We Black and many white bloggers have been documenting the the outrageous taking of human life, without court process, often without charges, frequently without any meaningful police explanation of why the person was electrocuted and now they're dead. We've done a lot of writing, but it doesn't seem like the police officers with the portable electrocution guns are reading our blog posts.
It doesn't seem as though those who write these portable electrocution devices into the police budget are heeding our calls to stop buying these guns. Have we even clearly stated that our goal is for police departments to stop buying portable electric chairs? It seems to me that a lot of bloggers are saying, put the portable electric chair on the policeman's waist, but then write clearer rules about when summary electrocution and execution are acceptable.
It seems to me that extra-judicial, pretrial electrocution is NEVER, EVER warranted because the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution says that we have a right to be safe in our persons, while the Due Process clause says that we have a right to trial by jury. Those are some of the Constitutional rights implicated in the purchase of these portable electric chairs.
What is our theory of the process of change with respect to summary electrocution by police? Do we believe that things will change if it's in the newspaper? Do we believe that Congress will write a "Civil Rights Act of 2009" that restates and reaffirms the right of Blacks to have a trial before we are electrocuted? Or are we communicating with the Black and white and Latino public in order to prepare the public to demand change? If so, WHAT SORT of change, and by whom?
It seems to me that there is a fundamental lack of an effective strategy for change. There's a fundamental lack of clarity in what we are asking for. And as long as police officers on the street are making decisions about whether to summarily execute Blacks or not, none of us is safe in the USA, anywhere, ever.
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If it were not for bloggers, Groups like the SCLC would not have the level of understanding about tasers or to call it “electrocution without prosecution,” and " extra-judicial, pretrial electrocution" the words coined by you Francis L. Holland and used by the afrospear bloggers in it's most recent blogging for justice effort.
Now it’s less than one month away from the “Stop Taser Torture, blogging for Justice Day scheduled for December 4, 2009. Our goal is to unite the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day – Taser Torture in America, Canada and throughout the world. I would like to urge every American concerns about taser use and abuse to join us on December 4th as we blog to “Stop Taser Torture, blogging for Justice.” and we raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. I urge you to contact us at: StopTaserTorture@gmail.com to register your blog. Don’t forget to support the petition to the United States Congress calling for public hearings on the systemic human rights violations occurring with Federal funding for the use of Tasers® against American citizens. The United Nation’s Committee against Torture has declared that Taser use can constitute a form of torture, while USA: Amnesty International has an on-going concern about the use of tasers on American citizens.
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