WeeklySA_AdminINNOCENT VICTIMS: Spouses are widowed, children grow up without parents and relatives suffer unimaginable pain.
BLACK people in the United States of America are targeted, surveilled, brutalized, maimed and killed by law enforcement officers with impunity because being black was itself criminalized and devalued. These systematic killings, maiming and targeting of black people amounted to crimes against humanity that should be investigated and prosecuted under international law.
This is one of the findings contained in a report of the International Commission of Inquiry on systematic racist police violence against people of African descent in the United States. The 12 commissioners who conducted the inquiry included two from South Africa – Prof Rashida Manjoo and Mr. Xolani Maxwell Boqwana. Boqwana is the chief executive of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation while Manjoo is a professor in the Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town. The commission found that there had been a long-standing scourge of white supremacy and racial capitalism, as well as slavery and its legacy in the US in which two systems of law existed: one for white people and another for people ofAfrican descent. Cases selected for the hearings involved
“the egregious and unjustified killing or maiming of individuals of African descent in the US,” the commission said.
They included the killing of unarmed individuals who posed no threat of death or serious bodily harm; the killing of individuals fleeing the police who posed no serious threat to the officers they were fleeing from; the use of or threat to use physical or psychological intimidation to extract confessions as well as the maiming of individuals fleeing the police and or who posed no threat of death or serious bodily harm to others. The commissioners have called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to open an immediate investigation to prosecute the police officers implicated in these systematic killings.
when arresting suspects.
The commission was established in the wake of the public execution of George Floyd after millions of people saw him tortured and choked to death by police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin has since been convicted of murder in connection with Floyd’s death. ”Massive protests against police violence towards people of African descent erupted throughout the US and around the world’’. The families of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and Philando Castle joined 600 rights groups and petitioned the United Nations Human Rights Council(HRC) to appoint a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate systematic racist police violence and attendant human rights violations against people of African descent in the US.
After succumbing to enormous pressure by the US and its allies, the HRC instead directed the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights to prepare a report on these human violations.The report, which was recently released, was then launched by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, National Conference of Black Lawyers and National Lawyers Guild. The public hearings were held from January 18 to February 6, 2021. The commissioners found that after victims of racist police were killed, their families and communities remained devastated. They also found that within the cases they had examined, a disproportionate use of excessive force by police led to the deaths of 43 black people in the cases they had examined.
“The Commissioners find an alarming and national pattern of disproportionate use of deadly force not only by firearms but also by Tasers against people of African descent. ’’There was also a pattern of unlawful and excessive force employed against people of African descent by chokeholds and compression asphyxiation, by kneeling or standing on the victim, by handcuffing the victim face down and by applying pressure to the victim’s head and neck.‘’ Many black people are killed in broad daylight to intimidate communities and because officers don’t fear accountability . Spouses are widowed, children grow up without parents and relatives suffer unimaginable pain.
Generations of black families are traumatized. Black people often suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of inter-generational psychological and emotional trauma from witnessing racist police violence. ‘’Distrustful of police, black people refrain from calling the police’’. Commissioners also found evidence of an alarming pattern of destruction, loss and manipulation of evidence, coverups, obstruction of justice and collusion between various arms of law enforcement in connection with the unjustified killings of unarmed persons of African descent. ‘
’Police officers and their unions, prosecutors, coroners and independent medical examiners were accomplices in the service of impunity. The Commissioners also found that there was a troubling pattern of creating false narratives and smear campaigns directed at victims and their families. The Commissioners established that there was a prima facie case of crimes against humanity against racist police officers. They called for an end to impunity and for accountability of police officials resorting to racist violence and unjustified force before independent civilian review boards and in criminal and civil proceedings of the justice system in the US.Recommendations of the inquiry, included that:
• The Executive Branch of the US Government should create an effective and robust system of combating institutionalized racism within all law enforcement agencies. The system must be monitored by an independently elected body, in consultation with civil society organizations committed to principles of civil liberties and Law enforcement officers, in carrying out their duty, should apply non-violent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms.’
’They may use force and firearms only if other means remain ineffective or without any promise of achieving the intended result.’’
• Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms was unavoidable, law enforcement officers should exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offence and the legitimate objective to be achieved.
• Police officers must also minimize damage and injury, respect and preserve human life and ensure that assistance and medical aid are rendered to any injured or affected persons at the earliest possible moment.‘’The Commissioners note the lack of independent and impartial review of police killings including the absence of judicial review of prosecutors’ virtually unfettered discretion.
The Commissioners further note that the failure to remedy police misconduct amounts to condoning repeated instances of brutality that ultimately culminate in use of deadly force. The Commissioners find the police defence of qualified immunity amounts to condoning brutal police violence against persons of African descent and creates a culture of impunity whereby offenders are not held accountable and families are left without redress.
’’The Commissioners recommended that the US Congress should establish a commission to examine enslavement and racial discrimination in the colonies and the US from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.‘’ The Commissioners also recommend that the US executive and legislative branches acknowledge that the transatlantic trade in Africans, enslavement, colonization and colonialism were Crimes against Humanity and are among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, Afrophobia, xenophobia and related intolerance.
‘’Past injustices and crimes against people of African descent in the US must be addressed with reparatory justice’’.
• In the same month the commission released its damning report in April, South Africans had been shocked by the killing of KwaZulu-Natal born former rugby player Lindani Myeni at the hands of Honolulu police on the US island stateo f Hawaii. His lawyer has been quoted as saying Honolulu police treated him “like an animal” when they shot and killed the 29-year-old four times without following police protocol. KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala has called on the US authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding the player’s death. Myeni was married to US citizen, Lindsay, with whom they had two children and lived in Hawaii.
