An American Dystopia No One Is Talking About…

After Minneapolis mon­ster-cop Derek Chauvin and his three side­kicks mur­dered George Floyd, America erupt­ed in a social jus­tice out­cry many say exceed­ed the social jus­tice upheaval of the 60s.
Police across America did not stop abus­ing cit­i­zens, not by a long shot; some data points to increased aggres­sion and abuse by many police depart­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly in large cities and towns.
In New York City, Buffalo, New York, In Oregon, right here in Minnesota, and places in between-police increased aggres­sion, abuse, and vio­la­tion of cit­i­zens’ rights.
Even more fright­en­ing is that though the coun­try was in an upheaval about police vio­lence, includ­ing their use of lethal force, police across the coun­try did not change their pat­terns and prac­tices relat­ed to the use of lethal force.

The New York Times report­ed in November of last year that just sev­en hours before pros­e­cu­tors opened their case against Derek Chauvin, a for­mer Minneapolis police offi­cer charged with mur­der­ing George Floyd, a Chicago offi­cer chased down a 13-year-old boy in a West Side alley and fatal­ly shot him as he turned with his hands up.

One day lat­er, at a hotel in Jacksonville, Fla., offi­cers fatal­ly shot a 32-year-old man, who, the police say, grabbed one of their Tasers. The day after that, as an eye­wit­ness to Mr. Floyd’s death broke down in a Minneapolis court­room while recount­ing what he saw, a 40-year-old men­tal­ly ill man who said voic­es were harass­ing him was killed in Claremont, N.H., in a shootout with the state police. On every day that fol­lowed, through the close of tes­ti­mo­ny, anoth­er per­son was killed by the police some­where in the United States.
The killings con­tin­ued unabat­ed to three (3) per day, but that is hard­ly the only issue Americans face at the hands of out-of-con­trol police. The Times recount­ed, even as Americans con­tin­ue to process that case — and anx­ious­ly wait for a ver­dict — new cas­es of peo­ple killed by the police mount unabated.
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In New York City, mem­bers of the NYPD used the vehi­cles paid for by the tax­pay­ers of that city to attempt to ram and run over pro­tes­tors who had the nerve to protest their bar­bar­ic actions. In Buffalo, New York, robot­ic mon­sters in police uni­forms pushed a 75-year-old man to the ground frac­tur­ing his skull-Martin Gugino spent over a month in hos­pi­tal recov­er­ing from a con­cus­sion and frac­tured skull. The mon­sters who vio­lent­ly assault­ed mis­ter Gugino were cleared by an Albany Arbitrator named Jeffrey Selchick, who argued mis­ter Gugino‘was def­i­nite­ly not an inno­cent bystander. Selchick called the offi­cers’ use of force “absolute­ly legit­i­mate. Selchick added that “Gugino may also have been sur­prised when the offi­cers used force to push him away because he may have enter­tained the unfound­ed belief that the offi­cers would let him inter­fere with the per­for­mance of their duties.”
In oth­er words, the police are well with­in their rights to use any lev­el of force they deem fit to pun­ish cit­i­zens if their orders are not imme­di­ate­ly com­plied with. Mister Gugino was report­ed­ly out after a declared curfew.
Jefferey Selchic was an Adjunct Professor who taught Arbitration and Collective Bargaining cours­es at Albany Law School, Union University.

As the atten­tion of Americans is direct­ed at events hap­pen­ing thou­sands of miles away in Ukraine, the cor­po­rate American media con­tin­ue to harp on human rights abus­es sup­pos­ed­ly com­mit­ted by Russian troops. Interestingly they fail to report on the dai­ly assault on human rights right here in the United States. Frighteningly, at every lev­el of the courts sys­tem in the United States, there is con­tin­ued sup­port for police abuse of cit­i­zens and a total dis­re­gard for the constitution.
The supreme court con­tin­ues to bend and twist the con­sti­tu­tion to facil­i­tate a com­pre­hen­sive police state right here in America.
While Americans watch and crit­i­cize Russia’s gov­ern­ment for abus­es in Ukraine, American police are slow­ly turn­ing the streets of cities and towns into a com­pre­hen­sive dystopi­an night­mare for Americans- par­tic­u­lar­ly Americans of color.
Police have noth­ing to fear from the courts; aggriev­ed cit­i­zens will have to decide what course of action they will take if they can­not get jus­tice from the branch­es of gov­ern­ment tasked with hon­or­ing the con­sti­tu­tion because they are more inter­est­ed in fos­ter­ing a police state.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, a free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.