A Call For Stopping Pre-Trial Electrocutions

Today is the Day of Blogging for Justice: Standing Up Against Pre-Trial Electrocution. It's a day to blog about police abusing African Americans with their tasers. Be sure to check out some of the writings.

The statistics are few and far between, but where they exist they demonstrate clear racial selectivity in whom police are choosing to tase (Yes "choosing." Can reporters please stop writing things like "police were forced to tase...").

Last year I blogged about some statistics out of Syracuse, NY, where examining two years of data revealed that over half of taser draws were directed at black people.

Here in NYC, given the NYPD's documented practice of harassing minorities, it's likely that if anyone gains access to the statistics (and the NYPD is loathe to release them), they'll find a similar racial disparity in taser usage.

The police, and police apologists, can try to rationalize racial biases as much as they like (and yes, that's disgusting all on it's own), but at the end of the day, minorities still suffer at the hands and taser probes of the police.