First they strangle an innocent black man to death, now US police explode in rage and violence against protesters

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Abdul Haqq ibn Omar

Shawwal 08, 1441 2020-05-31

Daily News Analysis

by Abdul Haqq ibn Omar

Police forces across the US have gone berserk.

They are attacking peaceful protesters and throwing them to the ground.

They even shoved and threw an elderly man with a cane to the ground. He was standing at a street corner in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A woman returning from grocery shopping in Dallas was hit on the forehead with some kind of a pellet, leaving her bleeding profusely.

Kevin Krause

✔@KevinRKrause

She says she was walking home with her groceries when police fired some sort of pellet in her face. Says she’s not a protester. #DallasProtests

Heavily armed police also stormed a quiet neighborhood in Minneapolis hitting people sitting outside their homes with paint cannisters.

Such hooliganism has seldom been witnessed even in third world countries.

America is under occupation by a militarized police force, aided by heavily armed National Guards.

Where are the Western do-gooders that are quick to come in front of a microphone when there are protests in countries that do not tow the West's agenda, and demand respect for people's rights?

Why have we not heard a pip-squeak from Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkle, or Boris Johnson? What about Canada's sunny ways Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

Is it OK for the US police to brutalize innocent people protesting against incessant police brutality against black people?

President Donald Trump has even threatened to unleash the military if the “rioters” do not behave! Why has he not issued a call to the police to operate within the law?

There was a large noisy protest outside the White House on May 30 night where some protesters broke into the grounds but were beaten back by Washington DC police as well as heavily-armed secret service members.

Night curfews have been imposed in most major cities including Minneapolis, ground zero of police racism and lynching, and epicentre of the protests after George Floyd was strangled to death by a white police man on May 25 evening.

Other major cities (more than 25 across the US) subjected to night curfews include Los Angeles, Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Washington DC and Atlanta.

People in most cities, enraged by the never-ending brutality of the police, have defied these curfews.

For the most part, they have remained peaceful although other people, not directly linked to the protests, have looted stores and torched buildings in some cities.

It is the police that has resorted to unprovoked violence and aggression.

Here is just a short list of scenes from the past few days as compiled by The Verge:

• A New York City police officer tore a protective mask off of a young black man and assaulted him with pepper spray while the victim peacefully stood with his hands up
• New York City police officers, in two separate vehicles, rammed a crowd in a street. Separately, a moving police vehicle slammed someone with a car door and drove away
• Security forces in Minneapolis marched down a quiet residential street and shot paint canisters at residents who were watching from their private porch
• Police in Louisville raided a public square, confiscating and destroying water and milk, which is used to counter irritants like pepper spray
• Atlanta police stopped two black people, inexplicably shooting them with tasers and tearing them out of their car
• A New York City officer used two hands to throw a woman to the ground, reportedly calling her a “stupid fucking bitch”
• San Antonio Police used tear gas against people. So did Dallas police. So did Los Angeles police. So did DC police. The list goes on.
• Many people reported being shot by rubber bullets. MSNBC host Ali Velshi says he was shot after state police fired unprovoked into a peaceful rally.
• A freelance photographer in Minneapolis says she went permanently blind in her left eye after being shot by police.
• Police have brutalized lawmakers participating in demonstrations, including New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie

“The violence appears so widespread and consistent that you could be mistaken for thinking it’s coordinated at a national level. To some extent, it is: President Trump has cheered on police violence like a fan at a sports event, and police departments across the country have styled themselves as military forces after receiving two decades of hand-me-downs from the War on Terror,” according to the write-up in The Verge.

“US cities face toll of violent protests,” says a headline at the top of Fox News. “Fury in the streets as protests spread across the US,” says The New York Times. “Fire and fury spread across the US,” says The Washington Post. “Wave of rage and anguish sweeps dozens of US cities,” says CNN. But whose rage? Whose fury? Whose violence?

“We can’t deny what we are seeing, and we must describe it accurately. Whose violence? Whose rage? It’s from American police,” writes T.C. Sottek in The Verge (May 31).

People are demanding that the police be brought under control. Their job is to serve and protect the people, not attack or lynch them.

And they are not going to be satisfied with platitudes as in the past. Far too many black people have been murdered without any police officer being sent to jail for such a crime.

The protesters, that include blacks, whites, students, men and women, demand real change.

They view the police that represent the white establishment, as the real culprits.

Unless the thugs in uniform are brought under control and made to obey the law, America may end up in civil war.