Revolutionary Worker #1199, May 18, 2003, posted at rwor.org
We received the following from a reader in New York City:
Recently, it was reported that members of the NYPD are being sent to Iraq to train the new Iraqi police force. I guess this is some of the "American way of life" that the U.S. is promising to bring to the Iraqi people. Now, with NYPD training, the new Iraqi police force is sure to be racist and brutal in the finest American tradition. Here's some of what we can expect:
1) Police will fire 41 shots at an unarmed Iraqi man standing in the vestibule of his own apartment building (like they did to Amadou Diallo). The cops will justify his death by saying they thought his wallet was a weapon of mass destruction.
2) Undercover cops will approach a young, unarmed Iraqi man on the street in Baghdad and ask him to sell them anthrax (like they asked Patrick Dorismond to sell them crack). When the man refuses and says he doesn't mess with biological weapons, they will shoot him down and then blame him for his own death. Cops will then attack his funeral.
3) Cops will arrest five teenagers, then trick and coerce them into confessing (like they did in the Central Park Jogger Case) that they were involved in a plot to manufacture chemical weapons. The youths will be convicted despite the lack of any physical evidence. The U.S. will use the case to promote a whole climate of racist hysteria about Arab people and chemical weapons. The fact that the whole case is a lie will finally be exposed for all to see 13 years later. But still, in the face of all the evidence, the cops will issue a report insisting that the five youth were guilty of something.
4) Cops will mess with people outside a club, then arrest a guy who objects to their conduct. They will beat him on the way back to the precinct, then sodomize him with a broomstick. They'll claim the guy was injured as a result of gay sex (like they did Abner Louima). When thousands of people protest, they are forced to jail a few cops. Then, they'll let the other cops off scott-free.
5) Police will murder a guy five days after arresting him for protesting against the verdict in another police brutality case (like they did to Malcolm Ferguson who protested when the cops who shot Amadou Diallo were found not guilty). Oh scratch that--U.S. troops have already shot down Iraqis demonstrating against police brutality. They didn't bother to wait five days.
6) A cop will choke to death a young Iraqi man for playing soccer outside his own house after the soccer ball hits a police car. They will choke him to death in front of his family and then arrest his brother (like they did to Anthony Baez, playing football outside his house in the Bronx).
7) A cop will shoot down a 13-year-old Iraqi youth playing with a bright orange toy gun in a housing development in Baghdad (like they did Nicholas Heyward, Jr.) The cops will claim that they thought the toy gun was a nuclear weapon.
8) Cops will use metal barricades and brutality to lock down and attempt to thwart any political protest against the U.S. or the U.S.-backed puppet regime. They will attempt to prevent people from even reaching the demonstration. They will draw their inspiration from NYPD tactics used at the Million Youth March in September 1998 and the February 15, 2003 antiwar demonstration.
9) Cops will shoot a youth in the back as he runs away from them, allegedly carrying a machete (like happened with Kevin Cedeno). They will say they thought the machete was a weapon of mass destruction and elect the cop who killed him "Officer of the Month."
10) An Iraqi youth playing with a pellet gun will be shot and killed by a cop two and a half times his size. The cop will then claim the youth threw him through a glass door. No charges will be brought against the cop (as in the murder of Yong Xin Huang).
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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