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Posts tagged Montgomery

More Police Brutality in Montgomery

Montgomery, Alabama has a long history of racist police brutality. And they’re at it again. Most recently, five Montgomery police officers resigned and three have been put on suspension amidst charges of police brutality [Nando], as well as abuse of authority, mistreatment of citizens, and false reporting of incidents. One officer, Michael Clark, is being charged with criminal use of mace in the brutality against a 17 year old prisoner. As usual, seven of the eight cops were white, and all of the victims were Black.

Just about every year or couple years, there’s another big high-profile incident with the Montgomery PD, and everyone acts all shocked, like this isn’t shit that goes on every day. Should it surprise anyone that police officers end up acting like jackbooted thugs when we send them on a war, constantly train them that their first job is to take down criminals (rather than, say, assisting the community), jack them up into militarized units, and run them through what amount to little more than paramilitary raids on low-income neighborhoods? There are housing projects in Montgomery which are raided regularly, whether there is any report of a crime or not, by heavily armored police in black SUVs. Poor people of color in Montgomery are basically living under military occupation. Holding these officers accountable is a necessary first step, but we also have to deal with the militarized culture and practice of policing, as well as end the insane and racist War on Drugs, and address the class disparities trapping people of color in high-crime ghettoes in the first place, if we are ever going to see a real solution to police brutality.

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