Racial tensions high in US as black man dies in custody
Thursday, 23/04/2015
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WASHINGTON: Race relations in the US are under scrutiny once again with the justice department launching investigations Tuesday into the death of an African American man after he sustained injuries in police custody.
The victim, Freddie Gray, 25, died April 19, a week after his arrest. He had been in a hospital with severed spinal cord, an injury he suffered in custody.
The justice department probe, said a spokeswoman, will focus on possible civil rights violations by officers, who are being investigated separately by local authorities.
Gray was arrested a week ago in Baltimore, an hour’s drive from Washington DC in the adjoining state of Maryland on April 12. He seemed fine when he was arrested and put in a van.
Six cops have been suspended but protests continued, and despite appeals from local authorities for calm. Baltimore is the new Ferguson and New York City.
Ferguson in Missouri state was rocked for months in 2014 by protests over the killing of a black teen by a white police officer who was later cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury.
A group of white police officers were similarly let off in New York city in connection with the case of black man who died gasping for breath as officers wrestled him down.
There were also protests in Chicago after a judge found a police officer not guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the killing of 22-year-old black woman on Monday. The officer is Hispanic. An Oklahoma reserve deputy, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter on Tuesday for killing a black man he said he accidentally shot with a gun instead of a Taser.
US President Barack Obama has set up a task force to recommend ways to improve police relations with ethnic minorities, which, according to a report, were shockingly bad in Ferguson. Circumstances of Gray’s arrest remain unclear. According to police, when he was confronted by three police officers, he tried to run but was chased down.
