Amnesty International: Ferguson police committed human rights abuses during Michael Brown protests →washingtonpost.com
Just before midnight on Aug. 19, a longtime local cop named Ray Albers trained his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle on a protester in Ferguson, Mo., and told him he was about to die. “I will f——- kill you!”
video shows the cop yelling at the protester, who said he had his hands raised. “Get back! Get back!”
When asked his name, Albers, who was suspended and resigned soon afterward, seethed, “Go f— yourself!”
This altercation was one of many disturbing encounters enumerated in an Amnesty International
report released Thursday night that paints a damning portrayal of the Ferguson police force, which it accuses of committing numerous human rights abuses. The report was deeply skeptical of whether Ferguson cop Darren Wilson was justified in the killing of unarmed Michael Brown, criticized Missouri law it said violates international standards and condemned the local police response for shooting tear gas and rubber bullets, intimidating protesters and restricting residents’ right to peaceful assembly.
“The shooting of Michael Brown has highlighted on a national level the persistent and widespread pattern of racially discriminatory treatment by law enforcement officers across the United States, including unjustified stops and searches, ill treatment and excessive, and sometimes lethal, use of force,”
found Amnesty International, which investigates reports of human rights violations in some of the world’s most dangerous locations. Indeed, the report continued, shortly after Brown was shot six times and killed, another young African American man, Kajieme Powell, was also shot dead. “Police claims that he was brandishing a knife were not borne out by available video footage of the shooting.”
