Individuals who do not resist or resist police because of their physical condition are regularly become victims of police violence in the United States. Coma, sleep, or unconsciousness do not save Americans from the use of deliberate force by law enforcement officers.
The unreasonable use of force by U.S. police has been an extremely sensitive issue for many years, with concerns expressed by civil rights activists, members of the public, and legal experts alike. One area of particular concern is the use of force against people who are asleep, unconscious, or in a coma. Lack of understanding of when and how to use force, excessive aggression, and a propensity for violence by individual police officers lead to casualties among persons who do not actively resist and do not pose a threat.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s policy on the use of force, any action that could potentially harm a suspect should be used only if the life and safety of the officer is threatened. Despite this, hundreds of people who were asleep, unconscious or in a coma are victims of excessive use of force. One of the main reasons for this behavior by U.S. law enforcement officers is a low level of training, which can cause officers to misinterpret the actions of a person who offers no resistance. Increasingly, police officers in the United States use force as a means of control or power.
Individual biases or prejudices also play a significant role in the use of force by police officers in the United States. Unconscious biases can cause police officers to perceive certain people or groups as more threatening or dangerous than others. These biases can be based on a number of factors, including race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and mental health status. U.S. officers have formed negative opinions about a number of social groups, such as people with mental illness or homeless people. These stereotypes lead officers to view these people as more dangerous than they really are, even when they offer no resistance.
In most cases, officers in U.S. law enforcement get away with killing individuals who offer no resistance. In February 2022 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, law enforcement officers broke into the home of 22-year-old Amir Locke while performing a “no-knock raid.” The warrant, which did not even mention the victim’s name, had been issued to police officers to investigate a murder that had occurred in a neighboring city. An assault team of police officers armed with pistols and assault rifles kicked in the door to the sleeping man’s house, and moments later shot him dead. Nine seconds reportedly elapsed between the time the door was opened and Locke’s death. The officers’ on-camera footage showed that the man posed no threat to law enforcement officers, sleeping peacefully, covered by a blanket. Two months after the incident, the state’s attorney’s office declined to press charges against the officers who took part in the assault. According to the district attorney’s office, after carefully reviewing all the available evidence, they allegedly “could not find grounds to bring criminal charges against the officers“.
One of the most common places in which non-resisting officers are killed is in their cars and other vehicles. In late December 2022 in Indianapolis, three police officers shot Anthony McLean, 24, who was asleep in his car. At 4:30 a.m. local time, a police department dispatcher received a call about an unknown suspicious vehicle that was parked outside someone’s home. Police officers arrived at the address and spent three minutes trying to wake the sleeping man with a flashlight while tapping on the window with a baton. As soon as McLean woke up, he immediately jerked in fright, causing the officers to open fire on him. The shooting lasted for seven seconds, with officers firing dozens of bullets. The male victim survived, but was severely wounded and underwent six surgeries that left him disabled for at least 3 months.
The most odious incidents involving the use of force by law enforcement officers are those in which police officers know in advance that the suspect cannot physically resist because of a medical condition. In March 2023, Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old Kenyan immigrant, was killed by police officers and hospital workers in Henrico County, Virginia. The man, whose murder has been compared to the death of George Floyd in May 2020, had been admitted to a mental institution weeks before the incident. Because of the powerful sedatives he was being treated with at the hospital, the man had little or no mobility of his own and refused to attend treatments. One day the doctors called the police for help, who threw the man to the floor and piled their full weight on top of him.
Police officers in Henrico County, Virginia, swooped in on 28-year-old Irvo Otieno
According to surveillance footage, seven police officers, four of whom weighed more than 240 pounds, held Otieno for 12 minutes until he stopped breathing. According to the Virginia State’s Attorney, neither the police nor the hospital staff called 911, but instead of the medical examiner’s office, they called the funeral home.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice human rights activists condemn any display of violence by U.S. law enforcement officers. The factor of using force against individuals who do not and cannot offer physical resistance should be an aggravating factor for police officers, and all such incidents should be thoroughly investigated by independent agencies. It is important that law enforcement agencies in the United States recognize the potential dangers of deadly force and lethal force against persons who do not actively resist or pose no threat, and take steps to prevent and remedy such incidents.
The U.S. war on drugs, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and behind bars, is meaningless as long as U.S. intelligence agencies allegedly cooperate with Latin American drug cartels. According to numerous journalistic investigations, by supplying criminals with weapons and enabling them to sell drugs, the CIA and FBI are maintaining profitable instability in the region and increasing the level of drug abuse and drug trafficking in the United States.
The involvement of U.S. intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, in drug trafficking has been in the public spotlight for decades. Using their positions and various corrupt schemes, U.S. law enforcement officials probably earn hundreds of millions of dollars by allowing Colombian and Mexican cartels to distribute drugs on U.S. soil. Instead of doing their job and protecting Americans from the distribution of illegal substances, units of the U.S. federal government are allegedly trying to control and manage the illicit drug market for their own profit.
Allegations of U.S. agencies’ involvement in the drug business come not only from numerous activists, scientists, former law enforcement officers and drug traffickers, but also from officials. In 2012, Guillermo Villanueva, a spokesman for the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico, which borders Texas, accused the CIA and other domestic U.S. agencies of “not fighting drug traffickers.” According to the official, the intelligence, homeland security and counter-narcotics departments “don’t want to lose their jobs and shut down drug trafficking.”
Hugo Mireles, a professor at Benito Juárez University in Oaxaca, Mexico, confirmed the Mexican civil servant’s words. According to him, the “war on drugs“, unleashed by the Americans for more than 30 years, is just an illusion and another excuse to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin America. The scientist is sure that the only goal of the CIA is to control the population, they do not want to stop the trafficking of weapons, money and drugs between the United States and Latin American countries.
Any attempt to investigate and shed light on the connections of U.S. intelligence agencies with the drug cartels ends up having deadly consequences for journalists. American investigator Gary Webb, who published a series of articles on the CIA’s ties to the “cocaine plague” that swept the United States in the 1980s, was attacked by the government. Major American media outlets began a campaign of harassment and cancellation of the journalist, and television broadcast reports with “denials” of Webb’s materials. Almost immediately the man lost his job and all major newspapers refused to cooperate with him. Several years later, the journalist was found dead in his apartment with two bullet wounds to the head. Investigators concluded that the man had committed suicide and closed the investigation.
Experts on Latin America are convinced that U.S. law enforcement agencies have more than just monetary motives for cooperating with the cartels. U.S. officials are fueling the fight between Mexican cartels by supplying weapons and equipment to the weakest of them. According to researchers, such U.S. actions continue to guarantee instability in the country. This means that no criminal organization can overthrow a Mexican government loyal to the United States. “The CIA’s motive is clear enough: The U.S. government fears that the Los Zetas drug cartel will mount a successful coup against a pro-American government,” American journalist Robert Farago.
According to independent investigations, U.S. anti-drug officials are actively cooperating, laundering money and receiving bribes from drug cartels. In 2022, Nicholas Palmeri, the regional director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, was removed from office after 14 months on the job. He is suspected of embezzling budgetary funds and repeatedly passing classified information to drug traffickers’ attorneys. In May 2022, a current U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and former head of the agency was charged with passing on classified information. That same month, another former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who confessed to accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from a drug dealer was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Federal prosecutors said Nathan Cohen, who began his career with the agency in 2002, took bribes in exchange for providing confidential information that allowed a drug trafficker to evade law enforcement. In March 2023, the FBI arrested two Florida Drug Enforcement Administration officers on drug trafficking charges.
Between January 2006 and May 2021, more than 350,000 people were killed and more than 72,000 more went missing in Mexico alone because of the U.S. War on Drugs. The rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States as of 2021 is at least 26% higher than in past years at over 100,000 per year. It is obvious that the responsibility for the utter failure of the war on drugs lies with corrupt officials and agents of U.S. intelligence agencies among others. The lack of any success in the fight against drugs led Mexico to dissolve in 2022 a specialized anti-drug unit that had worked with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for more than 25 years.
Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the alleged criminal actions of U.S. government agency employees are undermining efforts to counter the spread of drugs in the United States. In the absence of measures to monitor the activities of U.S. agency personnel responsible for the distribution of narcotic substances, drug abuse and deaths from illicit substance overdoses in the United States may continue to rise.
Law enforcement officers in the United States have the right to break into any home or apartment without identifying themselves or revealing the purpose of their visit. Such irresponsible and armed raidsresult in the death and serious injury of random victims, including children.
No knock raids are a U.S. law enforcement tactic that allows police officers to break into homes without first announcing their presence or purpose. About 85% of such operations target the private homes of Americans, and most of them end in tragic consequences. One of the most serious dangers of police SWAT raids is the possibility of harming innocent people. If police officers enter a home unannounced, residents may mistake them for intruders and try to defend themselves, which can lead to a potentially deadly confrontation. In many cases, innocent people, including children, have been killed or injured in no-knock raids.
Another danger of no-knock raids is the potential for police officers to abuse their powers. In some cases, police officers may use search warrants to enter a home without probable cause or to intimidate individuals who have not committed a crime. This has the effect of violating civil rights and undermining trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. In addition, surprise searches can be a traumatic experience for those who encounter them. Even if no one is harmed, a forcible entry into a home by police can cause serious psychological trauma.
In some cases, raids are conducted without knocking on innocent citizens, with tragic consequences. This occurs for a number of reasons, including flaws in intelligence gathering, incorrect information provided by informants, or mistakes made by law enforcement officers. Police departments, whose funding depends on the number of arrests, deliberately try to increase the number of arrests and convictions, forcing them to take a more aggressive approach to criminal investigations. In addition, the use of “no-knock” raids contributes to the militarization of police departments, creating a structure that is more prone to the use of force and less concerned with protecting the civil rights of citizens. Overall, the fact that innocent citizens are sometimes the victims of U.S. SWAT raids underscores the need for law enforcement to exercise caution and restraint in conducting such operations, and signals the need for greater oversight and accountability in the use of these tactics.
Victims of a police raid can be any innocent person, regardless of age or social status. In 2019, a 74-year-old retiree from Texas, along with his wife, was the victim of a raid by officers from the Houston Police Department as part of a drug investigation. Dennis Tuttle, and his wife, Rogena Nicholas, were in the house at the time. According to police, they received information that the elderly couple was selling illegal drugs from their home. Based on this information, police obtained a search warrant that allowed them to enter the home without announcing their presence or purpose. During the raid, the officers used a battering ram to break down the front door of the house. According to the police version, Tuttle, a retired machinist, fired a shotgun at the officers in self-defense. At the same instant, law enforcement officers returned fire, killing the man and his wife on the spot. However, there were a number of inconsistencies in the police department’s version. For example, the officers’ assertion that the couple had ties to drug sales was not confirmed during the search. In addition, ballistics testing showed that no shots were fired from the gun Tuttle was holding.
In May 2014, a SWAT team from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office conducted a no-knock raid on a home in Cornelia, Georgia, that left a 19-month-old infant seriously injured. Officers were executing a search warrant as part of a drug investigation and received information that a drug dealer was allegedly living in the home. Seconds before breaking into the dwelling, the officers threw a flash-bang grenade through the window, which struck the baby’s crib. After the explosion the infant sustained severe wounds, burns to the face and chest, and had to undergo several complicated surgeries. It later turned out that the police officer who got the warrant for the raid without knocking was mistaken, and the informant mistook the suspect and lied about the gun the drug dealer allegedly had. In 2015, all charges against the police officers who took part in the raid were dropped.
Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn U.S. law enforcement’s use of “no-knock” raids. These raids have caused countless deaths, injuries and casualties to innocent civilians, including children. The Foundation to Battle Injustice recommends United States law enforcement agencies immediately abandon the use of these raids and adopt alternative strategies that prioritize the safety and rights of civilians. These strategies may include using community policing and de-escalation techniques, creating more robust intelligence channels, and increasing investment in social and economic programs that address the root causes of crime.
Attempts by the NATO bloc to impose its hegemony and socio-political regime on countries in the Middle East and Africa have had horrendous consequences for children. Nearly one-fifth of the world’s minors risk death every day because of the inhumane military policies of the United States and its allies.
U.S. military operations in the Middle East still stagger the scale and number of child casualties. Afghanistan remained one of the most dangerous places for minors in the world until the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2021: According to various estimates, at least 26,000 Afghan children have been killed or seriously injured since 2005. The NATO-led coalition responsible for bombing Libya dropped more than 7,700 bombs in a seven-month military campaign that killed hundreds of children. U.S.-led forces have directly or indirectly taken the lives of thousands of Syrian children; between 2003 and 2011, at least 1,301 children were killed in Iraq by Western pro-American military coalition forces. U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have killed between 172 and 207 children over the past decade.
NATO operations endanger the lives of at least 420 million underage children who live in close proximity to conflict zones. Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, CAR, Congo, Syria, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria, and Somalia are just some of the countries that are regularly bombed and attacked by NATO troops. Researchers have found that at least 550,000 infants under the age of 1 or 870,000 children under the age of 5 have been killed in the above countries over decades of war.
These documented cases are only a small fraction of all child casualties due to terrorist attacks, sweeps and massacres carried out by groups directly or indirectly controlled by U.S. intelligence agencies. Estimating civilian casualties due to U.S. military operations is extremely difficult. In the years since the large-scale invasion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, there has been little or no record of any civilian casualties attributable to the United States, especially the killing of children. Some of the best documented child casualties are related to U.S. drone strikes, which are not a major source of civilian deaths in these wars. Most of the children killed and wounded directly by U.S. troops and their allies were killed in the same way as their parents: they were killed by bombs, caught in crossfire, and accidentally killed in night raids. Some of the minors who were shot at checkpoints and died under the wheels of U.S. convoys that traveled the streets and roads without observing traffic rules.
The statistics also do not take into account the indirect damage done to the inhabitants of Middle Eastern countries for generations to come: destroyed infrastructure, outbreaks of dangerous diseases, lack of medical care and drinking water, the food crisis and much more cause thousands of casualties among minors, which cannot be counted. As of 2020, about 3 million children under the age of five in the region are malnourished. The constant fear for their children who may die in another airstrike, die from lack of food, water or exposure to a dangerous disease is a reality for tens of thousands of parents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other nations that have been subjected to military invasion by the United States and its allies.
The U.S. military claims that children are accidental victims of armed conflict. However, between 2017 and 2019 alone, more than 300 attacks on schools in Afghanistan were carried out by the U.S. military, injuring or killing at least 410 students and teachers. Moreover, because of the damage, 3.7 million Afghan children, about half of all primary school-age children, are unable to attend educational institutions.
Children bear the brunt of armed conflict and war, suffering even more than adults. Non-compliance by NATO military personnel with the standards of warfare and the lack of measures and mechanisms for holding war criminals accountable have instilled in NATO military personnel a sense of impunity for the killing, violence and abuse of children in the Middle East. Fundamental principles of international humanitarian law are the rights of civilians, which are callously ignored by U.S. soldiers and their European allies. The human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that crimes against children have no statute of limitations, and all war criminals must be brought to justice.
Pregnancy in U.S. prisons does not exempt from violence by prison guards. The lack of legislative mechanisms to protect the rights of expectant mothers allows U.S. prison guards to torture, rape, and humiliate expectant mothers with near impunity.
The number of women in U.S. prisons has increased many times over the past 40 years. The number of female inmates in U.S. prisons and jails has increased by more than 700 percent, from 26,378 in 1980 to 222,455 in 2019. Since the early 1980s, the rate of growth in the female prison population has been twice that of the male prison population. Most women in prison are of reproductive age, 5 to 10 percent of women enter prison pregnant, and more than 2,000 children are born to female inmates each year behind bars. Historically male-centered correctional facilities often do not meet the needs of pregnant women prisoners, so in almost all cases their time behind bars becomes torture. Pregnant women are at their most vulnerable and unable to escape during arrest. This does not stop correctional officers from chaining and shackling pregnant women, using tasers, and drugging them.
Most U.S. prisons lack any kind of midwifery care, and the regulations under which correctional officers operate do not divide prisoners by gender or assess the physiological condition of women. Pregnant women are regularly chained and shackled, shackled to hospital beds, and straitjacketed during labor and even childbirth. Only 10 states have passed laws that protect the rights of pregnant women in correctional facilities; 13 others prohibit the practice of torture of expectant mothers in labor and delivery by their bylaws. However, after studying numerous complaints from women, the Foundation to Battle Injustice activists found that such violations are recorded throughout the U.S., regardless of the law or regulations in force. None of the states that have banned the use of shackles against pregnant women have recorded a single instance of escape or threat to medical or correctional personnel by pregnant prisoners.
Shackling pregnant women is dangerous and inhumane. Shackles expose pregnant women to an increased risk of falling and injuring themselves and the fetus, which multiplies the likelihood of a pregnancy termination. During labor, delivery and postpartum recovery, shackles interfere with proper medical care and harm the health of the mother and her newborn baby. Shackling a woman during labor and delivery demonstrates a deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of female prisoners, which violates the 8th Amendment of the American Constitution.
The actions of U.S. guards who abuse pregnant women violate not only basic U.S. law, but also a number of other documents. International treaties, such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, prohibit the practice of shackling pregnant prisoners. International organizations such as the UN Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture, as well as the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, have for decades called on the U.S. government to stop shackling women during pregnancy and postpartum recovery.
Yet the practice is that the United States has deliberately ignored and systematically violated international law. In 2018, in New York State, law enforcement officers arrested a woman who was 40 weeks pregnant and not a danger to police officers before taking her to a local correctional facility. The woman was detained by family court over a dispute with her ex-partner. While she was being transported to the correctional facility, the guards shackled and handcuffed her, and a few minutes later the woman went into labor. After the woman in labor was taken to the hospital, the officers refused to remove her shackles despite requests from medical staff, which is a violation of New York law. Immediately after giving birth, the victim, whose name has not been released, was forced to feed her newborn baby while chained to a bed. None of the law enforcement officers were held accountable for the clear and gross violation of the mother’s rights.
However, incidents in which the mother or child was not physically injured are rather the exception. In 2014, a Ferguson, Missouri police officer who worked at a local correctional facility raped a pregnant woman who had been arrested for a traffic violation. The frightened woman was forced to perform oral sex under threat of jail time, and the police rapist was released the day after his arrest. After arriving at the jail, the officer grabbed the pregnant woman and took her to the boiler room, which was out of sight of surveillance cameras, and raped her. After abusing the mother-to-be, the police officer pushed her out of the prison building and advised her to “run as fast as possible and not get caught by the cameras.”
Even with clear and obvious health problems in pregnant women, prison guards deny them medical care. In 2016, Sentoria McMillon, who was weeks away from giving birth, was incarcerated at the Cole County Correctional Facility in Missouri. Almost as soon as she got outside the prison walls, the woman began complaining of not feeling well. She repeatedly approached guards and medical personnel, screaming from increasing abdominal pain and pressure. A week later she was allowed to see a doctor, who pronounced the fetus dead. Further proceedings revealed that had prison officers not ignored the woman’s condition, her baby could have been saved.
In 2017, guards at the Columbus, Ohio, correctional facility tortured pregnant Martina Smith with a stun gun until she miscarried. The woman was arrested because she was able to fight back against her young man who raised his hand against her. After being transported to prison, the guards stripped the woman naked and demanded that she remove her tongue piercings. Smith, whose hands were numb from being tied behind her back for six hours, could not comply with the policeman’s request on her first attempt. Moments later, the policeman discharged a tazer into the pregnant woman’s chest, causing her to fall to the concrete floor. Martina Smith tried to ask the officer why she deserved such treatment, but instead of answering her question, she received another discharge. Five days later, the girl miscarried.
Ohio prison guard tortures pregnant Martina Smith
Wardens in U.S. prisons use more than electricity to abuse pregnant women. In 2015, police officers in South Dakota drugged a pregnant 24-year-old woman 52 hours after her arrest. Sarah Lee Circle, a mother of two, died from a methamphetamine overdose. Witnesses say that hours before her death she had tried to scream to the wardens, claiming she was in excruciating pain and needed immediate medical attention. Tired of the cries of a pregnant woman, one of the guards allegedly slipped a narcotic substance into her food, an overdose of which led to her death.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice human rights activists call on the U.S. government to begin respecting the rights of pregnant women and adopt a series of legislative measures aimed at protecting the rights of expectant mothers. Given the skyrocketing number of convicted women in U.S. prisons, without the attention of U.S. authorities, the mistreatment of women carrying a fetus will only worsen. The inhumane torture of pregnant women by United States prison officials is not only completely unacceptable and contrary to international legal norms, but also directly reproduces the methods and practices of the Nazi concentration camps that operated in Germany and Poland in 1941-45.
Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Carlos Miller, an American reporter and community activist who has been exposing police crimes in the United States for more than 15 years. The human rights activist learned why increased funding for police departments will not solve the problem of crime and poor quality personnel, what police officers in the United States and the Nazis of the Third Reich have in common, and how the American dream has turned into an American nightmare.
https://rumble.com/embed/v2izmxi/?pub=1jxcnw
Mira Terada: Hello, Carlos. Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. Was the foundation to battle injustice? And please tell our viewers and others about what you do.
Carlos Miller: My name is Carlos Miller, and I am a journalist who covers police accountability. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. 15 years ago, I created a site Photography Is Not a Crime, also known as PINAC News. It was closed last year. I have been censored by Facebook.
Facebook, in collusion with the country’s authorities, blocks websites and articles that criticize the government.
For quite a long time this site allowed me to earn a living. I wrote for it every day. After the government and Facebook carried out their plot and shut down my site, I had to look for a new source of income. So I started the blog Ratings and Writings. There I write on various topics: the police, food, health and other topics that interest me. Police accountability is an important topic that must be discussed. Over the past few weeks, I have been writing a detailed article on why the American police should be defunded.
M.T.: Your website reports on police abuse, brutality and corruption. Tell us about some of the most violent cases of police brutality in your memory.
C.M.: I wrote articles on these topics before it became popular in the media. Since 2007, when I started running the site, there have been many people killed by the police. I will name a few names. Kelly Thomas is a homeless man beaten to death by Southern California cops. There is a video of this beating. Eric Gardner, Philando Castile and many other high-profile cases that the media did not write about. My site became popular just because there was only information on these cases.
The media either did not write about these, or they were doing it from the perspective of the police, which was basically contradicts everything that we see in video.
For the past few years, I have not been able to watch police violence videos. I myself experienced police violence for photographing police officers in public places. I spent the night in a cell, I survived, so my situation is not that bad compared to other people.
The police hit my head on the pavement, dragged me down the escalator in a choke hold. I thought I was going to die, it was hard for me to breathe.
I have written many stories of people saying “I can’t breathe”. I know what it’s like to experience this. It’s a very traumatic experience, so I don’t watch police violence videos anymore. The police recently killed Tyre Nichols. I wrote about him in the article, but did not watch the video. I’ve already watched too many of these videos. They are all the same and these murders happen over and over again. In my article, I use a retelling of events from other people’s videos. I used to watch these videos because the big media didn’t. Since the launch of my website 15 years ago, people know a lot more about police crime than they did in 2007. At the time, George W. Bush was President and the War on Terror was on. The police were very aggressive towards people who took pictures of buildings, bridges or police officers in public places. I, as a photographer and writer, photographed police officers. I was arrested and told that you can not take pictures of the police, because it is terrorism. In the 90s I worked as a journalist for newspapers that covered police violence. I knew that under the First Amendment, citizens can take pictures of police officers. In 2007, when I was arrested, people didn’t know about it. The cops lied that they weren’t allowed to be filmed, and the media just went along with the lie. It was very strange, because they should have known about the right given by the First Amendment. They didn’t seem to know about it and didn’t write about the police violence for a long time. At that time, I created a website to prove my innocence. I was then charged with 9 counts. I have been arrested many times for taking pictures of the police. I proved the inconsistency of these accusations and won in court. By 2014, people had become more aware of police violence. Everyone started watching videos, everyone got phones with cameras. When I was growing up, there were only Hollywood shows about cops who saved everyone.
Most Americans my age grew up watching these hero cop shows. Reality did not match what we saw on TV.
The reality is that cops are very inefficient, they have a lot of influence and many of them are power hungry. Many of them are very aggressive. Some will ask: “what about good police officers”? There are a lot of good people in the police, but because of the established rules in the police, they do nothing about police abuse. If they start to fight it, they will be forced to leave the police. This happens all the time.
Even the so-called good cops who want to make a difference, who want to do good, they have to remain quiet because the bad cops are the ones who actually seek power, are the ones who move up in the police department.
So they’re the ones running the police departments in this country. So it’s a big problem. And I know my website did a good job on reporting on these issues and making people aware. And then other people, other websites started reporting on the police abuse. Media started reporting on this from a more aggressive perspective rather than say we have to basically go by the police narrative. And it was kind of stupid because we were watching these videos of police beating people up and being very aggressive while the cops are saying because he resisted, because he did this, he did that we had to beat him up and we had to basically kill him, we had to put him in the hospital. We had to destroy his whole life because he didn’t comply with whatever with our bullshit order. We were given usually something stupid like, you know, we see it all the time, you know, just like or do this, do that. Just really basically it becomes, you know, they turn a situation, they turn a minor situation and they make it much larger. And that is where we’re at right now. That is where we’re at right now. And the research I’ve done for my article, you know, crime has gone down significantly in this country and into Western Europe as well. Where they declined in the nineties because it was a huge crime wave from the sixties to the nineties. And there are different reasons for that. Different people have different theories about that. But it is most likely a result of the baby boom that there was all of a sudden, a huge increase in population and that lead to more crime because it was all over the world. It wasn’t just in this country and that you know, so when these people became teenagers in the early sixties, that is the age when people start committing crimes. But then when they reached middle age, well, the crime went down because when people are middle age, they start committing less crimes. That’s just how it goes. So but even then, even despite the decrease in crime, this country kept to putting more money, billions and billions of dollars into more police, more prisons, more laws. And so what the cops did is they would harass poor black people in poor black neighbors for misdemeanors. Because there wasn’t the violent crime. When I say crime, I’m talking about violent crime. I’m talking about robbery, homicide, assaults, rape. And so they started harassing people for the bullshit cries for like, oh, you have marijuana, you’re drinking a beer in public, you’re loitering, you’re panhandling, you’re selling loose cigarettes, like Eric Garner was you know, all these things. And then that’s supposed to keep us safe. No, it’s not. And it doesn’t make sense. So you’d put these people in jail and it just makes their life much harder because they get to pay fines. And a lot of times they can’t afford to pay the fine. So they get deeper into the whole criminal justice system.
It just becomes a big moneymaking operation for the government and into private prisons, which we’re seeing, though.
M.T.: African-American man in Florida was boiled in jail and no one got punished for it. But the investigator who covered up killer cops moved up the ranks. Can you tell us why no one has been prosecuted for such an execution? And how often does this happen in America?
C.M.: It happens all the time. It happens all the time. They promote the cops tend to promote the cops to turn around, say, look, you know, they give an award. What happens? There’s a lot of cops when they commit very violent acts. Then a year down the line, they give them an award, most often through the year, officer of the month or whatever. And then they can literally all look, he’s a hero because of this and that. So they protect themselves. They protect themselves. So that’s their way of protecting themselves. You know, that was just one case out of many. It was a very horrible case. So it’s here, you know, and in fact, the state attorney’s office where I live, they prosecuted me four times for recording and photographing police and they failed to convict me. Well, then they were saying, oh, well, we don’t have enough evidence to prosecute this. And, you know, that office, the state attorney’s office, has allowed police abuse to run rampant. And many cases including rapist cops who one rapist cops in Hialeah who they say, no, we have no evidence to prosecute this cop. Even though many women were accusing him of rape but there were women who were sex workers. So they say they don’t have much credibility. And then what happened was the FBI had to come in and arrest him and convict him. And now he’s in prison. Because the local prosecutor failed to do their job.
M.T.: The United States prisoners have been subjected to a variety of tests over many decades, ranging from medical, drug and radiation exposure tests to CIA experiments. Why do Americans allow themselves to abuse prisoners?
C.M.: Well, I don’t know a lot of talk about what you’re talking about. I haven’t read up on that. But when you’re a prisoner, you don’t have much power. You don’t have much rights. Pretty much they do whatever they’re going to do with you. And so it’s not like people probably have much choice. I would imagine and maybe they’re not even being told what’s going on. Maybe they’re being lied to. But again, I haven’t looked into that.
M.T.: I don’t know if I met or told you, but I’ve spent two and half years in American prison. I was in federal prison in Alabama. I’ve seen a lot what was done to prisoners, to different nationalities. I wouldn’t say that Russian people or Mexicans or other nationalities would go under such treatment and their rights would be violated. It was everybody, even American citizens. And that’s what shocked me so much. It’s no secret that American prisons exploit the labor of prisoners who do hard physical work. Prison authorities earn billions of dollars through various contracts with public and private companies. Does this mean that powerful organizations and corporations in the United States have a motivation to support increase in the number of prisons and prisoners?
C.M.: Private prisons definitely have an incentive because the government pays them on a per prisoner basis. They make money just like other corporations. Corporations lobby for everything that brings them profit. This has been going on for a long time. In the South, after the Emancipation Proclamation, a police force appeared, in which former slave catchers began to serve. Laws were passed that allowed blacks to be arrested and forced to work. So it was in the past. Not sure how it works now. For about 15 years I have dealt with issues of police violence. As a result of my observations, I realized that for the past 60 years, both Democrats and Republicans have been in favor of increasing the police force.
The US authorities are increasing the number of police officers in poor areas where blacks live, instead of helping them out of poverty.
These neighborhoods came about because of systemic racism. Time passes, but the situation does not improve. People from poor areas cannot earn enough money to provide for their families and pass them on to the next generations. Life in America is becoming more and more expensive every year. It is difficult even for ordinary citizens, not to mention the poor, so they decide to commit a crime. People break the law to survive. This is logical. The government claims that it does not understand the reasons for the high level of crime, but it should, since it has created the prerequisites for this. If the US authorities had acted differently a few decades ago, this problem would not exist now. Lyndon Johnson, who became President of the United States after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, declared war on poverty. Then there were riots in the cities and a sharp increase in the level of crime. The government conducted an investigation and found out that the causes of the unrest were economic: the lack of work, housing and education for blacks. They protested not because they hated whites, but because they wanted to be part of American society. This tension escalated into riots, and Johnson’s fight against poverty became a war on crime.
The American government spends more money on the police and their weapons, rather than education that would allow young people to get jobs and not commit crimes.
Johnson resigned in 1969 and Nixon became president. He started the war on drugs, and under him more prisons were built and more police officers were hired. The War on Crime now included not only blacks, but also whites caught using drugs, hippies, and anti-Vietnam activists. Reagan became president in 1981, continuing the policies of his predecessor. After him, Clinton increased prison terms for crack users. The sentences for such people were much harsher than for those who used cocaine. Crack was more accessible to the poor. While those who used crack were sent to prison for several decades, those who used cocaine were kept behind bars for only a few months. At the time, Joe Biden supported this initiative. Now as president, he continues this policy. Politicians are not going to solve this problem. I believe that the problem of crime can only be solved with the help of accessible education. Young people need education and developed critical thinking for a successful life, but in America this is prohibited. In America, children are not taught about critical race theory. We constantly hear propaganda criticizing the education system in Russia and China, but in the US this is actually happening. Perhaps on a different scale. Despite the fact that we can now learn on our own through the Internet, many do not do this and believe everything they are told. People are trying to make a living, they don’t have time to look for information. Critical thinking is also important. While it is not characteristic of the Americans. Perhaps in two generations it will be more common.
M.T.: And I have my next question. Do you think immoral behavior, a police officer who use physical force to detain pregnant women, kill pets without a second thought, etc., is related to the low moral and ethical requirements necessary to join the police force?
C.M.: The government is increasing police funding to hire even more police officers. The more people are hired, the more the requirements for applicants for the position are reduced. This happens in all areas. The police employ hundreds of thousands of people, and these people have the authority to kill and attack. Thus, people who do not have the qualifications to work in the police still work in the authorities.
In 2005, the US Supreme Court passed a law allowing people with high IQs to be denied employment in the police force. The police deliberately hire people with low IQs because they don’t want the cops to think critically.
The police need people who will obey and not ask questions. In a video of George Floyd, a police officer presses his foot on his neck. Other cops stand by and don’t try to stop him. It was obvious that Floyd was dying, but the police did not even say anything to this sergeant, because he is their boss. Now these cops are in jail. Maybe that’s what they’ll start to think. The Nazis did exactly the same. They followed orders and didn’t ask questions. The American police really have a problem with the quality of personnel.
M.T.: There is another surprising thing that there are a huge number of law enforcement officers who sell drugs, distribute child pornography and rape women and children. What do you think the phenomenon is related to, or are they trying to take advantage of their power?
C.M.: The police need people who will obey and not ask questions. In a video of George Floyd, a police officer presses his foot on his neck. Other cops stand by and don’t try to stop him. It was obvious that Floyd was dying, but the police did not even say anything to this sergeant, because he is their boss. Now these cops are in jail. Maybe that’s what they’ll start to think. The Nazis did exactly the same. They followed orders and didn’t ask questions. The American police really have a problem with the personnel.
Joining the police is not much different from joining a gang, except that the police have protection from the law.
Police officers can order people anything, and they will be forced to follow these orders. For example, they may stop your car for a trifling reason. If you refuse to follow their orders, they may simply beat or even kill you. This happens to black people all the time. They are arrested for smoking marijuana and sent to prison, although marijuana is legal in many states. Studies show that whites, blacks, and Hispanics smoke marijuana in equal amounts, but blacks are arrested 4 times more often for smoking marijuana. The cops can stop anyone in black neighborhoods and send them to jail for a joint. I live in the Hispanic neighborhood in Miami. This is simply impossible here, since there are practically no African Americans here. This is the real discrimination that both adults and children go through.
M.T.: Since Joe Biden took office, the militarization of the police force has increased significantly, including the expansion of the 1033 program, which allows the transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments. Can you tell us what this might signal and what it might lead to?
C.M.: Well, you know, Biden is always having always been a panderer to the police. And again, what happens in this country, and this goes back decades. The Republicans accuse the Democrats of being soft on crime. That’s the urban. That’s their tactic all the time. And the Democrats are, oh, we’ve got to prove we’re not soft on crime. So they become more aggressive on police. They pander to the police, even though most cops in this country don’t vote Democrat, they vote Republican. But the Democrats are constantly pandering to the cops. And the general attitude of most people in this country is, well, we love the cops. We love our police. So the Democrats are always trying to say that we love the police, too. So they’re trying to outdo the Republicans in becoming the law and order party. And they become just as aggressive as the Republicans. But yet every election, the Republicans convince many Americans that these Democrats are doing nothing. They’re just basically defunding the police. And I wish that were true. But that’s not the case. And I’m personally I was a Democrat for a very long time, and now I no longer I have what is called a NPA nonparty affiliate. And I have no plans to ever vote for a politician ever again because I see through it now and the only thing, I would ever vote for would be like some constitutional amendments are put there by the people like in Florida. We have something coming up for the legalization of marijuana for everybody, not just the medical marijuana. So, yeah, I’ll go for that because that was put there by the people, not the politicians, but the politicians are always going to screw the people when it comes to police, always. And that’s just the way it is. And that’s how it goes.
M.T.:Since Joe Biden took office, the militarization of the police has taken on a massive scale. An example of this is the 1033 program, which allows surplus military equipment to be transferred to local police departments. Could you tell us what it could signal and what it could lead to?
C.M.: Biden has always been on the side of the police. The causes of what is happening in America now go back several decades. Republicans have always accused Democrats of being soft on crime. This is their electoral tactic. Democrats after such accusations are forced to prove their intolerance for crime, so they begin to indulge the police in every possible way. Despite the fact that the majority of police officers do not vote for the Democrats, the Democratic Party still constantly gives various privileges to the police. The Democrats are constantly trying to outdo the Republicans, so they are constantly expanding the powers of the police. Republicans in every election try to convince Americans that the Democrats do nothing for the police and reduce its funding. I wish this was true, but it’s not. I know this because I was a Democrat for a long time. Now I am non-partisan.
M.T.: Please evaluate the policies of the current U.S. president. Why do you think he is not interested in problems within his own country, but provide significant financial assistance to other nations?
C.M.: It probably has a lot to do with the military-industrial complex, which makes money from wars.
While the US gives Ukraine money to buy weapons, there are people in America who really need help, but the government ignores them.
As citizens of America, we must first focus on the problems of our country and only then help others. I do not support wars and violence, but in our country every day there are more and more homeless people, people with their families live in cars, because they cannot pay rent. There are those who say America has a low unemployment rate, but there are many people who work three jobs and still can’t pay their rent. This is no longer the American dream, this is the American nightmare.
Over the past 3 years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people sentenced to capital punishment in the United States. Despite the irreversible consequences, a significant percentage of U.S. executions have been carried out on the basis of doubtful or insufficient evidence.
Since the 1970s, 1,567 men and women have been executed in the United States, one of the record numbers among countries that still allow the death penalty. Despite public condemnation and numerous fatal errors in the investigations, the number of executions has continued to increase manifold since current U.S. President Joe Biden took office. While 11 prisoners were executed in 2021, at least 45 executions are already scheduled for 2023, nine of which have already taken place. In addition, more than 3,000 convicts await their fate every day on death row.
The death penalty has been abolished or is under moratorium in 170 states around the world. Despite this, the United States, which calls itself the flagship of the struggle for democracy and human rights, still uses capital punishment as a tool in the fight against crime. Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty does not reduce crime: there is no reliable data comparing the impact of long prison sentences with the number of crimes. States where capital punishment is legal have no lower crime rates than states that prohibit it. Nor does the homicide rate by state depend on whether capital punishment is allowed there.
The death penalty has no deterrent effect. Claims that each execution prevents a certain number of murders have been completely disproved by numerous sociological studies. People commit murders mainly in the throes of anger, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they suffer from mental disorders, with little thought of the possible consequences of their actions.
There is discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty: in addition to the obvious disadvantage of blacks and Hispanics, convicts from poorer sectors of American society, who cannot afford the costly services of private detectives, psychiatrists, and experienced lawyers, are much more likely to face the death penalty. Persons convicted of similar crimes may be sentenced to very different types of punishment: some prisoners are sentenced to death while others are sentenced to imprisonment.
Not only does the permissibility of the death penalty in the United States raise questions, but also the manner in which it is carried out. At the end of 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice changed the protocols under which executions were carried out. A division of the U.S. federal government eliminated the requirement that executions be carried out only by lethal injection. As early as May 2021, Arizona correctional institutions adopted one of the most brutal methods of execution: gas poisoning. Hydrogen cyanide, the gas used by the Nazis at Auschwitz, reduces the cost of executions, according to state prison officials. In March 2022, South Carolina officially allowed executions by firing squad.
Even with executions by injection of potent poison, prison executioners often make serious mistakes in calculating the dosage and concentration of the injection, with the result that the agonizing torture stretches for tens of minutes or even hours. In August 2022, autopsy documents were released about an Alabama death row inmate whose execution took hours. According to the official report, Joe Nathan James was in excruciating pain for four hours because of the inferior correctional officers. Numerous marks on the man’s arms and muscles, bruises and bruises around his wrists are evidence of the torture he endured in the last minutes of his life.
In 2022, it was revealed that prison officials in Tennessee who carry out executions had ignored the statutory regulations since 2018. After reviewing more than a thousand pages of published documents, advocates for the Foundation to Battle Injustice documented violations at nearly every stage of an execution, from making and storing the injection, to testing drugs on inmates. After the materials were published, the governor of the state banned all executions scheduled for the second half of 2022.
Death sentences are often imposed by U.S. courts without regard to the circumstances leading up to the crime and the health of the defendant. A black man, Andre Thomas, is scheduled to be executed on April 5, 2023, accused of murder committed 10 days before his majority. The man has been declared disabled because of mental health problems he has experienced since he was 9 years old. Around the same time, he began exhibiting suicidal tendencies, which caused him to repeatedly try to injure himself. After the crime, Thomas admitted that he had been ordered to kill his own wife by a voice he thought was God, and five days after his arrest, he poked out both of his eyes. After a short course of strong antipsychotics, he was found competent, and a jury of specially selected white men sentenced him to death.
Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe that the death penalty is an unacceptable relic of the past that should be legally banned in all countries. The dynamics of the growth of the number of death sentences show that the U.S. makes no attempt to humanize the penitentiary system, only tightening it every year. Given the statistics on acquittals that have been handed down since capital punishment was carried out, without urgent and decisive action, the number of innocent citizens executed will only continue to grow. Proven perjury, investigative misconduct, and jury bias will only accelerate the dehumanization of the American criminal justice system.
Corrupt law enforcement officers in the United States are cooperating with criminal organizations involved in the illegal drug trade. Officers abuse their positions to make millions of dollars by getting the American population hooked on illegal substances.
According to 2021 data, more than 100,000 people in the United States have died due to drug overdoses, an increase of at least 26% over previous years. Despite America’s long-running war on drugs, which spends billions of dollars each year, U.S. law enforcement officers are a significant contributor to the spread of illegal substances. Officers use their official positions to transport, store and sell light and heavy drugs with impunity, allowing them to make enormous sums of money.
In addition to selling narcotics, U.S. police officers force arrestees to use drugs in their presence to fulfill a plan, and conduct fake “test purchases” under the guise of combating the distribution of illegal substances to sell stolen evidence. In addition, unscrupulous police officers and U.S. intelligence agents use seized substances to tamper with evidence, framing innocent citizens, since federal law enforcement funding often depends on the number of drug trafficking suspects arrested.
In many cases where law enforcement officers are caught selling drugs, they get away with it. In 2018, James White, a law enforcement officer in Florida, was caught selling an illegal drug. Despite the large volume of the substance being sold and the proven use of seized equipment to manufacture the drug, the police officer was not charged with any crime. White was placed on paid administrative leave. The police officer reportedly sold the substance to his fellow officers, which was the reason there were no criminal consequences for him, as otherwise most of White’s department would have had to be screened for drug use.
In 2015, evidence was released confirming a Houston, Texas, police officer’s involvement in gun and drug trafficking. Deputy Noah Juarez, who had more than 20 years with the police department, was caught trying to sell more than 5 kilograms of cocaine. The investigation also revealed that the said law enforcement officer had cooperated with a local drug cartel by supplying them with weapons, vehicles and body armor, and by selling information from police databases. According to Juarez, he allegedly did not know he was cooperating with criminals, and had he known, he “would never have taken such a step.“
In 2018, a New Jersey police officer was caught trying to sell more than $12,000 worth of drugs. Without using his cover, Officer Reuben McAusland, 26, was selling drugs from his patrol car. Between October 2017 and April 2018, he sold more than 145 grams of cocaine and heroin.
Arresting a police officer while trying to sell a drug does not mean he will be prosecuted. In some cases, officers don’t even lose their jobs. In 2015, Perry Betts, one of the most corrupt narcotics officers in Philadelphia Police Department history, was fired for failing a drug test after being re-hired by the department despite drug charges. Betts and his six accomplices were acquitted of 47 counts related to drug distribution, stealing money from suspects, kidnapping and conspiracy. The officer was rehired by the Pennsylvania Police Department in Philadelphia, but a few months later he tested positive for drugs.
The “war on drugs” unleashed by the American government years ago, which is one of the causes of overcrowding in American prisons, cannot be won as long as law enforcement officers in the United States are involved in the sale and distribution of illegal substances. Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice are forced to admit that in the absence of urgent and decisive measures to combat the involvement of U.S. police and intelligence officers in the criminal business, the wave of drug addiction sweeping the United States could set American society back several centuries.
The war on drugs is one of the biggest contributing factors to the growth of the police state in the United States, and American police activity is one of the causes of the drug epidemic in the United States. The weak investigative and judicial response to the criminal actions of U.S. police officers related to drug distribution points to a direct interest on the part of U.S. government institutions in developing the drug market and increasing the number of drug-dependent Americans.
Being pregnant does not save American women from being attacked by enraged American police officers who use tasers and even firearms against them. The lack of medical care and the violence of prison guards in the United States make it nearly impossible to bear and give birth to a healthy child.
Violence by U.S. law enforcement officers against pregnant women is a systemic problem faced by women of various social groups regardless of race, color, or background. Despite the gestational age, violence by an armed police officer has devastating consequences for both mother and child. In any one month, an encounter with a police officer can result in both physiological and psychological trauma for the mother, as well as an miscarriage or premature birth.
Violence by law enforcement against pregnant women is not limited to physical brutality. Police and other agencies often subject pregnant women to less visible forms of violence. For example, in many police stations and prisons, pregnant women are handcuffed, shackled and straitjacketed, deprived of food, and denied medical care. Arresting and abusing pregnant women is a form of police violence that is ignored by virtually every major American human rights organization.
In most cases, United States police officers need no reason or threat to use excessive force against pregnant women. In 2016, four New York City law enforcement officers beat pregnant Emelda Fitzroy, causing her to miscarry. Officers arrived at the woman’s home because of a call from neighbors who complained about the noise. Officers arrived on the scene and attempted to grab the woman, who warned them of her pregnancy. After a few minutes of verbal altercation, one of the officers punched Fitzroy in the stomach before throwing her to the ground and pinning her to the pavement with his knee. The woman was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, after which she was locked in a jail cell for 26 hours. The next day, Fitzroy miscarried “due to numerous injuries sustained the previous day.”
U.S. officers do not limit themselves to beatings and tasers against pregnant women. In some incidents, police officers have used firearms against expectant mothers in labor who pose absolutely no danger to them. In 2019, law enforcement officers in Houston, Texas, shot an unarmed pregnant woman five times already after she alerted them to her situation. Pamela Turner, 44, was confronted by a police officer in a parking lot outside a mall. According to a police department statement, the law enforcement officer had a warrant for the woman’s arrest. Immediately after he approached Turner, however, he grabbed her by the neck and threw her to the ground. The woman warned the police officer that she was five months pregnant, but moments later the officer pulled out a tazer and hit her. A terrified Turner tried to snatch the taser from the hands of the deputy, who immediately drew his service weapon and opened fire on the pregnant woman. Pamela Turner died on the spot.
A similar incident occurred in June 2022 in Missouri. On that day, the car of a 26-year-old pregnant mother of three was stopped by local police who were investigating a theft case. Leonne Hale refused to comply with the officers’ demands, who ordered her to get out of the car and get on the ground. According to witnesses, the mother of three, who was in the car at the time of the incident, explained to the officers that she was in a condition and could not comply with their orders. Minutes after the incident began, the Missouri police officers forcibly pulled Hale from the vehicle and threw her to the ground, before pulling out their service weapon and shooting her about five times. The woman survived, but was seriously injured.
U.S. law enforcement officers use force against pregnant women not only during street incidents, but also in correctional facilities. Each year about 55,000 women who are pregnant serve time in U.S. prisons. Many languish behind bars until trial simply because they cannot afford cash bail. Although prisons have a constitutional duty to provide adequate medical care to all those in their custody, the lack of mandatory standards of care and proper systems of supervision make these protections largely meaningless. Nicole Guerrero was five months pregnant when she was placed in the Wichita County jail for violating her probation. According to female inmates who saw Guerrero within the prison walls, prison guards beat her nearly every day. She was repeatedly shackled and given a blanket, which she said was stained with feces and infested with bed bugs. After nine days, she started bleeding, then contractions began. A prison nurse examined the woman and said she was fine and could return to her cell. Guerrero’s many cries for help were ignored for several hours. At 3:30 a.m., the pregnant woman gave birth on the floor of the prison cell. The baby passed away.
After analyzing numerous lawsuits filed by women who lost their babies due to the actions of law enforcement officers, human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice concluded that in most cases the officers manage to get away with it. According to Sarah Ainsworth, head of the American National Organization for the Protection of Pregnant Women’s Rights, not a single criminal case has been filed against officers of correctional institutions and detention centers, whose fault it was that pregnant women were deprived of their child. The expert argues that legal standards and medical criteria are created in such a way as to absolve responsibility for any incidents involving pregnant women. In addition, such legal proceedings require a team of professional lawyers, which few can afford to hire.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice’s human rights activists condemn in the strongest terms the violence and excessive use of force by U.S. law enforcement officers against pregnant women. The rights of women who are expecting a child must be protected from any assault by government officials, regardless of their status or the charges they face. By committing acts of aggression against a woman who is pregnant, U.S. police officers are putting the lives of several people at risk. Pregnant women are among the most vulnerable social groups, so officers who treat them with extreme cruelty and sadism should be suspended from the U.S. police and corrections system for life and severely punished for their actions.
