How Obama Supports Police Brutality
Cops pin down detained protesters in Manhattan and beat them.
by Stephen Lendman
Killer cops throughout America operate unaccountably – agents of wealth, power and privilege exclusively, rampaging against ordinary people ruthlessly, mostly victimized Blacks and Latinos.
Fatalities at their hands are on track to exceed 1,000 this year – more than double phony FBI reported numbers.
Official “justifiable homicides” are cold-blood murder in the vast majority of cases. Victims tell no tales, only witnesses when available.
Evidence is overwhelming. US streets are battlegrounds, Black and Latino youths prime targets, suffering disproportionately, victimized by racist injustice. State-sponsored criminality rages at home and abroad. Corpses piling up attest to America’s ruthlessness.
Not according to Obama. On Tuesday, he addressed the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in Chicago – representing 16,000 members in 94 countries, saying:
“…I want to start by saying on behalf of the American people – thank you. This country is safer because of your efforts.”
“…I want to be as clear as I can be. I reject any narrative that seeks to divide police and communities that they serve. I reject a storyline that says when it comes to public safety there’s an ‘us’ and a ‘them…’ “
“Because your work and your service really has helped make America safer than it’s been in decades, and that’s something for which every American should be proud.”
Hard facts disprove his litany of Big Lies. US police are oppressors, not public servants. They protect the rights of powerful monied interests at the expense of society’s most vulnerable.
They’re militarized from Pentagon-supplied weapons and equipment – more brutal than ever, waging daily war on persecuted communities.
Gitmo in Chicago is Exhibit A. A few miles west of where I live is ground zero for some of the most disturbing police practices – occurring in an off-the-books, unidentified, nondescript warehouse.
Lawlessly arrested and detained, mostly Black victims are isolated, denied access to lawyers for a day or more, and tortured during secret interrogations. Innocence in no defense.
The facility is a few miles from where Obama spoke, mindless of the horrors inside, committed by Chicago’s “finest.” Killer cops nationwide “make America safer,” he said.
“Each fallen police officer is one too many,” he blustered, ignoring their thousands of victims – non-people denied justice, casualties of US barbarism, killer cops operating solely as agents of power and privilege.
Obama promised them more federal aid and support, saying “in my federal budget proposal, I’ve asked Congress to increase funding for the COPS program (a Justice Department community policing initiative) so we can hire even more police officers and make sure you have the training and equipment you need.”
He failed to explain it’s to terrorize vulnerable communities more than ever, mostly Black and Latino ones. Instead he concluded, saying “good police work (reflects) America at its best…May God protect our cops.”
Who serves their victims? Why is nothing done about justice denied them? Who’ll hold police state ruthlessness accountable?
Governments oppressing their citizens are tyrannical. America mocks the principles it claims to support.
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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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