From King to Nichols

From the streets of Los Angeles to Minneapolis to Memphis, unlawful use of force by police ends in death, injury, and devastation.

As we’ve seen too many times, in the USA, sometimes police kill or seriously injure people during arrests fuelled by racism.

Rodney Glen King was an African American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers during his arrest after a pursuit for driving while intoxicated

Mr. Nichols then tried to flee on foot and another altercation followed, he added. His family says the officers beat him and the injuries he sustained during the encounter led to his death. Their relatives accuse police of causing him to have a heart attack and kidney failure.

Anyone who pays close attention to the video of the torture and murder of Tyre Nichols by the Memphis police, and read what they first claimed had happened to him, must agree that Americans are all hostages to the police. More directly, more urgently, more fatally - for people of color. But all the rest of us, too. Public safety officers who kill other than as a last, unavoidable act to protect the community are no longer protecting us, and if they can be trained to kill because of race, they can be trained to kill because of politics, sexual orientation, or because of whoever those who trained them want them to kill.

In countless other cases, police are reportedly quick to use force in response to protests or demonstrations. Public safety officers have repeatedly deployed weapons like tear gas and rubber bullets in an unlawful way against protesters.

All too often, officers who kill or injure people after using force unlawfully are not brought to justice. Diversifying so-called public safety does not change the culture. That’s why it’s so important to know what your rights are and to know what police are, and aren’t, allowed to do.

We need to make sure that police stop using force against the law, and that those who kill unlawfully are brought to account and no more excuses. There must be federal legislation enacted to stop state-sponsored brutality.

Whether it is in Tennessee or California... This Land Is Your Iand was written in 1940 but some of the police officers who are paid to serve and protect have not yet gotten the message.