollout disparity

Most states have opted for an online first-come-first-served approach, which skews heavily in favour of the rich and well-heeled populations that have the time to sit in front of a computer refreshing the appointments site all day (or can hire someone to do that for them), or who don’t work all-hours and therefore don’t have the time to allocate for the necessary screen time.

And then there are the people who don’t have good internet access, which will tend to be the poorest communities. Then there is the already existing biases in healthcare delivery that skew to the richest in society.

Also, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are doing little if anything to counter vaccine hesitancy, with targeted outreach campaigns delivered by institutions and individuals trusted by the communities affected.

Short-sighted ruling class policy means a Covid pandemic without end

What is going on inside the rich countries is a reflection of what is going on at a global level, where the rich countries look after themselves but leave the middle income and poorest countries to fend for themselves. If it wasn’t for the Chinese and the Russians there would be no vaccine delivery in Latin America and Africa, for example.

But the short-sightedness of the rich white ruling-class elite means that the pandemic will never end because it will continue to circulate and mutate.

All graphics courtesy Financial Times.

Video: the everyday horror of America’s racist police violence – enough!

More racist American police violence. It never stops so we must keep up the fight until it does.

Parler data dump ongoing with names of terrorist organisers set to emerge

Its a few years late but social media has booted fascist-enabler-in-chief Donald Trump and now his supporters on Parler are about to be uncovered.

That has thrown up also sorts of real issues about the power of social media over our lives and politics, but the arguments of the right shutting down Trump is an affront to free speech is specious, to say the least.

But there can be no freedom to spread hate and violence, which is what Trump has been doing and to be honest it is what his followers continue to do on Twitter and Facebook.

Trump and assorted racists and fascists thought they would be able to spew their filth on Parler, but after Amazon’s withdrawal of Amazon Web Services hosting and its removal from the Apple and Google app stores, that outlet has been blocked too.

Parler data dump set to expose fascists

Parler is underwritten by Trump billionaire backer’s the Mercer family and has billed itself as the home of the far right.

Today it emerged that the entire content of Parler has been accessed and is currently being downloaded.

So in addition to all their live-streaming and selfies of their criminal conduct on Capitol Hill, we will soon have access to much of the planning and the individuals and organisations responsible.

Obviously relying on the police to bringing any of the far right criminals to justice is a waste of time given the police were accomplices and facilitators, apart from one or two honourable exceptions.

As the Parler planning is uncovered we will have further reports.

If you are wondering about the extent of the collusion and facilitating between cops and fascists, then the video below should help clear things up. Even as a woman laid dying, the police we talking to the far right rioters about calming down so that theey could let them continue on their journey around the Capitol building in search of lawmakers to kidnap, put on trial and execute, as was planned by some of the terrorist elements.

Even after a woman lies dying, police tell far right rioters to calm or you can’t some in! If they were Black their heads would have been blown off by now: “You guys can’t come in here if you are so unruly. You guys got to calm down”

https://blacklivesmatteruk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/WhatsApp-Video-2021-01-10-at-21.41.00.mp4

The Daily Kos has more on how the Parler data was accessed here and more from Vice here.