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The US media make freqent references to certain instances of domestic unrest in China, but appear to be conveniently unaware of recent episodes in their own history that bear a striking resemblance to these same events they so bitterly criticise in others. Student protests in the US have typically been met with police and military gunfire. Here is a small sample of these. |
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A crowd of young people were protesting against racial segregation - the US practice of separating people by color - when heavily-armed local policemen fired into the crowd, killing 4 and seriously injuring 31 others. Most were shot in the back. After the shootings, many others were severely beaten by police, including a pregnant woman, later had a miscarriage due to the beating she received at the hands of the police. As would become a standard defense, the police claimed they were under attack or that there had been sniper fire, but all witness accounts discredited their testimony. All officers were acquitted of all charges, but one of the young protestors was sent to prison for rioting. |
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University students gathered on the campus to protest the Vietnam war. Soldiers opened fire, and killed and injured many students. The soldiers said they fired because they were under attack, but in fact most of the students were shot in the back, some from as far as 100 meters away. The soldiers were cleared of any wrongdoing, and no charges were laid. Students claimed President Nixon ordered the shootings to try to terrorize or silence the antiwar movement, but it backfired, because it triggered the only national student strike in US history. Over four million students protested from coast to coast during the national student strike of May 1970, and hundreds of universities were shut down. |
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This was a classic confrontation of young black men attacked by police while protesting racial discrimination. During the riot, six people were killed, all black men, each one shot in the back by police. In addition to those deaths, 80 people were injured, 200 were arrested, and 50 businesses in the city’s center, many owned by Augusta’s Chinese residents, were burned. Witnesses claimed to have watched while five of the dead men were shot repeatedly in the back, and at close range by police - with their nameplates covered with tape, and using private weapons to avoid identification. |
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A group of students protesting the Vietnam war were confronted by 75 heavily-armed city and state police who opened fire, killing 2 students and seriously injuring 12 others. The police fired many hundreds of shots, blowing out every window in nearby buildings with shotguns, and causing extensive damage in addition to the deaths and injuries. Again, the police claimed they were under attack by the students and that there 'may have been' sniper fire. But the FBI search for evidence of snipers proved negative, and witnesses claimed there was no provocation for the police to begin firing on the students. There were no charges or arrests of the police involved. |
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A black man was stopped by police for speeding, and LA police pulled him from his car, shot him twice with a TASER gun, then many officers gave him a merciless beating with their batons. Although the police denied the affair, it had been captured on video by a witness. The city was outraged at the brutality of the local police, and when all officers were later acquitted (by a white jury) of any crimes, the city of Los Angeles and many other cities broke into riots to protest. All that rage turned into the worst single episode of urban unrest in American history, which erupted on April 29, 1992, and before it ended a few days later, had left 53 people dead and $1 billion in damage. |
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A Fox TV helicopter captured video of at least 12 and perhaps 14 Philadelphia police officers surrounding a car and dragging out three men to give them what became a viciously excessive beating which involved the three being kicked, stomped on, and struck up to 20 times each with night sticks. This incident was one of many occurring in the US during the past decade. |
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In the recent past, it has occurred repeatedly in various US cities that police have opened fire on an unarmed man and pumped more than 50 bullets into him, in each case the courts ruling that this 'was not an excessive use of force'. In each case, no charges were ever laid. |