The ICNA Council for Social Justice condemns another callous killing of a black youth by the police officer, this time in Atlanta, on June 13th. The video of 27-year old Rayshard Brooks being fatally shot three times in the back by Atlanta cop Garrett Rolfe while running away from Atlanta police officers is horrifying at any time but even more so in today’s racially charged environment and calls upon citizens in Atlanta and elsewhere to constructively demonstrate their outrage against targeted attacks on Black people by municipal police officers simply because of the color of their skin. ICNA CSJ joins with others in calling for a total reimagining of policing in US cities, not merely superficial reforms that will fail to address the fundamental cause of police malfeasance against African Americans, structural racism. Any police officer candidate or current officer who has membership or associations with white supremacist groups should be rejected or terminated, respectively.
One of the chants of the Black Freedom Struggle of the 1960’s-1970’s was, “I’m fed up, can’t take it no more.” The hundreds of demonstrations across the country ignited by the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd by a rogue Minneapolis cop typifies the collective will of the American people to no longer accept the targeted abuse and use of deadly force against African Americans by local law enforcement officials. From colonial times until the present, law enforcement officers have consistently acted, with impunity, like occupying rather than policing forces in African communities. There is something eerily disturbing about the unwillingness or inability of police officers to self-impose a moratorium on using unjustified lethal weapons and tactics on Black people even as the nation’s and the world’s attention is focused on them.
The road to justice is long and ICNA CSJ walks this road together with people of good conscience from all religions, races, ethnicities, socio-economic statuses, and political persuasions.
