The February 18, 2021 Consultation held by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) was conceived as a forum to share experiences and analyses of racialized police brutality and abuse, primarily inflicted upon Afrikans and Afrikan-Americans in the United States and in other parts of the world where anti-Black racism in particular is widely practiced. Statements and testimonies were shared between members of civil society and experts in the field. Participants from throughout the Afrikan Diaspora participated, which included Continental Afrikans, Afrikan-Americans, Caribbeans and Europeans who all shared their analyses, perspectives and personal experiences pertaining to specific acts of police brutality and abuse, police responses to protests against these acts of brutality and abuse, and an overarching analysis of the behavior of police agencies, police unions, political bureaucracies and extremist organizations in justifying, protecting and reinforcing policies that permit impunity for police officers and agencies for acts of brutality.
This was organized as part of a series of follow-up measures pursuant to UN Resolution 43/1, Promotion and protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Africans and of people of African descent against excessive use of force and other human rights violations by law enforcement officers (https://undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/43/1) and other subsequent reports (https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25971&LangID=E; also https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26326&LangID=E and https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Racism/Pages/Call-Implementation-HRC-Resolution-43-1.aspx).
Specific panel discussions centered on the topics of systemic racism (how it shows up in our spaces and our recommendations and analyses for dismantling the systemic racism that is implicit in a lot of the injustices we see today), violations against Afrikans and People of Afrikan Descent by law enforcement officers (with emphasis on certain incidents such as the murder of George Floyd), the government’s response to peaceful protests, and the accountability (or lack thereof) of government and police for these actions.
The purpose of the Consultation was to elicit people’s personal experiences, investigative reports, analyses and recommendations to come up with an agenda for transformative change that can be implemented by UNOHCHR and by activists in general.
As a matter of process, the emphasis was on courteous exchanges between participants, and people were encouraged to speak freely. For that reason, UNIHCHR did not record or broadcast the Consultation so participants would feel encouraged to speak freely and not feel inhibited, especially since this is an often emotional topic. What we were able to report below comes from rough notes of the discussions, without quoting or naming names of participants, except in a very few cases where specific presenters have already published articles on the Web, which are referenced and linked below, or who agreed to submit analyses of the issue to us for publication.
SYSTEMIC RACISM
Mass Criminalization, Mass Incarceration and Mass Supervision: Pulling In Children and People with Mental Health Issues
Mass criminalization, mass incarceration and mass supervision in the criminal justice system have exploded over the last five decades in the United States. This is also a worldwide phenomenon. Mass criminalization is expanding the net of the criminal justice system to include a number of different issues that occur in society and bringing those people into the criminal justice system for processing. This has contributed to the development of criminal records in the US and disproportionately impacts Black men.
Much has been said in discussions about the school-to-prison pipeline, or the use of what have sometimes been referred to as School Resource Officers (SROs) in schools. This is essentially placing police officers and agents in position to recommend or implement corrective behavior with regard to school children that they may not be qualified to direct. Child misbehaviors in school are seriously mishandled when the police are called instead of parents, and the police may then mistreat or manhandle the children. Profanity and “misbehavior” are often criminalized and used against Black students more than against White students. As was discussed several times in the Consultation, this contributes to more and more children being placed under the supervision, if not outright custody, of the criminal justice system.
There is also the issue of people with mental illness, mental disabilities or who are undergoing mental health crises, as in the recent case of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, which will be discussed in more detail below. A significant number of people killed by police suffered from severe untreated mental illness. Black people are disproportionately represented in these cases. Racial profiling and racial animus seems to heighten the disparity. Police often do not properly respond to cases involving mental illness. One database reported that 222 people with mental illness have been killed by police since 2015.
Well over half of US arrests are estimated to fall into categories of disorders, substance abuse and mental health issues. The result is a system that is inconsistent with human rights and civil rights. People wind up in civil and criminal courts where they are forced to plea-bargain and are thus pulled into the criminal justice system’s reach through incarceration and supervision.
As several participants recommended, conscientious criminal justice experts should look at moving away from processing people into the criminal justice system and toward a Restorative Justice strategy, at least for people with mental health and substance abuse issues. Local Restorative Justice Centers can arrange care for people with substance abuse and mental health issues, provide opportunities for people to pay back communities they may have damaged, provide community services, avoid criminal arrests, reduce the injustices of the criminal justice system and free up the criminal courts. Police would take a person with substance abuse or mental health issues to a Restorative Justice Center instead of submitting them to the criminal justice system. This can help people build their citizenship as well as roles as community leaders.
The Impact Even Without an Arrest
Families who have not suffered directly from encounters with police are nonetheless affected by the reports of police brutality and abuse. Mothers more often will not allow their children to play with toy guns outside as a result of the Tamir Rice shooting, for example.
Even when an arrest does not result, direct interactions with law enforcement can cause trauma, especially to children. Sometimes this trauma can lead to children acting out and thus further interaction with law enforcement or institutionalization for mental health crises.
Some activists are skeptical of the health community as well as the criminal justice system. Excessive mental health intervention is often regarded as a means of just shifting the surveillance of Black and Brown communities from one agency of control to another.
Much is made of the need for better training of police officers. For the most part, training is not the issue here. The purpose of training is essentially to impart a knowledge or skill (such as how to properly fire a weapon, execute a chokehold or navigate legal issues pertaining to use of force), not as an “attitude adjustment” to convince an officer to treat people with courtesy and respect. Occasionally this approach is successful (there have been “cultural competence” and workforce diversity sessions that have educated officers and employees alike), but as often as not, an officer with deep-seated racial bias can resent the notion that they have a “problem” that must be “fixed” and may thus see such training as a punitive or disciplinary exercise and respond resentfully as a result. “Training racism out of a person” rarely seems to work. Police know how to behave properly. We see this when they interact with people they have been taught to respect (usually, rich and influential White men), regardless of the crime that may be involved.
The degree to which this pattern of behavior disproportionately impacts people of Afrikan decent points to a sense of disposability that Black Lives have been forced to endure, especially in the context of the backlash against the slogan “Black Lives Matter” among much of the US’s White population.
How can we limit the scope of criminal statutes? The War on Drugs and the War on a Variety of Undesirable Behaviors have expanded the limits of criminal law. Excessive punishments have ensued, resulting in mass incarceration on a global scale and increased surveillance and suspicion even when no crime is committed. Not everything must be dealt with using criminalization of a subject. There is harm such as sexual violence and personal physical violence where criminal law must step in, but where is the limit? Every social problem cannot be met through the application of criminal law.
VIOLATIONS AGAINST AFRICANS AND PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS
The Police-Involved Death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York
The ACLU of New York ad other activists have demanded full accountability and transparency regarding the death of Daniel Prude, as well as the treatment of protesters during the demonstrations following the release of the body-worn camera footage. Current legislation is also being proposed seeking the removal of law enforcement from mental health and substance abuse calls.
On Monday, March 3, 2020, Joe Prude called 911 to ask for help for his brother. Police found Daniel Prude walking nude down the street in freezing temperatures. Police handcuffed him and covered his head with a hood, holding him forcibly to the ground. One officer held his head to the pavement while 3 others held his body. After approximately two minutes, Daniel Prude stopped breathing. Paramedics administered CPR and took him to the hospital. On March 30, Daniel Prude was taken off life support and pronounced dead.
There was no official announcement of Prude’s death, and the body camera footage was withheld and Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests were denied until September 2, when the body worn camera footage was released to the public by the family and local activists.
A mobilization hit the streets following the release of the body camera footage. Rochester Police responded aggressively along with New York State Troopers. According to ACLU-NY, excessive force was used and assemblies were declared unlawful with insufficient justification. Military vehicles, dogs, long range acoustic devices, teargas and pepper balls were deployed against peaceful protesters and journalists. Protesters were detained for low-level offenses.
A bill in the New York State Legislature co-sponsored by Assembly Member Harry B. Bronson (D-138) and Senator Samra Brouk (D-55) on behalf of the Prude Family, ACLU and Black-led organizations known as “Daniel’s Law” (https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2021/02/05/daniels-law-mental-health-law-daniel-prude-rochester/4389178001/) would establish statewide and regional mental health councils and amend the Mental Hygiene Law to limit the powers of police officers handling mental health calls.
University of Chicago Global Human Rights Clinic
The University of Chicago Global Human Rights Clinic (https://www.law.uchicago.edu/ghrc) has conducted several studies on police compliance with international law and standards. We looked on the Web for scholarly analysis of the actions of police departments as they relate to international human rights law, and this is one example of what we found.
A commentary by Global Human Rights Clinic Director Claudia Flores, Chicago Police Use of Force Policies Fall Short of Human Rights Standards (https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/claudia-flores-chicago-police-use-force-policies-fall-short-human-rights-standards) provides a good introduction to this organization’s work for law enforcement reform and the difficulties involved.
An Attack on the Black Family: Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign (APP-HRC)
Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign (APP-HRC, https://www.apphrc.com) works to free people who have been imprisoned for terms in upwards of 30 years who have seen their families grow up without them. The organization’s director shared some perspectives on the impact of policing on Black Women, Black Men and Black Families that led to the historic rise of activist organizations from the Black Panther Party to MOVE, which in turn led to the violent response of US law enforcement (which will be discussed further below) that resulted in scores of activists and regular citizens being criminalized, surveilled, targeted, attacked (sometimes assassinated), framed, prosecuted and imprisoned for excessive terms, a historic wrong that APP-HRC has sought to correct by advocating for compassionate release for aging, long-held prisoners. The following are some points APP-HRC made in their presentation.
The crisis of police brutality, racism and abuse represents a war against the Black Family. Among other works, this is documented and analyzed in the recently-published book Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African-American Marriage by Jamaican scholar Dr. Dianne Stewart. The family is the first institution of society. Once that is destroyed, one cannot create communities or nations.
This is also an attack on the Black Woman’s Womb. Whatever comes out of the womb is destroyed, disintegrated and dehumanized by the current practices of police agencies in the United States.
The slave patrols, the Ku Klux Klan and the police are all built along the same historical trajectory and lineage, that of “keeping the ‘other’ (in this case, Blacks) in line”. This is an issue that US government oversight has failed to remedy and thus must be dealt with by external human rights agencies, and within America the government and ruling class must be made accountable for how they treat People of African Descent.
This war has also produced the erasure of the Black Man. Confined within the prison system, Black men have been missing from neighborhoods and families for generations. There are sometimes three generations of families in prison at once.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative Report, $182 billion per year is spent on incarceration in the US. This is money that is not going to People of Afrikan Descent or to building communities. Meanwhile, private corporations are profiting off the incarceration of Black men, women and increasingly, children. Billions of dollars are being made off the incarceration and erasure of People of Afrikan Descent.
Prison is not an institution that is indigenous to Afrika. But there are increasingly overcrowded prisons in Afrika now. The US is exporting prisons and incarceration to Afrika. A 2017 report in Buzzfeed discusses how the US is exporting prisons and incarceration around the world.
APP-HRC recently helped secure the release of Joseph Negon, who served 68 years in prison after being imprisoned at age 15, as well as Samuel Barlow, who served 50 years.
Therefore, APP-HRC’s recommendations as a human rights organization are as follows:
(1) The UN must create a human rights entity on the Separation of Families of Afrikan Descent. Police violence, lynchings, incarceration, all are separations of the Black Family which have destroyed our first institutions for People of Afrikan Descent.
(2) A Working Group on Policing of People of Afrikan Descent specific to North America must be created.
(3) A Working Group for Criminal Justice and People of Afrikan Descent specific to North America must be created. If mass incarceration is not stopped, the result will be global incarceration of People of Afrikan Descent, disproportionately imposed upon the most impoverished.
(4) A Decade for the Elevation of the Child of Afrikan Descent should be established so the Afrikan Child can begin to feel safe and protected.
(5) A UN human rights entity on elevating the child of Afrikan Descent should be established.
If these things are not done, the Black Woman’s Womb is not protected, a nation cannot grow and the people cannot survive and thrive.
Bro. Cliff Kuumba, Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus
The Maryland State Facilitator of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus and the Editor of KUUMBAReport Online made an oral presentation on the prevalence of police brutality and abuse wherever People of Afrikan Descent live in the world, to emphasize the fact that, despite the current Consultation’s focus on George Floyd and other victims of police brutality in the United States, this is something that happens to Black People worldwide, and we must not forget the names of victims of police abuse in South America, the Caribbean, Europe and even Afrika itself. A series of recommendations for jurisdictions truly working to end police brutality and abuse, as well as for the United Nations in its effort to bring transformative change to this state of affairs, was also proposed. A PDF Document was also submitted, which can be read below:
UNOHCHR Police Brutality Consultation Presentation 1The Legacy of Anti-Black Repression, Police Abuse and Political Imprisonment: Mama Julia Wright
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania activist Mama Julia Wright highlighted the comments of another participant who noted the fact that Black people around the world are “a colonized people” and that global decolonization of People of Afrikan Descent must take place. The experience of Afrikan people of racism and violence from police agencies stems from the fact that people of Afrikan descent around the world are colonized wherever we are found. It is imperative that Afrikan people find a way to decolonize ourselves throughout the Diaspora, in terms of the laws we are forced to live under as well as the internalized notions of powerlessness and inferiority to which we are regularly exposed.
Mama Julia Wright comes from the generation that was traumatized by the lynching of Emmitt Till, the assassinations of Malcolm X, Dr. King and Fred Hampton and the assaults on MOVE in Philadelphia. Many were literally pushed into activism by the oppression we faced on a regular, if not daily basis. In the words of activist and Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, “I was kicked into the Black Panther Party”. (A recent report has stated that Mumia now is suffering from COVID-19, and several mobilizations were organized for late February and early March. Check out this post for more details.) She cited the recent movie “Judas and the Black Messiah” and its depiction of the assassination of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton as a graphic example of the shock Afrikan People have been forced to endure.
J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI and the White Supremacist police targeted the youth because they aspired to self-determination and to defend their lives and the freedom of their children. Many were assassinated. Some survived “by the skin of their teeth” and have languished for decades behind bars and in solitary confinement, which the UN defines as torture. The year 2021 has been designated the Year of the Political Prisoner.
Mama Julia Wright calls on the UN to pressure the new US administration to call a truce on all Political Prisoners. They have been placed behind bars because of their potential to lead us.
GOVERNMENT RESPONSES TO PEACEFUL PROTESTS, INCLUDING THE ALLEGED USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE AGAINST PROTESTERS, BYSTANDERS AND JOURNALISTS
Police forces from Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York City, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; Washington, DC and other large cities were cited in the Consultation for their actions against generally peaceful protesters in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and others. The history of several of these cities’ police departments was also discussed, including the Chicago police department and its well-documented history of police repression, especially under the tenure of detective Jon Burge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge) and his “Midnight Crew” or “Ass-Kickers” who coerced confessions out of over 200 Black men using torture techniques ranging from stress positions to an electric “shock box” and mock-executions. These practices in Chicago and other cities were continued up to the present day, as police departments have been found to have engaged in systematic practices of silencing and suppressing protesters and activists for racial justice. Mass arrests without probable cause, intimidation, criminalization of activists, physical abuse, excessive use of force, illegal searches, confiscation of personal property, detentions and separation from legal counsel have been reported in cities across the country.
Police Response to Protesters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Reports were made about the May 31, 2020 (52nd Street) and June 1 (Highway 676) protests in Philadelphia in response to the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, and the response of the Philadelphia police to those protests. Activists have charged the Philadelphia police, which has had a long and tortured relationship with Philadelphia activists such as the Black Panther Party and MOVE, of committing acts of brutality against the protesters, including corralling protesters against barriers to prevent their escape and the use of pepper spray, surveillance drones, acoustic devices and rubber bullets, which sometimes struck children and elders. At the same time, activists have accused the police of facilitating the free movement of White Supremacist organizations as they “patrolled” park areas in the city, and providing disparate treatment to these organizations as opposed to the tactics used against racial-justice protesters of police abuse.
On October 27, Philadelphia would once again be reeling from protests against the killing of Walter Wallace, Jr. the day before. Wallace was reportedly suffering from a mental health crisis, a recurring theme in police-involved shootings, and failed to obey police commands, at which point he was shot several times. Articles on the killing and subsequent protests can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/27/philadelphia-walter-wallace-police-shooting-protest; as well as https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/28/walter-wallace-jr-hundreds-protest-philadelphia-second-night-police-killing; and https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a34493601/walter-wallace-jr-philadelphia-shooting-protest/, among other sources.
There was general discussion of militarized violence by police in response to protests against police brutality, the racialized aspect of this militarized response, and the difficulty experienced in attempting to obtain redress through regular democratic processes and established reform mechanisms. There was a high degree of frustration that the established means of seeking justice and reforms of police behavior were not seriously impacting police behavior. The killings of Breonna Taylor and Daniel Prude, and the resulting decisions to not seek criminal charges against the police officers who killed them, only add to the frustration that has long been felt by racial-justice activists.
Police Racism and Violence in Puerto Rico: Maria Mari, Kilometro Cero
Maria Mari spoke on behalf of Kilometro Cero (https://www.kilometro0.org), a human rights organization that works for the establishment of sovereign and human rights for the people of Puerto Rico. The following statement is presented in both English and Spanish and is also available at the Web site https://www.kilometro0.org/blog-desde-cero/2021/2/18/expresiones-de-kilmetro-cero-en-el-panel-de-rendicin-de-cuentas-y-reparaciones-durante-la-consulta-de-la-oficina-de-derechos-humanos-de-la-onu:
OFFICIAL STATEMENT: ENGLISH
Good evening. We thank the UN Human Rights Office for the opportunity to bring to the High Commissioner’s attention the situation of impunity regarding Police violence and racism in Puerto Rico, a colony of the United States with a 3.5 million population, a country with a unique Caribbean culture, where the language spoken is Spanish, and where a great part of our population is brown and Afro Caribbean.
In the last five years, due to extreme austerity measures imposed by the US Congress PROMESA Law (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROMESA – Editor), and also after experiencing consecutive crises after Hurricanes, a series of earthquakes and more recently the COVID pandemic, the situation of impunity of state violence has become even more precarious.
Of at least 23 people that the Police have killed in Puerto Rico since 2019:
- 14 did NOT carry firearms
- 3 were going through mental health crisis
- 11 were 25 years or younger
All of them belonged to impoverished or vulnerable communities, and poverty in our country is inextricably linked with brown or Afro Caribbean ancestry.
Not even one of these officers have been presented with criminal charges and neither has been expelled or even suspended from the Police Bureau.
Contrary to the United States, in Puerto Rico there are NO external independent entities that supervise or investigate excessive actions of the Police. The Police investigate itself and People must complain against police officers in the Police Bureau, which does not offer a fair, reliable and neutral process.
The Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice has been dismantled in the last decade and there is no specialized prosecution division to investigate cases of officer-involved killings or excessive use of force. First line district prosecutors usually investigate these cases. Oftentimes, families of people killed by Police tell us that prosecutors act as if they were the officer’s defense attorneys.
Civil judicial claims against the State have been extraordinarily limited with the approval of the PROMESA bill, even being suspended for a time period as this bill protects the State against plaintiffs who seek financial compensation.
Potential Civil Rights violation plaintiffs in PR must also comply with a 90 day term notification of claim which has proven exhausting and very hard to comply with for victims of police violence who usually have not yet consulted with a lawyer 90 days after their traumatic incident.
These and other restrictions have disincentivized most private lawyers from even pursuing these cases. On the other hand, the extreme austerity measures have reduced and even eliminated access to justice or pro bono law projects destined for impoverished communities. We at Km0 experience every day the hardships, frustrations, and impotence that victims of police abuse or the families of those killed by Police officers encounter in order to seek answers, reparations, and a minimum promise of systemic change.
As we all watched the Police response to George Floyd’s protests in the United States last year, we Puerto Ricans definitely related. Because that’s how violent the Police normally acts every time we have mass protests: even children and elderly are tear gassed, people are fired rubber-coated metal bullets from shotguns at close range, they are hit with clubs, massively arrested without cause, put in unmarked cars, threatened to death by police officers and no disciplinary actions are taken against these agents.
We ask that Puerto Rico be included when the High Commissioner visits the United States, as we have neither representation in the US Congress that holds political power over our country, nor sovereign representation in international forums.
State violence victims in PR are in a dehumanizing, unsustainable situation, with no real options of reparations under the political rule of a country that takes such great pride in its democratic values.
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ESPANOL
Buenas tardes. Agradecemos a la Oficina de Derechos Humanos de la ONU por la oportunidad de llamar a la atención del Alto Comisionado la situación particular de impunidad con respecto a la violencia policial y el racismo en Puerto Rico, una colonia de Estados Unidos con una población de 3,5 millones, un país de cultura caribeña donde el idioma que se habla es el español, y donde gran parte de nuestra población es marrón y afrocaribeña.
En los últimos cinco años, debido a las extremas medidas de austeridad impuestas por la Ley PROMESA del Congreso de Estados Unidos, y también luego de experimentar las crisis consecutivas de huracanes, una serie de terremotos y más recientemente la pandemia del COVID-19, la situación de impunidad de la violencia del Estado se ha vuelto aún más precaria.
De al menos 23 personas que la Policía ha matado en Puerto Rico desde 2019:
- 14 NO portaban armas de fuego
- 3 estaban pasando por una crisis de salud mental
- 11 tenían 25 años o menos
Todos estas personas pertenecían a comunidades empobrecidas o vulnerables, y la pobreza en nuestro país está directamente ligada a la ascendencia afro caribeña.
Ni siquiera a uno de estos oficiales se les ha presentado cargos criminales ni ha sido expulsado o incluso suspendido del Negociado de la Policía.
A diferencia de Estados Unidos, en Puerto Rico NO existen entidades externas independientes que supervisen o investiguen las acciones excesivas de la Policía. La Policía se investiga a sí misma y la gente debe denunciar a los agentes en el propio Negociado de la Policía, que no ofrece un proceso justo, confiable ni neutral.
La División de Derechos Civiles del Departamento de Justicia ha sido desmantelada en la última década y no existe una fiscalía especializada para investigar casos de homicidios o uso excesivo de la fuerza por parte de agentes de ley y orden. Los fiscales de distrito de primera línea suelen investigar estos casos. A menudo, las familias de las personas asesinadas por la Policía nos dicen que los fiscales actúan como si fueran los abogados defensores del oficial.
Los reclamos judiciales civiles contra el Estado han sido extraordinariamente limitados con la aprobación del proyecto de ley PROMESA, incluso siendo suspendidos por un período de tiempo ya que esta ley protege al Estado contra demandantes que buscan una compensación económica.
Los demandantes potenciales de violación de los derechos civiles en PR también deben cumplir con un plazo de 90 días de notificación de reclamo que ha demostrado ser agotador y muy difícil de cumplir para las víctimas de violencia policial, que generalmente aún no han consultado con un abogado 90 días después de su incidente traumático.
Estas y otras restricciones han desincentivado a la mayoría de los abogados privados de incluso llevar adelante estos casos. Por otro lado, las medidas de austeridad han reducido e incluso eliminado el acceso a la justicia o proyectos de ley pro bono destinados a comunidades empobrecidas. En Kilómetro Cero vivimos todos los días las penurias, frustraciones e impotencia que enfrentan las víctimas de abusos policiales o los familiares de los asesinados por policías para buscar respuestas, reparaciones y una mínima promesa de cambio sistémico.
Mientras observábamos la respuesta de la Policía a las protestas por el asesinato de George Floyd en Estados Unidos el año pasado, aquí en Puerto Rico definitivamente nos identificamos profundamente. ¿Por qué? Porque así de violenta suele ser la respuesta policial cada vez que tenemos protestas masivas: incluso a niños y ancianos se les lanza gases lacrimógenos, a la gente se le dispara a quemarropa con escopetas de balas de metal recubiertas de goma, se les golpea con macanas, se les arresta masivamente sin causa, se les coloca en vehículos sin identificación, se les amenaza de muerte y no se toman medidas disciplinarias contra estos agentes.
Solicitamos que se incluya a Puerto Rico cuando la Alta Comisionada visite Estados Unidos, ya que no tenemos representación en el Congreso de Estados Unidos que tiene poder político sobre nuestro país, ni representación soberana en foros internacionales.
Las víctimas de la violencia de Estado en Puerto Rico se encuentran en una situación deshumanizante e insostenible, sin opciones reales de reparación bajo el dominio político de un país que tanto se vanagloria de sus valores democráticos.
WHITE SUPREMACIST ORGANIZATIONS INFILTRATING POLICE AGENCIES
According to recently released reports from the FBI, since 2006 there have been active links between law enforcement and White Supremacist organizations. The FBI document can be found at http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/402521/doc-26-white-supremacist-infiltration.pdf.
The Web site Just Security published an article, White Supremacist Infiltration of US Police Forces: Fact-Checking National Security Advisor O’Brien, by Danielle Schulkin on June 1, 2020 (https://www.justsecurity.org/70507/white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-forces-fact-checking-national-security-advisor-obrien/#:~:text=An%20FBI%20intelligence%20assessment%20%E2%80%94titled%20%E2%80%9CWhite%20Supremacist%20Infiltration,law%20enforcement%20communities%20or%20recruiting%20law%20enforcement%20personnel.%E2%80%9D) which contradicted, among other things, the attitude of the Trump Administration about racism in policing:
On Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, whether he thinks “systemic racism” is a problem in law enforcement agencies in the United States. O’Brien responded: “I don’t think there is systemic racism. I think 99.9 percent of our law enforcement officers are great Americans,” said O’Brien. “But … there’s a few bad apples.”
There are two flaws in O’Brien’s response. First, O’Brien ignores the well-documented support by law enforcement officers of alt-right extremist ideology throughout the country. Second, O’Brien misunderstands the nature of systemic racism—a term that means that institutions we have in place produce racially disparate effects on minority populations—in his discussion of individual officers.
The Brennan Center for Justice makes note of this FBI report in an article titled Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law). One part of the report that we wish to specifically highlight here, however, is the difficulty in prosecuting police officers for even intentional acts of racial bias:
Federal prosecutors do face a high evidentiary bar when bringing criminal cases against law enforcement officials, which require proof that the officers willfully intended to violate the victim’s civil rights in their use of force. It is not enough to prove that an officer’s intentional use of excessive force resulted in a denial of a victim’s constitutional rights. The civil rights statute that covers police brutality, 18 U.S.C. § 242, requires prosecutors to prove that police officers intended to use excessive force and that they did so with the specific intent to violate the victim’s constitutional rights.
The Justice Department has been delinquent in gathering data about overtly racist police conduct. The lack of a federal database that tracks this type of misconduct or membership in white supremacist or far-right militant groups makes discovering evidence of intent more difficult. The FBI only began collecting data on law enforcement use of force in 2018, after Black Lives Matter and other police accountability groups pushed for more federal oversight of police violence against people of color. This is a positive step, but the data relies on voluntary reporting by law enforcement agencies, a methodology which has led to serious deficiencies in hate crime reporting.
In addition to criminal penalties, the Justice Department also has the authority under 42 U.S.C. § 14141 and § 3789d(c)(3) to bring civil suits against law enforcement agencies if it can demonstrate a “pattern or practice” of civil rights violations. Civil suits have a lower evidentiary bar, but they target department-wide problems rather than individual officers’ misconduct. These cases often reach settlement agreements or “consent decrees,” which provide for a period of DOJ oversight of agreed upon reform efforts. The Obama administration opened 20 pattern and practice investigations of police departments, doubling the number initiated by the Bush administration, and entered into at least 14 consent decrees with police agencies. The Justice Department has not developed metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts in curbing police violence or civil rights abuses, however.
The Trump administration abandoned police reform efforts championed by Obama’s Justice Department. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a review of civil rights pattern and practice cases and, on his last day in office, signed a memo establishing more stringent requirements for Justice Department attorneys seeking to open them, which limited the utility of this tool in curbing systemic police misconduct. Sessions also killed a program operated by the DOJ Office of Community Oriented Policing Services that evaluated police department practices and offered corrective recommendations in a more collaborative way that avoided litigation. Attorney General William Barr has indicated similar disdain for law enforcement oversight, once threatening that communities that do not give support and respect to law enforcement “might find themselves without the police protection they need.”
An article by The Intercept, FBI Investigated White Supremacists in Police (https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/the-fbi-has-quietly-investigated-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-law-enforcement/) discusses this issue further, including the infiltration of White Supremacist organizations into police agencies with what came to be known as “ghost skins” (White Supremacists who join police agencies and warn others of potential police investigations of racist organizations) and obstacles to reform of these issues within police agencies because of the very history of police in general:
Reforming police, as it turns out, is a lot harder than reforming the military, because of the decentralized way in which the thousands of police departments across the country operate, the historical affinity of certain police departments with the same racial ideologies espoused by extremists, and an even broader reluctance to do much about it.
“If you look at the history of law enforcement in the United States, it is a history of white supremacy, to put it bluntly,” said [Pete Simi, a sociologist at Chapman University who spent decades studying the proliferation of white supremacists in the U.S. military], citing the origin of U.S. policing in the slave patrols of the 18th and 19th centuries. “More recently, just going back 50 years, law enforcement, particularly in the South, was filled with Klan members.” …
Norm Stamper, a former chief of the Seattle Police Department and vocal advocate for police reform, told The Intercept that white supremacy was not simply a matter of history. “There are police agencies throughout the South and beyond that come from that tradition,” he said. “To think that that kind of thinking has dissolved somehow is myopic at best.”
Efforts are being made under laws such as the California Law Enforcement And Reform (CLEAR) Act and in favor of a process for screening officers and officer candidates using significant background checks, screening for known affiliations with White Supremacist organizations and providing a basis for people to report these cases, using this information to establish grounds for review, and termination of officers with such ties. These efforts have been resisted by police bills of rights that have been passed in several states.
The 2006 FBI report was recently re-released by Maryland Congress Member Jeremy Raskin’s office. There has been little to no action at most state levels and the Department of Homeland Security has been slow in its response.
Identifying law enforcement and other officials who attended the January 6 Capitol insurrection are also part of furthering efforts to address the legacy of White Supremacist organizations that used law enforcement officers to harass, torture and otherwise discriminate against people of color in our communities.
Many agencies do not have explicit policies that outline prohibited behaviors, so police officers often respond to investigations, inquiries and reviews of their behavior with lawsuits and union action.
There is no coordinated strategy to identify the links the FBI has known about since 2006. There is often no statewide effort, including statewide police officer certification, and even in areas that are receptive to reforms there has been much pushback against these efforts. Problems effectively regulating this behavior emanate from the fact that each county in several states has its own code of conduct that operates independently of the others, with no reporting to each other.
Infiltration by White Supremacist organizations in the police forces (1) threatens the integrity of criminal investigations (2) jeopardizes the safety of elected officials, peace officers and the public and (3) invites bias and discriminatory application of laws and services.
Several human rights and legal organizations are working along the lines of the Plain View Project (https://www.plainviewproject.org/).
Closing Thoughts
The failures of domestic and international law in bringing redress for victims of police violence and abuse have not gone unnoticed.
The group noted the clear differences in police behavior between Black Lives Matter protesters and White Supremacist mobilizations.
The international community must emphasize the solidarity of those who stand up for human rights and against racism, activists and organizers from different groups who are participating in this effort together.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights will address the Human Rights Council on March 18 on UNTV (http://webtv.un.org/) to update them on the progress of her office.
We contacted many of the participants in this Consultation to seek their permission to share their reports and recommendations. We thank those who agreed to share their analyses and suggestions. We also understand the perspective of those who asked to keep their participation and their presentations confidential, as they were often of a personal nature, or may have led to the identification of activists whose security may have been placed at risk as a result. We are grateful for the participation of all the activists, scholars, reporters and general members of civil society who participated in this Consultation, as it helps make clear to the United Nations and its Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the “people on the ground” are indeed aware, concerned, and motivated to take concrete, positive action on human rights issues such as this one, and that in turn should help spur the UN and its various organs to implement some of the actions recommended in this Consultation. It is our hope that the UN will also increase access for Pan-Afrikan civil society to its Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD), and fully implement and operationalize its Permanent Forum on People of African Descent with a deeper connection to grassroots Pan-Afrikan activists and organizations. As we pass the midpoint of the UN’s International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD), more progress must be made, and more quickly and urgently, so that IDPAD will mean something more than a simple commemoration or theoretical exercise. Only through concrete action that will put teeth into the UN’s Resolution 43/1, such as sanctions on nations that continue to respond to police brutality with lip service, will Consultations like this one lead to real results that will bring true credibility to the UN as a world body that is capable of the pursuit of justice and human rights.