NAACP Pittsburgh Branch is openly talking about taser torture in America. Most of the folks at a recent NAACP community meeting said tasers are being used disproportionately against African Americans. [NOTE: Our blog is documenting taser-related deaths in America this year].
“In the African-American community we know it’s different and it can’t be different,” NAACP President M. Gayle Moss said. “I find that these young new police officers are afraid and some of our young men are tired of being assaulted so they just say come on with it.”
The overwhelming conclusion at the July 9 meeting addressing the use of tasers by police was that the police should devise a coherent system for gathering data on taser use and that these records should be made readily available. Currently, although data is recorded regarding when tasers are used and the race of any individual involved in an incident, these two pieces of information aren’t necessarily in the same place.
“In fact, we don’t know who it’s being used on more or less, but that’s because there’s no data,” said panelist David Harris of the University of Pittsburgh Law School. “There’s something about this area. In Pennsylvania, everything is a secret.”I wonder if other NAACP branches have begun discussions about taser torture in Black America? More to the point, I wonder if they will join in our call for congressional hearings on this issue?
What say u?
