Sickening brutality and systemic State violence on display by law enforcement across the US this week.
CW: Racist abuse and sexual assault.
In Mississippi, officers who belonged to a self-described "Goon Squad" were sentenced for torturing two Black men in what is described as a "nightmare of racially motivated beatings, torture, sexual assaults and even a mock execution," after officers broke into a home without a warrant following complaints by neighbors that "several Black men were staying at a White woman’s home." One man was even shot by officers, after they placed a gun inside of his mouth.
Officers attempted a cover up by planting drugs, stealing surveillance footage, and agreeing on a cover story. They made it clear to their victims that they were inflicting this violence because the two Black men were in what was considered a white area of town. This was not an isolated incident, community members report that these officers terrified people for years.
Meanwhile in the bay area, "FBI agents raided a federal women’s prison in California this week so plagued by sexual abuse that it was known among inmates and workers as the “rape club.” Officials are also facing charges for retaliating against prisoners who filed a class-action lawsuit against the abuse. As one attorney on the case stated, "There is no accountability...and the sexual abuse keeps festering and festering until it blows up. They tend to shuffle the offenders. Officials in prisons can be the worst because they are so jaded that all the complaints fall on deaf ears about the guards.”
This brutality is endemic to a system based on violent settler-colonial subjugation, class rule, patriarchy, and white supremacy. It cannot be reformed - only abolished and thrown to the dust-bin of history.
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