Human Rights Hearing on Police Killings in U.S.
Summary
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a preeminent regional human rights body that is part of the Organization of American States, held a hearing on the lack of accountability for police killings across the United States.
Video of the hearing is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5SvLoYX71M&app=desktop
For more, read a post on the Human Rights at Home Blog here.
Submissions are available from:
American Civil Liberties Union
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
The International Human Rights Clinic at Santa Clara University
Shaun King, Writer and civil rights activist
The topics that were covered included:
- Recent developments under the Trump administration, including deficiencies in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and recent proposals that would modify federal oversight into allegations of police killings and other misconduct
- The legal framework authorizing the use of force
- Trump administration’s dismantling of federal oversight mechanisms to prevent the militarization of police departments
- How people from minority communities are struggling to seek justice for unlawful police killings
- The need for more transparent and credible investigations into police shootings
- The lack of official data collection and reporting of police killings at the state and federal levels.
Speakers included:
- U.S. Government Representatives
- Shaun King (via recorded video), Writer and civil rights activist
- Jennifer Turner, ACLU Human Rights Program
- Maria Hamilton, Mother of Dontre Hamilton (killed by police in Milwaukee) and founder of Mothers for Justice United
- Luis Poot Pat, Cousin of Luis Góngora Pat (killed by police in San Francisco)
- Adriana Camarena, Civil rights activist
- Professor Justin Hansford, Executive Director, Thurgood Marshall Center for Civil Rights, Howard University School of Law
In 2015, the Commission held a hearing on Excessive Use of Force by the Police Against Black Americans in the United States, and will soon release a report on on Africa Americans, the Use of Force, and Human Rights. Relatives of victims, civil and human rights activists, and Trump administration officials will give statements and answer questions at the hearing. A press briefing was held after at 1:30.
