Cynthia McKinney: Racism is in the DNA of the USA
Former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has proposed the establishment of a permanent, independent board, similar to the National Transportation Safety Board, empowered with all necessary authority to investigate and impose solutions, including prosecution, to end criminal police behavior as well as prosecutorial misconduct—free from partisan political considerations.
“This proposed board would also be responsible for maintaining statistical data on such things as in-custody deaths, racial and ethnic civilian encounters with police, and other pertinent information. Such a board would make the obvious statement that criminal police behavior and prosecutorial misconduct are unacceptable and are considered anathema to U.S. national security policy,” McKinney said in a post on her Facebook account.
One of the comments on her proposal said: ” We just need to put police & district attorneys in place that will do their jobs.” But McKinney replied: “Impossible when racism is in the DNA of the USA.”
US President Donald Trump has threatened to use unlimited military force against Protests that have erupted in at least 30 US cities over the death of unarmed black man George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
As unrest continued into the early hours of Sunday, at least 25 cities across 16 states have imposed curfews.
Protesters say they want to see charges for all four police officers involved in the death of Floyd.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney and one of the counsels for the Floyd family, told Ruptly that the country’s law enforcement agencies stand out as notorious among their foreign counterparts.
“America has the deadliest police culture in the modern world. There is no nation on the planet that kills and incarcerates more of its people,” he said.
Merritt and his partner attorney Ben Crump will push for “comprehensive police reform” in Washington, DC together with the families of Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, another African American shot dead while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia.
The legal team, Merritt pledged, also hopes to take the explosive issue to the UN Human Rights Council, “so that we can receive sanctions against the US for its pre-basis and continual denial of basic human rights to the African American community.”
Washington ceased to be a member of what it called “a hypocritical” council two years ago, but it is unclear whether any repercussions will have an immediate effect on the US law enforcement ecosystem.
Basma Qaddour