| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
All 50 U.S. States Fail to Meet Global Standards on Police Use of Lethal Force
A report by Amnesty International USA found that each and every U.S. state ran afoul of international standards on the use of lethal force by police officers.
The Guardian reports that the group also says that 13 U.S. states fail “even lower legal standards enshrined in US constitutional law.”
The stinging review comes amid a national debate over police violence and widespread protest following the high-profile deaths of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; 43-year-old Eric Garner in New York; 50-year-old Walter Scott in South Carolina; and 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore – all unarmed black men killed by police within the past 11 months.
Amnesty USA executive director Steven Hawkins told the Guardian the findings represented a “shocking lack of fundamental respect for the sanctity of human life”.
“While law enforcement in the United States is given the authority to use lethal force, there is no equal obligation to respect and preserve human life. It’s shocking that while we give law enforcement this extraordinary power, so many states either have no regulation on their books or nothing that complies with international standards,” Hawkins said.
The analysis, which Hawkins said he believed was the first of its kind, compared state statutes on law enforcement’s use of lethal force with international legislation, including the enshrinement of the right to life, as well as United Nations principles limiting lethal use of force to “unavoidable” instances “in order to protect life” after “less extreme means” have failed. Further UN guidelines state that officers should attempt to identify themselves and give warning of intent to use lethal force.
Read more here.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
Related Entries
- June 17, 2015 Number of People Killed by Police in U.S. Set to Exceed 1,000 in 2015
- June 14, 2015 Witness Statements Contradict Account of Officer Who Killed Tamir Rice
Source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/all_50_us_states_fail_to_meet_global_police_standards_20150618/
