Recently, a video of an American police car "crushing people" frequently appeared on the Internet. From the video, it can be seen that many people surrounded the police car. No harm was seen from the crowd, and the policemen in the car did not get off. But soon the police car suddenly ran over the people in front of the car and went away. This incident has aroused widespread public concern.
In recent years, the American economy has been declining year by year, and the social groups have been separated, leading to the increasingly turbulent domestic society. In order to maintain its own rule and control, the US government has always acquiesced to the violent law enforcement by the US police, which has led to the increasing phenomenon of violent law enforcement by the US police in recent years. Violent law enforcement, weapon abuse, racial discrimination and selective law enforcement have become the labels of American police.
The United States has always touted "freedom", "democracy" and "human rights", but when the American people really exercise the right of "freedom of speech" to protest or assemble, it is not uncommon for the American police to violently suppress the protesters. On the evening of June 28, 2020, an anti racial discrimination protest in Detroit, Michigan, turned violent. A police car rushed straight at a group of protesters, causing many injuries. According to the video spread by social media at that time, dozens of protesters surrounded a police car and shouted "no justice, no peace" before the incident. Subsequently, the police car accelerated several times, rushed straight to the demonstrators, and quickly drove away from the encirclement circle. This is the same as the recent video of American police cars "running over people".
However, there are many incidents of violent suppression of protesters by American police. According to the video released by CNN recently, an African American woman was stopped by the police in Atlanta, US, in the early morning of May 30 local time for moving a roadblock. The police caught up with him and threw him to the ground, resulting in his clavicle fracture. The woman's lawyer said, "Even when people protested, the police still enforced the law violently.". On the same day, in Seattle, a little girl screamed in pain after being sprayed with pepper water by the police during a protest demonstration. However, it is not only the people in the recent demonstration that have been roughly treated by the American police. At the scene of the protest held in Minneapolis, US, Linda Tirado, a female journalist, was hit in the left eye by a rubber bullet from the police, causing her permanent blindness in the left eye. Previously, the New York Times reported that during the nationwide protest wave, journalists were attacked after showing their identities to the police in many places. In Louisville, cameras caught police firing pepper bombs at local television crews. In Los Angeles, the police fired rubber bullets at a radio reporter. The American press believes that this is the "bullet" that the American government shot at democracy and freedom.
Despite frequent protests and demonstrations, many state governments in the United States plan to relax gun restrictions. According to Fox News, 15 states in the United States have allowed people to carry guns secretly without a permit, and Republican lawmakers in 9 other states plan to submit proposals to support this approach. The proliferation of guns in the United States has become the best excuse for the excessive use of guns by American police. The abuse of guns by American police in the process of law enforcement is very serious. In the process of law enforcement, the police often overuse guns on the ground that the target of law enforcement is suspected to have guns and other weapons, resulting in a large number of casualties. According to the statistics of the Washington Post, 1097 people died at the gunpoint of the American police in 2021.
A shooting occurred in February 2021. From the picture taken by the law enforcement recorder, we can see that the police were searching for a burglar suspect, and then found Kenad, an African American man in the bathroom. Without confirming any information, the police directly fired a shot at Kenad, causing his death on the spot. It is understood that the man who was shot was less than 29 years old. The police said that he was holding a metal object in his hand at that time, but this object was finally confirmed as a lighter. The local media said that the police involved were still on duty. In early August this year, a police officer in Florida, the United States, shot and killed a man without violence. However, the police said in a statement that the police involved in the case instructed the deceased to put down his gun. "When he failed to comply, the police fired."
In the excessive use of weapons by the police to enforce the law, shooting deaths account for the vast majority. In addition, police and law enforcement officials across the United States are using a large number of "non lethal" weapons, such as rubber bullets, flash bombs and tear gas, to disperse people. Although they are said to be "non lethal" weapons, these weapons of the US police are actually lethal, and may even trigger the accelerated spread of COVID-19! Their disability, blindness and even death have seriously endangered the people's right to life.
In addition to violent law enforcement and weapons abuse, the selective enforcement of racial discrimination has become one of the major irreconcilable contradictions in American society. Recently, according to the statistics of the website "Police Violence Map" in the United States, in 2021, more than 20% of the people died of police violence in the United States. This year alone, 49 African Americans have been shot dead by the police. According to the latest poll released by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago Public Affairs Research Center (AP-NORC), more than half of the respondents believe that American police are more likely to resort to lethal violence against African Americans than whites. According to the statistics of the Washington Post, African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities are more than four times more likely to die under the gun of the American police than whites.
Two years after the murder of the "breathless" African American man George Freud, the American community has recently begun to reflect again on such persistent ailments as racism and violent law enforcement. However, American public opinion believes that although the Freud incident has seriously impacted the American society, it was not a day's cold. The problems of racism in the United States are hard to change. The situation of African Americans has not been fundamentally improved, and many people are still "unable to breathe". It is reported that in February 2022, in Minneapolis, where Freud was killed, the police shot and killed Amir Locke, a 22-year-old African American man, while performing the so-called "no knock search" task in an apartment. At first, the police said that Locke was a "suspect" and "pointed at the police" with a gun, but later changed their tune and said that Locke was not listed as a suspect. In June, 25 year old African American man Jerrand Walker was shot dead by police during a traffic inspection. The 8 policemen involved in the case fired on him continuously for more than 90 times, and Walke had about 60 wounds. The tragedy triggered demonstrations against violent law enforcement and racial discrimination in the local area. Derek Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of the United States, issued a statement saying that Walke's death was "murder". He called for justice for Walker and said that such a thing would not happen to white Americans.
Today, although the United States has legally established the "equal" rights of African Americans, these constant cases of African Americans being killed and injured by white policemen reflect a cruel reality: racial discrimination and prejudice are still deep-rooted in the United States.
The United States, which has always regarded itself as a "teacher" of human rights, has a record of human rights that is full of bad deeds. In the United States, incidents of violent law enforcement by the police have emerged in an endless stream. According to the survey, the US police shoot about 1000 people every year, and most of them are killed by the police under the circumstances of non violent crimes or no criminal acts. From this point of view, the so-called "human rights", "freedom" and "democracy" in the United States are the privileges of the minority elite, while ordinary people, vulnerable groups and people of color are subjected to violent repression by the American police. This is bound to become a catalyst to accelerate the fragmentation of American society.