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

[LiberalElite]

Source: Reuters

(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.

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

[Man from Pickens]

1. Reply Title

Message text

[Faux pas]

2. Kickin'

[Fred Sanders]

3. What happened to the use of Tasers, seems like a lead bullet is not called for almost every time?

[olddots]

4. the right wing puss boils hate the U.N.

For years they have hated the thought of the U.N.

[sammy750]

5. But the police/cops are using this

as the modern gun lynching that took place 50 years ago. The GOP has written the laws to make it legal.

[bluestateguy]

6. I'd like to see the UN send a team of observers to cities w/ problems w/ police brutality

nt

[christx30]

7. But the UN has no jurisdiction.

They can't actually do anything, other than write a stern letter. We have to get our leaders engaged. So far, they don't give a shit.

[Judi Lynn]

8. AP: UN panel raps US record on torture

UN panel raps US record on torture
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press | November 28, 2014 | Updated: November 28, 2014 9:41am

GENEVA (AP) — Police brutality, military interrogations and prisons were among the top concerns of a U.N. panel's report Friday that found the United States to be falling short of full compliance with an international anti-torture treaty.

The report by the U.N. Committee Against Torture, its first such review of the U.S. record since 2006, expressed concerns about allegations of police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, particularly the Chicago Police Department's treatment of blacks and Latinos. It also called for restricting the use of taser weapons by police to life-threatening situations. But it had no specific recommendation or reaction to a grand jury's decision not to indict the white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri who fatally shot a black and unarmed teenager.

The report also criticizes the U.S. record on military interrogations, maximum security prisons, illegal migrants and solitary confinement while calling for tougher federal laws to define and outlaw torture, including with detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in Yemen. It also called for abolishing interrogation techniques that rely on sleep or sensory deprivation "aimed at prolonging the sense of capture."

"There are numerous areas in which certain things should be changed for the United States to comply fully with the convention," Alessio Bruni of Italy, one of the panel's chief investigators, said at a news conference Friday in Geneva. He was referring to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which took effect in 1987 and the United States ratified in 1994.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/UN-panel-raps-US-record-on-torture-5922458.php