News

Walter Scot was "the latest example nationally of an unarmed black man shot by a white police officer, further stirring outrage", according to the Washington Post on 14th April. On the 13th of April, a white police officer was charged over the separate killing of Eric Harris in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The victim again was a black man, and he was shot and killed while he lay face down at the feet of a white police officer who is said to have used his revolver by mistake instead of his Taser to stun the victim.

Comment

Many black men have been killed by white police officers, and the two media reports above are only the tip of the iceberg. A Guardian report from the 9th April shows video footage of Walter Scott falling to the floor after 8 shots were fired at him by Officer Michael Slager from close range. While he lay dying on the ground, he was ordered to put his hands behind his back and was then handcuffed; as the life was draining out of him a second police officer, Clarence Habersham, came into view and the Guardian revealed that he too has been involved in violence against black men. Habersham was alleged to have stamped on the face of Sheldon Williams while he was handcuffed, which was "left with broken bones in his face after being assaulted". On April 13th, the Guardian showed another video of the killer of Walter Scott, but this time, involved in the arrest of a different black man, Julius Wilson, who has filed legal action against the officers involved, claiming that Slager allegedly "shot his NCPD-issued Taser into Wilson's back" even though "Wilson was cooperating fully".

The terrorising of black people in America is widespread, and the cases of police brutally beating, electrocuting and shooting of unarmed black people have fomented intense fear and anger, which boiled over last year during the so-called Ferguson riots that began after another black man was fatally shot by police officers in the town of Ferguson, in St Louis county, on 9th August 2014. A jury decided not to bring charges over the killing. In American criminal cases a jury is supposed to offer the accused a trial by 12 of one's peers to avoid discrimination. This concept doesn't apply to black people in America, where juries are consistently stripped of black members in cases where the death penalty is due for application against a black man if found guilty. The Guardian reported on 13th April the case of Andre Cole, also from St Louis county, who is due for execution today after being found guilty by a jury that was stripped of 3 black jurors for no obvious reason. "This case highlights the disparate treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system. Ferguson exposed unequal treatment by police, and the pending execution of Andre Cole exposes the same disparity from prosecutors and the courts," said Elston McCowan of the Missouri branch of the NAACP.

Despite modifications to some laws following the black rights activism of the 1960s, deeply held racial prejudice remains very much alive in America today, much as it had been during the time of the lynch mobs and institutionalised racism of the 1960s. Western democracy has not been able to solve the race problem in America, and African Americans live under the constant threat of terror from the society that brought many of their forefathers from Africa two and a half centuries ago.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin