Is this country headed toward becoming a police state? Some will tell you we’ve been on that road since 9/11, and maybe since the imperial presidencies of Nixon and Reagan. The most important reason that people are protesting is because if you wait, then it will be too late for protests or marches; also things called Free Speech, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution. Now that police officers have been targeted, the protestors, the media, even the President are being accused of having blood on their hands. But no one brings up the right wingnuts who blew up the Federal Building in OKC, or the abortion clinic bombings and shootings, or the Cliven Bundy stand-off that encouraged more right wing agitation. Where do you think any future gunplay and targeting of law enforcement will most likely be coming from but these extremists? And we can thank Fox News and the Tea Party for most of this agitation, as they have become the American Taliban. And what agitates these folks more than anything is President Barack Obama. PUSA has been consistently profiled and vilified and dehumanized as a person of color in authority.

Studies done by social psychologists from Stanford, Yale and John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004 gave us: Seeing Black: Race, Crime and Visual Processing, which shows an implicit racial bias in the American psyche that connects black maleness with crime. NYPD Police misconduct claims, including excessive force lawsuits, have risen over 200% since 2000, while the amount the city paid out has risen 75 percent in the same period, to $64.4 million in fiscal year 2012. Then there’s the August report from the CDC that gave us 4,531 citizen/civilian deaths by police from 1999 to 2011. It also states that Native American men are more likely to be killed (pro rata) by police, as less than 1 percent of population but 2 percent of deaths and Blacks who represent 13 percent of population are 26 percent of the victims killed by police. The report goes on to say that such deaths have actually gone down since the late 60s.

During this time, off duty Black cops have been harassed, beaten and arrested by white cops; on duty Black cops are more likely to be shot and killed by white cops during incidents. One Black cop is suing his Philadelphia department for brutality, misrepresenting facts for probable cause, false arrests, malicious prosecution. Look up Harold Thomas, the 30 year NYPD just retired Black cop who is suing the city after he was beaten and arrested by fellow white officers in 2012.