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Trigger warning: This article contains video footage of police violence against a Black woman. Please exercise discretion if deciding to view the video.
The part of southern California where a police officer was shown on video violently attacking an unarmed Black woman has a reputation for racism that previously came to a head when a pair of Black men were found hanging from local trees in recent years in suspected lynchings.
An investigation has been opened in the instance of documented police violence against the unidentified Black woman whose only apparent offense was recording officers handcuffing her husband after the two were incorrectly suspected of stealing a reported cake from a grocery store in the city of Lancaster.
The Los Angeles County deputy who is shown slamming the Black woman in the incident from last month also kneeled on her neck in traumatic imagery evoking the harrowing police murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. It is unclear if the woman sustained serious injury from the encounter.
Bodycam footage was released to the public on Wednesday.
The Los Angeles County sheriff described the bodycam footage as well as the video filmed by a bystander as “disturbing.” But it apparently wasn’t “disturbing” enough to result in swift action against the deputy involved. Instead, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the officer could – not will – be fired “if misconduct is found,” the Associated Press reported. The only information about the officers involved is that they were removed from field duty. Presumably, they remain on the payroll and are gainfully employed.
It was the same type of apparently noncommittal response shown by local law enforcement when two Black men were found hanging in 2020 in a part of the state that’s been dubbed “the Confederacy of southern California.”
Author and podcast host Danyel Smith on Wednesday reacted to NewsOne’s coverage by reminding her followers of that fact.
Formally known as the Antelope Valley, the area is comprised of four cities: Lancaster, Palmdale, Rosamond, and Mojave.
Notably, 20-year-old Robert Fuller was found hanging from a tree near Palmdale City Hall on June 10, 2020. Ten days earlier, Malcolm Harsch was found hanging from a tree about 50 miles away from where Fuller died.
“The Confederacy of southern California is the Antelope Valley,” Lancaster resident and local organizer Ayinde Love told the Guardian in response to the hanging deaths of Fuller and Harsch.
Local law enforcement quickly declared the deaths as suicides despite the families of Fuller and Harsch challenging those rulings.
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San Francisco Cop Who Shot Black Man In Mental Health Crisis Will Not Face Charges
The post Area Where Cop Brutally Slammed Black Woman Is ‘Confederacy Of California’ With Suspected Lynchings appeared first on NewsOne.
Area Where Cop Brutally Slammed Black Woman Is ‘Confederacy Of California’ With Suspected Lynchings was originally published on newsone.com
