Tag Archives: Police racism

news, US

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

news, US

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.

news, US

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.

https://youtu.be/HYVNj8vXF4g

news, US

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!”

news, UK

Met Police media team disproportionately highlights ‘Black crime’

Everyone – except Cressida Dick – knows that the Metropolitan Police is institutionally racist. But it is still arresting when its full extent is revealed.

The latest such evidence comes from tan exclusive report by Huffington Post, in conjunction with data crunchers and researcher company Statista.

Their research into Met police PR department has discovered that they disproportionately post pictures of Black people who have been involved in violent crime than they do when white people are involved.

Just as with the discredited ‘gang matrix’ (which is nevertheless still in use as a blatant racial-profiling tool), the police betray the fact that they have a view of Black people which sees them as violent and criminal, so the staffers in the Met police PR department think they are just doing their job, when in fact they reveal their own prejudice attitudes and no doubt discriminatory behaviour that informs it.

Met police racism: here’s the most damning part of the findings:

According to data we obtained from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), 13,897 people were sentenced in London between July and December of 2019 – the most recent MoJ data of this type available. Some 3,540 were white and 2,298 Black. 

Ethnicity data was unavailable for almost 6,000 people, and for the purposes of this investigation, HuffPost UK has removed them from the total.

In the same period, the Met Police published news releases on its public website and directly to journalists about 324 people who had been sentenced. Of these, 107 were white, while 141 were Black.

The report also discovered that the 37-page media policy includes no guidance on racial profiling, with not a single mention of ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ anywhere within the document.

For more on this, go to the Huffington Post UK.

met police media racism
Courtesy Huffington Post/Statista
news, US

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#

news, UK

Priti Patel plans to introduce racist SVRO stop and search laws

Home secretary Priti Patel has announced the government’s intention to push ahead with yet more racist stop and search powers for the police, despite no evidence that they help to stop violent crime.

The government plans to introduce legislation to enable the introduction of Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVRO), which would allow the police to stop and search any individual who has been convicted of a prior criminal offence.

Patel announced the new measures in comments to the Mail on Sunday.

But there is no evidence that stop and search fights crime. In 2018/19 nothing was found in 72% of searches. Black people are already 10 times more likely to be stopped than who’re people and the serious violence reduction orders will increase this racial disproportionality. 

Add to this the fact that the draconian Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act means the police already have wide discretion to stop and search without the need to show “reasonable grounds”, the real purpose of Patel’s new power grab is to be seen to be acting tough and, sadly, to stir up more racism.

Only 5% of stops under Section 60 lead to an arrest.

SVROs will give the police power to search anyone with a previous conviction without having to provide grounds for doing so. How are such persons going to be identified? By the colour of their their skin? 

The rollout of SVROs comes on the back of the increase in stop and search targeting Black kids, under the guise of the Covid legislation. Stops in May 2020 in London shows that 1 in 8 of all Black males aged 15 to 25 were stopped in London.

Stops by the London Metropolitan police in May 2020 were double the figure for 2019, according to the Home Affairs select committee.

Patel told The Mail on Sunday: “A minority will say these measures are disproportionate and will affect minority communities or claim that this is racism. That is simply not true.

“People will say these measures are controversial. But to me, when people are dying, that doesn’t matter. The government’s number one job is to keep our people safe.”

The Tories don’t care how many more lives their policies ruin and care even less about the addressing the real causes of violent crime.

Much of inner city violent crime on the streets is driven by turf wars over drugs, so why not legalise all drugs.

Many stops in London and elsewhere are initiated because a police officer says they could small cannabis, so why not legalise cannabis as they have in Canada and more than a dozen US states?

Meanwhile, Black men continue to die after contact with a police officer, such Mohamud Hassan who dies in Cardiff last week after allegedly been beaten by police office at the Butetown police station.

 

news, US

Minneapolis police killing of Dolal Idd and raid shows their brutal racism

The shooting dead by police of Dolal Idd last Wednesday in Minneapolis was the first since the murder of George Floyd by the same police force.

Police have released a body cam video they say shows that Mr Idd fired first, but he shows no such thing.

All that is seen in the video is the man’s car window blowing out, but that shot could equally have come from the other side of the car as it could from within the vehicle. The police claim a firearm was found in the car.

No further body cams have been released by the police to help to clarify the situation.

Following the killing, police officers descended on the family home of Mr Idd in a raid that has left the Somali-American family shell shocked.

The police forced their way into the home screaming orders, putting teenagers into handcuffs as well as Dolal’s father Bayle Gelle when he came rushing down the stairs after hearing his wife screaming.

The only ones not put into cuffs were the young children. The police did not say what they were searching for and it was only as they were leaving the home that they saw fit to inform the family that Dolal had been killed by police.

The killing by police of Dolal Idd
https://youtu.be/-gKyaZ7d9xs
Raid by militarised police on the family home
action, news, UK

Police attack Black child – urgent march on Tottenham police station

Police attack on a black child outside ParkView School in Tottenham has caused outrage in the community.

The policeman violently attacked the 16-year-old last night (Thursday 10th December) with repeated punches to the face.

The violent racist incident happened outside Park View School on West Green Road, Tottenham.

The borough commander is being contacted by local councillors and local police monitoring will be viewing the body cam later today.

Two officers were involved in the violent assault – one who did the punching seen in the video and another who just stood by and watched.

The cop who perpetrated this violent assault must be sacked immediately and the other officer present at minimum immediately suspended.

This police must be held to account TODAY!

Police attack black child – join today’s protest march to demand justice NOW!

Meet at 2pm Friday December 11th at Park View School, West Green Road N15 3QR.

March to Tottenham Police station. Bring banners, make a noise! No justice, no peace.

Violent racist police out of our communities!

The summer witnessed numerous protests outside Tottenham police station against their racist stop and search harassment of Black youth.

This just in from Councillor Khaled Moyeed:

https://twitter.com/kmamoyeed/status/1337330148920745984?s=21
news, US

Breonna protesters outrage grows, Trump vigilantes and cops lash out

An explosion of outrage over the Breonna Taylor murder at the hands of police continues. Anger has spread out in a shockwave of protests from Louisville following the failure of Kentucky state prosecutors to bring murder charges against a police officer.

In a statement on Wednesday Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron read out mealy mouthed excuses for yet another police murder of a black woman.

Breonna’s mother Tamika Palmer speaks out

Breonna’s mother, Tamika Palmer, wrote a letter that was read out a press conference today, where there were calls for the release of the transcript of the grand jury’s deliberations.

The letter was read out loud by Palmer’s sister Bianca Austin:

“I was reassured Wednesday of why I have no faith in the legal system, in the police, in the law — that are not made to protect us Black and Brown people.

“When I speak on it, I’m considered an angry Black woman. But know this: I am an angry Black woman. I am not angry for the reasons that you would like me to be. But angry because our Black women keep dying at the hands of police officers.”

Black attorney general won’t deliver justice but the mass movement can

The fact that a black man – Kentucky’s attorney general – delivered the statement that amounts to a heinous travesty of justice, says a lot about the situation in the US, and rubs salt into the wounds. Cameron is a Republican appointee.

Despite the presence of many black faces in high places, the police kill black people with impunity. Already this year alone they have killed 1,010 people.

As always a hugely disproportionate number of the dead are black people – averaging around 35% of the annual total from a African-American population that accounts for only 12% of the population.

Protesters in their thousands from Chicago to Los Angeles and New York and all across America are increasingly asking where this will all end.

The systemic nature of racism in the US means it is deeply embedded in police departments, courts and the prison system.

A reality is dawning that uprooting centuries-old oppression will take something akin to another revolution in America.

Trump stokes racist backlash

And as the struggle for black liberation has advanced it has always been met with a racist backlash.

Today is no different it may seem, but the breakthrough that has seen milions of white people passsively or actively participate support BLM is our new strength.

Trump is whipping up racist vigilantee violence against peaceful protesters – revelling in it as he proclaims his intention to rule for another four years, regardless of how citizens vote in the presidential election, and ram through a conservative supreme court judge that could setback civil rights and womens’ basic human rights.

Two cops were shot this week and a suspect has been arrested.

The stakes are high and getting higher and the movement is meeting the challenge. It grows stronger with every outrage as the movement fuses with wider questions about the real nature of American democracy and freedom.

Justice for Breonna Taylor and all the dead! No Justice No Peace!