• Protests: US takes to the streets against racism and police brutality
  • Wide Angle: The Racial Gap Between Blacks and Whites: Original Sin at the Base of the United States

The wave of protests, looting and riots that has triggered the death in the city of Minneapolis of the African American George Floyd at the hands of the white policeman Derek Chauvin has opened the debate on how the forces of order work in the United States, a country in which the Last year 1,004 people died - a hundred times the number in, say, Germany - at the hands of the police .

The most spectacular measure has been taken on Sunday by the Minneapolis City Council to dissolve the local police force, made up of 800 officers. The decision, which comes in just over a year for local elections, opens a cascade of questions about how law enforcement will be applied in the city.

In fact, the communiqué issued by local council leaders who support the decision states that "we do not have all the answers about what a future without police will be like, but the community does." It is, therefore, a declaration of intent, or, rather, a decision that has been taken without knowing how or when it will be implemented. However, many other cities in the United States are considering similar measures due to popular pressure after these two weeks of demonstrations .

Meanwhile, in one of those cities, Houston, in Texas, the coffin with the body of Floyd was exposed this Monday in a church so that his fellow citizens could bid farewell to the person whose death has caused the greatest security in racial consciousness. of the United States in half a century. 1,900 kilometers away, in Minneapolis, Chauvin was going to appear before the judge so that he could read the charges against him.

All this conflict also comes within less than five months for the presidential elections . According to a survey by CNN television, the protests have benefited the Democratic candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, who has a 13 point advantage in voting intention for Donald Trump. Of course, that was the advantage that, according to the polls, Hillary Clinton had in August 2016, so perhaps it is convenient to take those data with some caution. In fact, another poll, this time from the Wall Street Journal and NBC, reduced Biden's lead to seven points. There is no doubt that the crisis has joined the coronavirus to create the impression among public opinion that the country is sinking into chaos , an opinion that 80% of citizens subscribe to in the 'Wall' survey. Street Journal '.

The Minneapolis city council action was continued yesterday by the US Congress. The Democratic opposition, which controls the House of Representatives, announced the launch of a series of legislative reforms to tighten control over the police forces in the United States. The measures are still being elaborated, but, predictably, will facilitate taking legal action against agents who have been accused of excessive authority or committing violent acts. The initiative has been launched by the Black Caucus of Congress , which is made up of 56 members, all of them from the Democratic Party. The only black Republican congressman, Will Hurd, does not belong to the Caucus, which does not admit the presence of people of other races - white, Hispanic or Latino - in its ranks.

Limit the action of law enforcement officers

All of these initiatives appear to be part of a far-reaching political movement , triggered not only by Floyd's death, but also by the cascade of videos, many of them made from cell phones, revealing that the American police are often very little. professional and even violent in containing the protests. Thus, the state of New York is also analyzing measures to limit the freedom of action of its law enforcement officers, including making public disciplinary files and complaints from police officers.

The United States does not have a true police at the national level. It is the cities that control their law enforcement agencies. In turn, police unions have tremendous power and are often dedicated to covering the backs of corrupt police officers. The fact that the country's major capitals are all Democrats adds a touch of irony to this situation. It is also a bureaucratic apparatus that, although decentralized, is gigantic. In 2016 alone, spending on police in the country amounted to 115,000 million dollars (104,000 million euros).

It is also due to the fact that, according to an analysis of the website specialized in statistics FiveThirtyEight, police abuses are falling, despite the proliferation of recordings generated by camera mobile phones generating the opposite impression.

The politicization of the entire debate on the regulation of police action has been made clear not only with the measures of a state - New York - and a city - Minneapolis - markedly left-wing, but with the response that the conservative Brevard County, in Florida has given. "We are going to dissolve our law enforcement (...). Here the taxes are lower, the leaders have guts. Contradictory orders or foolish mayors raving at press conferences," read several tweets that the department of yesterday had posted. police of that territory.

The truth is, the often well-documented stories of police brutality in the United States are nothing new. In 1999, Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo was shot 19 times while sitting outside his door by four police officers in New York who mistaken him for a rapist. The officers were tried and found not guilty. That same year, in that same city, Abner Louima was mistakenly arrested, taken to a police station where he was beaten, and a broomstick was even inserted in his anus. Only one of the police officers involved was sentenced to jail.

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  • Racism

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