Monday, May 22, 2006

Irreversible Consequences: Racial Profiling and Lethal Force in the 'War on Terror' / Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York,

PDF - http://www.irr.org.uk/pdf/Irreversible_Consequences.pdf
"In the UK, the police claimed that they had identified the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes as a suspect in the failed 21 July bombings, because he had 'Mongolian eyes' and also due to his 'clothing and behaviour'. Rigoberto Alpizar was a US citizen of Costa Rican descent who suffered from a bi-polar disorder and had omitted to take his medication. He became agitated on a flight between Miami and Orlando and was shot dead by air marshals on the jetway, who claimed he was he was reaching for his bag. Both cases demonstrate all too clearly the truth of the CHRGJ's assertion that the usual safeguards attached to the use of force by law enforcement officers no longer applies when the suspects are terrorists. International law and regional conventions suggest that a bomb attack must be 'imminent' to justify lethal force which can only be used in situations of absolute necessity. However, IACP states that suspicion of an imminent threat based on a 'reasonable' belief that the suspect has the capability to detonate a bomb is enough to justify an officer aiming for the suspect's head and shooting to kill."