Behavior toward black community biggest problem of US police: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Margaret Kimberley, with Black Agenda Report from New York, to discuss the recent tensions in the US city of Chicago following the release of a video showing police fatally shooting a black man. 

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Just less than couple of years ago, Chicago director Spike Lee made a movie depicting the effect of this crisis of police violence against the black community and the effect that it has on the youth in these communities. It says exposure to daily gang police violence in Chicago has a very detrimental effect on these communities. What is your take?

Kimberley: The biggest problem is the way that police and the rest of the state treat blacks rather than these so-called personal behaviors that people engage in. Police in Chicago and the rest of the country can kill with impunity. They kill three Americans every single day and this latest video shows once again the police being judge, jury and executioner. Suddenly their recordings don’t work, the body cameras don’t work, we don’t see the actual shooting, we do see that this young man is dead and handcuffed even after he’s been shot. So, we see the usual here in Chicago and it's not just Chicago, it’s around the country. So, to talk about the other problems in communities in Chicago is as actually not relevant here.

Press TV: When these officers get charged, most of the times, we rarely see them stand due trial. The problem is that the community doesn’t get a say in court, which makes the black community feel like they don’t have a voice in the criminal justice system. Why is that the case? Why don’t these officers ever have to answer?

Kimberley: We have a system that exists in order to keep black people under physical control by the police and by the prison system, and we have a federal government, we have a president who will not use the powers of the Federal Justice Department ... this department could do it but we have a president who gets the support and love from black people and does nothing in return. So, if the federal government stepped in where these localities will not, this pattern could end; this cycle of violence from the police.

Press TV: There are still protests over what took place in Ferguson two years ago and several similar protests. Why hasn’t any real reform kicked off?

Kimberley: In the days of the civil rights movement there was a demand, there were concrete demands for the vote, for the Civil Rights Act, for laws against discrimination. Now, there is no concrete demand. It is just a plaintiff cry that this end… organizations like Black Lives Matter get a lot of publicity and they get people into the street but in the end it’s not useful without that demand directed at President Obama and the federal government.

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