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How Police Brutality Can Function as Terrorism
This was posted by two sources on Facebook:8:00 A.M.
By Zak Cheney-Rice
Photo: @megoconnor13/twitter
Video was made public over the weekend showing Phoenix police officers threatening to shoot members of a black family, which included a child and a toddler. The incident occurred on May 27, when the 4-year-old daughter of Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper allegedly stole a doll from a Family Dollar store. (NPR reports that the childs parents were unaware of the alleged theft.) Officers followed the family Ames and Harper, who was pregnant, and their two daughters, ages 4 and 1 to an apartment complex where the familys babysitter lived. Officers are seen on cell-phone video shouting at the four to exit their vehicle. One is heard yelling, Get your fucking hands up and Im gonna put a fucking cap in you, while another voice perhaps of the same officer is heard threatening, Youre gonna get fucking shot.
The profane tirades turn physical when one officer handcuffs Ames and another tries to yank the toddler from Harpers arms. The officer with Ames shoves the 22-year-old father against a police vehicle, kicks his legs until Ames falls to one knee, and thrusts his elbow into Amess back. The officer with Harper is seen shouting and pointing in her face and pulling on the arm in which she is carrying her 1-year-old baby. He eventually permits the pregnant woman to hand her children to a bystander before arresting her. None of the family members is armed.
The confrontation has prompted a $10 million civil-rights lawsuit and apologies from Phoenixs mayor and chief of police. According to the suit, the 1-year-old was injured when the officer tried to wrench her from her mother; the 4-year-old has been experiencing nightmares and wetting the bed out of distress ever since. As far as accountability, Mayor Kate Gallego has scheduled a public forum where residents can voice their concerns about the incident and called for quicker implementation of body cameras across the Phoenix Police Department an odd solution given that visual evidence was not lacking here. Aside from that, it is possible that no further legal or administrative recourse will be forthcoming. Officers routinely skate for killing people. Why would black Phoenicians expect them to be held accountable for merely threatening to kill?
Official accountability aside, the fear and mistrust sown in black communities via such incidents and the resulting mental-health downsides are well documented. The Phoenix debacle is further evidence that many officers interactions with black children in particular are rooted in intimidation and violence, with far-reaching side effects. By most definitions, the brutality applied disproportionately against black people by police across the United States is not terrorism, in a technical sense, only because it is permitted by law. That said, it serves a similar end: ensuring that its targets and their communities live in a state of constant stress, mistrust, and fear, practically from the cradle to the grave.
More:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/phoenix-police-threatening-family-was-terrorism.html?fbclid=IwAR05fofcJXyXW7ehy5BZck2HbJAgct7Fd7toSi48n3o-Kq_KVqJx9qxSvJs
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