High Profile Cases have Sparked Accusations of Systematic Injustice —Past and Present Cases
Brazil's Black communities say the countries poorest neighborhoods are the sites of frequent police brutality. Last year police killed over 1,800 people in Rio alone, the highest death toll since records began in the late 90's. Last month fourteen year old Joao Pedro Pinto became the latest vicim of what activists say is indiscriminate state violence; his family members, horrified. We are finally turning our attention to all of the racial violence that has been taking place, not only in the US, but globally.
In Australia this week, protestors referenced the death of David Dungay, an aboriginal man who was schizophrenic and diabetic —David died in a Long Bay Prison Hospital in 2015 after he was restrained by at least four prison officers. Dungay, was in Long Bay jail hospital at the time of his death, aged 26, in November 2015. Guards stormed his cell after he refused to stop eating a packet of biscuits.
He was then dragged to another cell by guards, held face down and injected with a sedative by a Justice Health nurse. In harrowing footage shown to the court and partly released to the public, Dungay said 12 times that he couldn’t breathe, before losing consciousness and dying.
“If Aboriginal men held down a white man until he was dead, where do you think those men would be? In jail for life.” Dungay’s mother Leetona said outside the coroner’s court.