A US civil rights group has condemned police in the state of California for excessive use of force and the high number of deaths involving officers, particularly among ethnic minorities.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a report on Monday that the level of lethal violence directed at Latinos and blacks in the cities of Anaheim and Bakersfield is out of proportion with the level of crime.
The ACLU said Anaheim “has a rate of officer-involved deaths far exceeding law enforcement departments in most cities of similar and larger size.”
In 2014, Anaheim was ranked second safest from violent crime of the 50 largest cities in the United States, according to FBI statistics. Yet the same figures rank the city ninth in 2015 for the number of officer-involved deaths during arrests.
“Last year alone, the rate of police-involved deaths per million residents in Anaheim outdistanced that of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta,…