Source: Joe Sohm/Visions of America / Getty
While the nation grapples with the not-guilty verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, examples of abuses of power within the so-called justice system continue to be brought to light. A new investigative report from the Associated Press documents Florida’s lackluster response to the provocation of white supremacists within the corrections ranks.
According to the Associated Press, the state has rarely investigated the allegations. Two incidents documented by Jamaal Reynolds, who is incarcerated, were not investigated by the Inspector General. Reynolds included identifiable information, including the names of guards involved.
“If you notice, these two incidents were people of color. They (the guards) let it be known they are white supremacist,” Reynolds wrote. “The Black officers and white officers don’t even mingle with each other. Every day they create a hostile environment trying to provoke us so they can have a reason to put their hands on us.”
The report also quoted a white officer who has been a whistleblower and punished for raising the alarm against abuses of power within the ranks. (Read the full report here).
The presence of white supremacists within law enforcement has been well documented. Tolerating racists within the ranks along with deputizing white vigilantes has been a practice long overlooked. Last summer, the Brennan Center posted an overview of the presence of racists within law enforcement positions.
Citing a 2017 FBI report, the Brennan Center highlighted the ways explicit racism influences law enforcement.
The harms that armed law enforcement officers affiliated with violent white supremacist and anti-government militia groups can inflict on American society could hardly be overstated. Yet despite the FBI’s acknowledgment of the links between law enforcement and these suspected terrorist groups, the Justice Department has no national strategy designed to identify white supremacist police officers or to protect the safety and civil rights of the communities they patrol. (Read the full report here).
Systemic issues like white supremacists within the prison system are how racism permeates through the legal system. As activist Bree Newsome Bass recently noted, the profoundly ingrained presence prohibits reforming the system.
“Again, we can’t reform this,” Newsome Bass tweeted. “It’s a direct outgrowth of the slave plantation system.”
“Leaving officers tainted by racist behavior in a job with immense discretion to take a person’s life and liberty requires a detailed supervision plan to mitigate the potential threats they pose to the communities they police, implemented with sufficient transparency to restore public trust,” the Brennan Center report read.
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UPDATED: 1:30 p.m. ET, Nov. 17, 2021 — It is a story that mirrors that of far too many Black men: being convicted for crimes they never actually committed. What seemingly happens at a far lower rate is their exonerations. But that trend has picked up in recent months, including on Wednesday when the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office moved to formally exonerate two of the men convicted in the assassination of civil rights icon Malcolm X. MORE: New Evidence Regarding Malcolm X’s Assassination Names NYPD, FBI As Co-Conspirators Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam, formerly known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, respectively, are expected to be cleared for the 1965 murder following a nearly two-year investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, according to a report from the New York Times, which broke the news on Wednesday. Norman 3X Butler, far right, is pictured at the Bathgate Ave. police station in Bronx, New York, on Jan. 7, 1965. | Source: New York Daily News Archive / Getty The DA’s investigation uncovered evidence that “prosecutors and two of the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department — had withheld key evidence that, had it been turned over, would likely have led to the men’s acquittal,” the Times reported. Thomas 15X Johnson, center, arrives March 3, 1965, at a police station to be booked on a charge of homicide for the assassination of Malcolm X. | Source: Bettmann / Getty The move to exonerate the two men came months after new evidence in Malcolm X’s assassination that implicated both the FBI and the NYPD. Malcolm X’s daughters held a press conference back in February to release a deathbed confession letter from Ray Wood, who worked as an undercover police officer at the time of the assassination on Feb. 21, 1965. Wood admitted in the letter to abetting the FBI and NYPD in assassinating Malcolm X. The letter was written in January of 2011. Woods’ allegations echo theories raised in the 2020 Netflix documentary, “Who Killed Malcolm X?” which prompted the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to review the case with the possibility to reopen it if leads proved sufficient. The docu-series followed Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, an activist and self-trained investigator who dedicated his life work to solving the civil rights icon’s murder. In the documentary, Muhammad interviews several important figures involved in the investigation, explores different conspiracy theories including possible federal and state law enforcement involvement. Muhammad also attempts to explore an accusation that Malcolm X’s alleged killer was a Newark community leader who worshipped at a local Mosque. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not say who was actually responsible for Malcolm X’s assassination, for which three men were jailed. Talmadge Hayer – later known as Mujahid Abdul Halim – admitted he took part in the murder, while Aziz and Islam maintained their innocence. Aziz was released on parole in 1985; Islam was released in 1987 but died in 2009; Halim was released in 2010. The list of Black men, women and teens who have faced wrongful convictions from prosecutors after being unjustly arrested and accused by corrupt police officers is far too long. See below for more.
Florida Prison Guards Openly Identifying As White Supremacist Intimidate Black Colleagues And Those Incarcerated was originally published on newsone.com
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