Earlier in the year, three more African-American US citizens fell victim to the excessive use of force by the country’s police.
In the first case, Ramarley Graham, a US teenager, was shot to death inside his father’s home in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in February. The police first claimed he had been armed — an assertion, which was later disproven.
In the second case, the police killed Sergeant Manuel Loggins Jr., a former US marine, in front of his children in California, having allegedly identified him as a ‘threat’ to his family. His friends and colleagues, however, have described him as anything but violent.
Another unarmed young man, 24-year-old Tony Jones, was shot in the back by the police and severely wounded in Oakland, California as he was trying to run away from the law enforcement agents.
Pushing the force into the spotlight again was video footage emerging in February of the police tasering an unarmed white girl. Danielle Maudsley went into a coma in September after Florida Highway Police Trooper Daniel Cole tasered her in the back as she was trying to escape from the police in handcuffs. Mosley is still in coma, while the officer has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
The incidents have also cast further doubts on the US claims about its commitment to preservation of human rights.
Washington issues annual reports about human rights violations in other countries. The accounts usually target those nations, the US government considers to be its adversaries.
The UK-based rights group, Amnesty International, has excoriated Washington over the matter, rapping it for criticizing other countries’ behavior, while failing to uphold proper standards itself.
MAB/AS/HN
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