U.N. torture watchdog urges U.S. to crack down on police brutality

[steve2470]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/28/us-usa-un-torture-idUSKCN0JC1BC20141128

(Reuters) - The U.N. Committee against Torture urged the United States on Friday to fully investigate and prosecute police brutality and shootings of unarmed black youth and ensure that taser weapons are used only in life-threatening situations.

The panel's first review of the U.S. record on preventing torture since 2006 came in the wake of racially-tinged unrest in cities across the United States this week sparked by a Ferguson, Missouri grand jury's decision not to charge a white police officer for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

The committee decried "excruciating pain and prolonged suffering" endured by prisoners during "botched executions" as well as frequent rapes of inmates, shackling of pregnant women in some prisons, and extensive use of solitary confinement.

The review cited deep concern about "numerous reports" of police brutality and excessive use of force against people from minority groups, immigrants and homosexuals as well as racial profiling and militarization of policing work.

[libodem]

1. Then they should investigate prisons

For arbitrary use of tazers and pepper spray. They regularly go in and use chemical weapons on human beings, in closed quarters. They burn their eyes and their skin with it.