By Richard Mellor in California
I just returned from visiting friends and relatives back in Ireland and the UK and, as usual, the differences between the countries, in general between the US and Europe stand out. One experience was very different as my friend and I had occasion to visit an ER in North London; my friend wasn’t feeling well.
He was booked in, they checked his temperature, blood pressure, sat us down and gave us a COVID test. They determined we were positive and told us to drink lots of fluids, take paracetamol for pain, sleep eat well and isolate. They never asked us for money, never even mentioned it. Just sent us on our way.
A couple of times I saw pairs of young cops, usually male and female, walking the neighbourhood. I said to them jokingly that I was from the US (I have to say this, as I have an English accent) and how do you stop or apprehend people when you have no guns? Why should I stop? The last response I got to this was, “we don’t need them here”.
Now I have to add, when you’re down in the city in the tourist area I did see cops with automatic weapons, but every other time they were just walking in pairs and unarmed. In the instances here it was on the Holloway Road and Seven Sisters Road, close to my old neighbourhood.
I get back to the US and read about this young Black guy, Jayland Walker, who was shot and killed in Akron, Ohio. He fled a traffic stop and ended up dead. He was not only dead, he was riddled with bullets, despite being unarmed. Reading the reports, a cop apparently heard a gunshot coming from the driver’s side window so all hell was let loose.
The USA is an extremely violent country
So, this 25 year-old kid runs from the cops and get blasted. According to the reports I read this morning, he had 46 gunshot wounds and 26 bullets inside his body; he had also been tasered. One bullet can cause more than one wound, entering and exiting the body for example. He was unarmed in the end and a gun and loaded magazine were left on the driver’s side seat so clearly, he didn’t want to be in possession of a weapon if the cops caught him.
This sort of thing is inconceivable in the UK or Ireland. It is rare. But the US is an extremely violent country. Everything about the US has a military or violent component; the media, the sports events that are attended by military bands and often flyovers by the jets that bomb countries around the world, the police shows on TV where guns are always present and let’s not forget foreign policy where everyone else in the world is our enemy.
The injuries to this unarmed man were extensive as one would expect from 46 gunshot wounds. According to the reports, the bullets hit his heart, lungs and a major artery to his leg. This injury caused him to lose blood rapidly. A gunshot wound on his face fractured his jaw. Do they not train these guys in the skills of shooting?
This type of violence by the police is normal, and not just directed against Black people but all Americans. The poverty, social situation and racist recruitment into police forces historically means that as victims, Black folks, Native Americans and other marginalized sections of the working class are percentage-wise greater victims compared to the population as a whole.
But make no bones about it, cops can murder and get away with it very easily in the US. It’s only in the most recent past that police were even charged with any violent acts against the population at all. The introduction of cell-phone cameras have had a lot to do with this.
The most disgusting aspect of yet another unarmed Black man shot by police, one who was fleeing the scene, is that when the dead man’s body arrived at the medical examiners, he was handcuffed. Just to make sure he was in complete control of the forces of the state.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
