![]() In the absence of a national database, Méndez said, police officers who had complaints of misconduct or excessive force filed against them were allowed to continue serving, in some cases going on to be involved in killings of Black people. They indicated that among the demands they are likely to make is a call for better nationwide data and record keeping. The UN experts will present their final report to the human rights council in Geneva in September or October. “More robust government action is needed,” he said. ![]() Méndez added that their mission would be calling on the US justice department to make “more serious and proactive” use of its powers through consent decrees to intervene in the inner workings of local police departments to address some of the most egregious abuses. However, many more cases remained unresolved, suggesting a continuing degree of impunity. ![]() He was heartened by successful prosecutions of police officers involved in high-profile killings such as that of Floyd. “We support those calls for accountability,” Méndez said. Méndez, a former UN special rapporteur on torture, said that he had been moved throughout the visit by the “harrowing pain of victims and their families, and the resounding calls for accountability”. The result was a “culminating exhaustion in the Black community”, the UN expert said. She said that across the country there remained “a lack of awareness and acknowledgment of the extent to which racial inequities” were still prevalent. Presenting their preliminary findings, Keesee said that they had witnessed a pattern that could be traced to what she called the “deep intrinsic legacy” of slavery and legalized discrimination. All of the families now have an empty chair.” Locke’s mother, Karen Wells, told the visiting experts: “You are probably wondering, why is there an empty chair right here? Because that’s where Amir should be sitting. In Minneapolis, where a white police officer murdered George Floyd on, the panel spent time with the mothers of Philando Castile and Amir Locke, who were also killed by law enforcement in the city. Their mission was to investigate excessive use of force, militarised policing, racial profiling and other human rights violations by law enforcement and penal agencies against Black Americans.Īs they crisscrossed the country, the experts had emotional encounters with families of the victims of police killings and other law enforcement abuses. In the course of their 15-day mission Keesee and Juan Méndez of Argentina, visited six US cities: Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York. “This needs to be more than a slogan and calls for reform.” What was needed was a “whole government approach”, Keesee added. “To this day, racial discrimination permeates through encounters with law enforcement – from first contact, arrest, detention, sentencing and disenfranchisement.” “In the US, racial inequity dates back to the very creation of this country and there’ll be no quick fixes,” said Dr Tracie Keesee, one of two independent UN experts who conducted the visit. As they ended their tour on Friday in Washington DC, the experts called for a nationwide commitment to address discrimination suffered by Black Americans in their daily dealings with the law. UN experts completed their first official visit to the US as part of a system of global inquiries set up by the human rights council after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |