Police overkill

Things have been pretty hectic here during the last week.  I've pulled out all the stops to finish a time-sensitive journal article that I hope to have published this year, and my time window to do so is closing rapidly.  Updates will be few and far between until at least the end of this week, or probably early next week.

I thought I would share the following video with you, however.  It is said to depict Miami police officers assaulting several residents of a Miami neighborhood, for no other reason than they were outside their houses while there was a protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas being held nearby.

I'm not sure exactly where, in the Miami police book of procedures, it instructs officers to walk up to someone, and without a word of warning, spray them in the face with capsicum spray, then tell them to go home, and then strike them with batons before they have a chance to comply.



Still, it could have been worse.  A court hearing is currently underway in the UK over the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was summarily executed by British police in 2005 on suspicion of being a suicide bomber.  de Menezes was shot seven times in the head, by two police officers, allegedly over a period of about 30 seconds.  No police officers were charged with any offences as a result of this incident, although the police did search the house of and arrest a journalist who dared to leak results of an inquiry which contradicted the official police version of events.  Despite giving false information to the media, and obstructing an investigation of the shooting by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, police chief Sir Ian Blair escaped unscathed.

Besides de Menezes, the only real casualty of the entire affair is the metropolitan police organisation itself -- who have been charged under workplace health and safety legislation with 'failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare' of de Menezes.  I guess that mistaking him for somebody else and shooting him seven times in the head could fall into that category.