In an incident reminiscent of the 1991 videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles cops, three white New Orleans police officers and two federal agents attacked and brutally beat Robert Davis, a 64-year-old Black man, on Oct. 8. A reporter caught the incident on videotape.
The cops punched Davis at least four times, smashed his head into a wall, slammed him to the ground and kneed him in the back. Davis was arrested and charged with public intoxication and battery on a police officer, among other things. But Davis was not drunk. In an Oct. 11 appearance on Good Morning America, Davis said that he hadn’t taken a drink in 25 years. He was looking to buy cigarettes when the police jumped him. Three of the cops were arrested for this racist attack and pled “not guilty” to the crime.
Malcolm Suber, a New Orleans community activist against police brutality, called Davis’s beating, “typical behavior” from the New Orleans police department. Suber added, “They terrorize … Black men, … especially in the poor working-class Black communities.” (Democracynow.org, Oct. 12)
A real reconstruction of New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina, would dismantle the racist police force and turn over security in the city to grassroots African American groups and other community organizations.
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