An American journalist and anti-war activist has told Press TV that police brutality in minority and poor communities has been going on for a long time in the United States.
Police brutality Å“is receiving more attention now because of the increased media publicity around the case of Trayvon Martin”, said Phil Wilayto, an editor at Virginia Defender Newspaper.
Wilayto said police brutality tends to occur more often in difficult economic periods. He added that the recession the country went through resulted in the loss of millions of jobs and Å“permanent high unemployment”, resulting in a Å“lot of social tension”.
Å“In periods like that, the wealthy 1 percent becomes concerned about social unrest and they encourage the police to prepare for that so that virtually every police department in this country has a militarized unit.”
Hundreds of demonstrators in the US state of Florida protested against police brutality on Saturday after a young artist was tasered to death by cops on Tuesday.
Israel Hernandez-Llach, 18, died shortly after being chased down and tasered by police officers, who had caught him spray-painting the wall of a vacant restaurant.
The teen’s father, Israel Hernandez-Bandera has called his son’s death Å“an act of barbarism” and an Å“assassination of a young artist and photographer”.
Separately, footage emerged on Friday of an American woman being beaten and punched by a police officer in front of her one-year old baby in the state of Iowa.
AHT/DB
Republished from: Press TV