America's shift to alt-right authoritarianism

A Note from the Editor
This article was sent in to the Independent's headquarters, but the name on the envelope was illegible. It is published because we seriously need to start putting out content again. It is published in its original, unaltered form. Complaints may be directed to the DMs of the Shadow Chancellor.

"On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, died in Powderhorn, a neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive. Officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane participated in Floyd's arrest, with Kueng holding Floyd's back, Lane holding his legs, and Thao looking on as he stood nearby."

"Police officers with the San Leandro, California police department 'stomped' a pregnant black woman's stomach and caused a miscarriage, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the city and multiple officers.

When an unidentified number of officers pulled her fiancé over, Emerald Black - who was 'visibly pregnant' and still wearing hospital clothes from a visit earlier in the day - requested to stay in the car, according to court documents filed Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. But officers allegedly 'yanked pregnant Ms. Black from the car, taunted her, piled on top of her and stomped on her stomach leaving a shoe mark.'

'Days later,' according to the lawsuit, Black experienced a miscarriage, which ended her pregnancy. No criminal charges were ever filed against her, the lawsuit said.

Early in the morning of June 7, 2019, Black and her fiancé were pulled over for 'bad registration tags,' according to the lawsuit. Black told officers that earlier in the day, she had been to the hospital for an exam; there, she found out that she was at a 'high risk' for a miscarriage. She was still wearing the clothes when the incident occurred, the lawsuit said.

In the lawsuit, Black alleges that her pregnancy ended 'as a result of the officers' excessive force.' The complaint also said that Black had 'suffered other physical injuries, embarrassment, humiliation and emotional distress both from the incident and loss of her child.'

'It is important to note that Ms. Black had committed absolutely no crimes, nor was she even suspected of any. She was simply a passenger in the car being pulled over for a minor vehicle infraction,' Black's lawyer Patrick Buelna told VICE News.

'Ms. Black, a pregnant African-American female, was torn from the car even after informing officers that she was pregnant and had just left the hospital,' Buelna continued. 'Ms. Black simply asked to remain in the car because she was pregnant and had just left the hospital earlier that day and learned she was at risk for a miscarriage. If officers were adamant about her exiting the car, they should have simply, and gently, assisted Ms. Black getting out of the car. Instead they treated her like she had just committed a violent felony.'"

"In the late evening of March 18, 2018, Stephon Clark, a 23-year-old black American man, was shot and killed in Meadowview, Sacramento, California by Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, two officers of the Sacramento Police Department in the backyard of his grandmother's house while he had a phone in his hand. The encounter was filmed by police video cameras and by a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department helicopter which was involved in observing Clark, on the ground and in directing ground officers to the point at which the shooting took place. The officers stated that they shot Clark, firing 20 rounds, believing that he had pointed a gun at them. Police found only a cell phone on him."

"The shooting of Walter Scott occurred on April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, following a daytime traffic stop for a non-functioning brake light. Scott, an unarmed man, was shot and killed by Michael Slager, a North Charleston police officer. Slager was charged with murder after a video surfaced that showed him shooting Scott from behind while Scott was fleeing, and that contradicted his police report."

"In the early hours of February 4, 1999, a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant named Amadou Diallo (born September 2, 1975) was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers—Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss. Carroll would later claim to have mistaken him for a rape suspect from one year earlier, though his claim was never confirmed by any objective evidence. The officers fired a combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo, outside his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of the Bronx."

"On September 16, 2016, Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old motorist, was shot and killed by police officer Betty Jo Shelby in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was unarmed during the encounter, in which he was standing near his vehicle in the middle of a street.

Shortly before the shooting, officers in the helicopter conversed with each other: 'That looks like a bad dude, too, could be on something.'"

"On May 14, 2010, Southeastern High School senior Je'Rean Blake was shot and killed near the intersection of Mack and Beniteau on Detroit's east side. By the end of the following day, police had identified Chauncey Owens as a suspect in the shooting and obtained a warrant to search 4054 Lillibridge St, where he was believed to be hiding. They subsequently raided the wrong house.

Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones, was a seven-year-old African-American girl from the Detroit's East Side who was shot in the head and killed by Officer Joseph Weekley during the raid"

"On September 14, 2013, Jonathan Ferrell, a 24-year-old former college football player for the Florida A&M University Rattlers, was shot and killed by police officer Randall 'Wes' Kerrick in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter. Ferrell, an African American, was unarmed at the time he was shot. He crashed his car, went to a house in the Bradfield Farms neighborhood and knocked on the door, The resident Sarah McCartney called the police, and three officers came. Ferrell then ran towards them, whereupon one of the officers fired a taser at Ferrell and missed. Kerrick then opened fire on Ferrell, shooting him twelve times and killing him"

The above are just some examples of the roughly 4000 killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, most of which are against African-Americans.

To those who deny the racism and blatant white supremacy amongst the police force of the USA, there are many videos which show the police using pepper spray against unarmed victims with their hands up, running into and hitting the media, and worse. These actions cannot be denied, and I’m afraid that if you manage to find some way to deny them, then my friend you are deluded.

In response to the protests that have ensued from the most recent murders, the most important man in what amounts to the most important country on the planet has declared anti-fascism to be terrorism and by extension, has declared white supremacy and blatant racism to be humanitarian. But 'antifa', the abbreviation of anti-fascism, is not really an "organisation" in the usual sense of the word; it’s more akin to a collection of anti-fascist beliefs. Therefore, what Trump is actually doing is merely legitimising fascism in general. It cannot be any clearer - the President of the USA has declared opposition to right-wing extremism to be the Enemy.

In addition to this, President Trump has the audacity to call the death of George Floyd, the most recent victim, "brutal", and says his "administration is fully committed that for George and his family justice will be served, he will not have died in vain". He says this after making a tweet threatening to shoot protesters: "any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts". Let me be clearer with the chain of events - George Floyd dies because of racist, corrupt police officers. Protests ensue with the aim of condemning said racist, corrupt police officers. Trump threatens to shoot these protesters and declares anti-fascists "terrorists", but then has the audacity to call his murder "brutal".
The President of the US needs to sit down and have a good hard think about what he says and when, because he cannot simultaneously call anti-fascism terrorism and also agree with what the anti-fascists are trying to do by saying his "administration is fully committed that for George and his family justice will be served", which is exactly what the protesters are trying to do.

On top of all this, in January this year, when there were protests occurring in Iran, Trump made a tweet saying "To the leaders of Iran - DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!". The hypocrisy that this one person has is immeasurable. Identical statements have been recently made about current affairs in the USA - "To the leaders of America - DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great American people!". President Trump needs to listen to words he said himself only 5 months ago and order the police, national guard, military and any other authority figure who is murdering protestors, media and innocent bystanders to stand down.

There is no better way to sum up recent events than realising that President Trump has done what everybody knew he would do since January 20 2017 - he has led his country down the path to extreme authoritarianism, by turning it into a fascist, totalitarian, dictatorial police state. If the good people of the USA want to see real change in their country they must make sure Trump does not get re-elected in November.