Close To Home: Measuring US Respect For The Human Right To Life (Part 2 of 2)

In Part One we looked at the US standard in reporting on the human rights practices of its friends and enemies. Now let's see how the US human rights record measures under its own standards.

4. The US Record

US Killings by Police: Statistics and Selected Cases

How many people die in police custody each year? How many are killed by police? Of those killed, how many are found to be unlawful? There is no authoritative answer for these questions in the US. Previously, the US did not track national data on police-related deaths at all. That changed with the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2000, which uses grant money to encourage (but not require) states to report police-related deaths. [26]

On October 11, 2007, the US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released the first national measurement of all types of deaths that occurred "in the process of arrest" (see [57] for definition of this term). It was the first time most states made a comprehensive count of these deaths. California and Texas were the only States that compiled data on all arrest-related deaths before the collection began. But the BJS figures are only a lower bound. Three states, Georgia, Maryland and Montana, failed to submit data. In addition, federal agencies are not required to report such deaths.

Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia reported 2,002 arrest-related deaths during the three years from 2003 through 2005. Homicides by state and local law enforcement officers (i.e., killings by police or security forces, to use the language of the human rights reports) were the leading cause of such deaths during this period (1,095 deaths or 55 percent). [27] Killing by police was reported over four times more often than any other cause of arrest-related death.

BJS figures for 2006 are not yet available at this time (Jan. 2008). The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tracks "justifiable" killings by police and security forces, where "justifiable homicide" by police is defined as, and limited to, "the killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty". [28] (Presumably, the FBI means "the killing of a suspected felon...", since the person may be executed before conviction, trial, or arrest.) Thus it excludes killings of people:

• suspected of misdemeanors
• not suspected of any crime, such as innocent bystanders
• accidentally
• by off-duty police

These statistics are disturbing. But the stories behind the numbers are frightening. Following the format of US State Dept. country reports, some 2006 killings ruled as lawful (yet raised considerable controversy) are highlighted here.

• Dec: A heavily armed unit of the New Hanover County North Carolina Sheriff's Office went to the home of Peyton Strickland, an 18-year-old community college student, looking for a PlayStation 3 video game machine they suspected he and a friend stole. When police hit the front door with a battering ram, Deputy Christopher Long allegedly mistook the sound for a gun blast and he fired through the door killing the unarmed student. Other police shot dead Mr. Strickland's dog. According to court records, Deputy Long carried a .45-caliber submachine gun, a .45-caliber pistol, two extra pistol magazines, two extra sub gun magazines, a gas mask, a knife and a flash bang grenade. Deputy Long told a grand jury that he expected heavily armed resistance based on a Facebook picture where Mr. Strickland's friend posed with a collector's guns (though Strickland was not in the photo). Deputy Long was fired, but the grand jury did not indict. [31]
• Dec: On Christmas night, 29-year old James E. Dean, an Army Reserves sergeant who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since returning from an 18-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, drank heavily. He had been suicidal since receiving a redeployment letter that probably would have sent him to Iraq - just when he was piecing together a life as a newlywed with a new job. When he went to his father's empty house and threatened to commit suicide, his sister asked the St. Mary's County Maryland sheriff's office to check on his welfare. Police alleged that the Army-trained sharpshooter fired at officers multiple times, with a handful of bullets hitting police cars, but no officers were injured. After several hours of failed negotiations with Mr. Dean, police began firing tear gas into the house to force him outside. Police said the 14-hour standoff ended when Mr. Dean opened the front door and pointed his weapon at an armored vehicle, prompting Maryland state policeman Daniel Weaver to fatally shoot him once in the back. The killing, exceptionally, received national media coverage. State's Attorney Richard D. Fritz wrote in his investigation report that it was a mistake to release gas into the house. "As certainly as his death is in part a consequence of his own actions, it is also in large part due to the unfortunate choice of tactics employed by the commanders", Fritz wrote. [32] [33]
• Oct: Police in Newburgh New York shot dead Antonio Bryant, 23. Original reports by police alleged that Mr. Bryant exited a stopped vehicle that was blocking traffic and started shooting when the police approached the vehicle. But some witnesses say police were following the vehicle, and that Mr. Bryant fled when approached by police. Mr. Bryant was the son of Omari Shakur, a prominent Newburgh police reform activist. Shakur said said that his son was "executed by police" because of his strong opposition to the appointment of Newburgh Police Chief Eric Paolilli. In 1990, as a patrolman, Paolilli drove his vehicle into a pedestrian and killed him in a case ruled accidental but which Shakur and others cited as reckless. Both that case and Mr. Bryant's death were seen as the killing of a black man by white police on a predominantly white police force in a city that is more than 70 percent black and Hispanic. [34] [35]
• Sep: Prince George's County Maryland policeman Jordan Swonger shot dead Gregory Boggs Jr., 24, in one of many cases perceived as "white cop kills unarmed young black man" that raised the ethnic issues often surrounding killings by US police. Police say Swonger responded to a report of a man assaulting a woman and found Mr. Boggs standing over a woman. Swonger said he ordered Mr. Boggs away from the woman but Mr. Boggs picked her up and held her in front of him as a shield. When told to put his hands up, police said, Mr. Boggs reached toward his waistband. Police said Swonger feared Mr. Boggs was reaching for a weapon, so he shot and killed him. Police acknowledge that they later discovered Mr.Boggs was not armed. The woman on the scene was Lanaya Borden, 19. who denied the police account of the incident and said her unarmed boyfriend did nothing to provoke the shooting. She countered that Mr. Boggs did not use her as a shield, and that she was standing with Mr.Boggs, not on the ground. She said that Swonger shot Mr. Boggs within 20 seconds of his arrival. [36]
• Sep: In Oregon, Multnomah County Sheriff deputy Bret Burton and Portland Police Officers Christopher Humphery and Kyle Nice approached 42-year-old James Chasse Jr., allegedly after seeing him shuffling at a street corner and possibly urinating behind a tree. When the drug and alcohol-free mentally ill man ran, the police chased him and knocked him to the ground. The schizophrenic man fought against police attempts to subdue him and police fought with kicks, punches, and Taser shocks. When he suddenly went limp paramedics were called, who sanctioned transporting him to jail with his feet tied to hands in a "hog-tie". After jail nurses told police he had to go to the hospital, police took him in a police car instead of an ambulance. Less than two hours after police first approached him, James Chasse Jr. was dead in a police car, with 16 broken ribs, a punctured lung, and massive internal bleeding. His death, one of many cases of US police killing the mentally ill, stirred an unprecedented local uproar. One year later, a newspaper reported that "emotions are still raw" and speculated that his death:

  ...stirred such passion because he wasn't armed or posing a danger to others. What's more, the struggle leading up to Chasse's death happened in one of the swankiest parts of the city, the Pearl District, in front of a restaurant full of people.

  ...Jason Renaud, a volunteer at the Mental Health Association of Portland and a high school friend of Chasse's, said...Concern is so widespread that his nonprofit advocacy organization has received about 500 calls and e-mails about Chasse's death in the past year.

  A county grand jury unanimously decided that police were not criminally responsible for his in-custody death. As 2007 ended, police had not completed its internal investigation into the killing, and the police involved in his death continue to patrol the streets. [37]

• Jan: An unarmed 37-year-old optometrist, Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr, came out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was fatally shot by Fairfax Virginia Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) force member Deval V. Bullock. Dr. Culosi had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour. He had been under investigation for illegal gambling and, in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed SWAT team was there to serve a search warrant. A police report says Bullock was getting out of his vehicle to make the arrest when he was bumped on his left side by the vehicle's door, causing his right hand to "involuntarily make a fist and depress the trigger" of his .45-caliber handgun and fire one shot into Dr. Culosi's side, killing him almost instantly. A Washington Post editorial asserted that an experienced SWAT force member he "knew that he should not have had his finger on the trigger. Indeed, he knew he should not have even aimed his gun at anyone during a routine arrest." [38] The county's top prosecutor refused to indict or refer the case to a grand jury. Bullock received three weeks unpaid suspension, which the police union protested as too harsh, claiming the discipline was "very disproportionate" to prior cases of accidental shooting. The union said an oral or written reprimand is typically given when a Fairfax officer accidentally shoots someone, so the suspension was "way off the charts". [39] [40]
• Jan: Portland Oregon Police Lt. Jeffrey Kaer, responding to a personal call from his sister about a man sitting in a car parked in front of her home, left his own precinct to handle it himself - bypassing police in his sister's precinct. Without waiting for backup he confronted the sleeping driver, 28-year-old Dennis Lamar Young, asking if the vehicle was stolen. When Mr. Young responded by attempting to drive off, but instead hit a tree, Lt. Kaer fired a shot that killed him. Just two weeks later a grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by Lt. Kaer but in May 2007, in a rare move, Portland Mayor (and former police chief) Tom Potter fired Lt. Kaer and publicly detailed 10 decisions by Kaer that violated police policies and training and led to Kaer fatally shooting Mr. Young, thus challenging Kaer's "split-second decision" defense of his killing. With the police chief opposing the firing, it was widely believed that Kaer would be reinstated. [41]
• 2005 carryover: In Jan. 2006, the Clackamas County Oregon Sheriff's Office Shooting Review Board ruled that Deputy Dave Willard "acted within existing rules and regulations and according to current training" when he and a Sandy police officer William Bergin killed unarmed 27-year-old Fouad Kaady, firing seven shots in him in Sep. 2005. [42] The victim had stripped naked after being badly burned in a car accident. Willard told investigators:

  The first thing that struck me was that this man is seriously injured he has...burns, he's lost a lot of blood, he's got blood all over himself...he is, appears to be, just kinda catatonic, he's not looking up at us he's not doing anything he's just sitting just like this. [43]

  The police then ordered the burn victim to lay down on the hot pavement. When the "catatonic" burn victim did not respond, they Tasered him three times. When the shocked victim then started running away from police, then towards them, and jumped atop the police car, they shot him dead. The entire encounter was reported to have lasted just 28 seconds. [44]

These highly publicized 2006 cases were not ruled justifiable, and are still open:

• Nov: An unarmed 23-year-old Sean Bell was killed, just hours before his wedding, when New York City police fired nearly 50 shots at his car as he left a club where he and friends were celebrating his last night as a bachelor. Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora have been charged with manslaughter in the first and second degrees, implying both intent to harm and recklessness. The detectives, who were conducting an undercover investigation at the nightclub, said they believed Mr. Bell and friends were going to get a gun. [45]
• Nov: Atlanta Georgia police fatally shot a 92-year-old woman, Kathryn Johnston in a police drug raid. When plainclothes narcotics officers burst into Ms. Johnston's house using a no-knock warrant she fired shots and wounded three police. She was killed in a hail of nearly 40 gunshots. Officers Jason R. Smith and Gregg Junnier were charged and pleaded guilty to state manslaughter and federal civil rights charges. Officer Arthur Tesler faces charges for making false statements and false imprisonment. Prosecutors said the officers obtained the warrant by falsely telling a judge that an informer had confirmed drug dealing at the house. The informer later told federal investigators that the police had told him to concoct the statement. Prosecutors also said one officer planted three bags of marijuana in the house as part of a cover-up after no drugs were found. [46] US Congressman John Lewis sought a wider probe:

  I see the shooting and killing of Ms. Johnston as one piece of a larger puzzle that calls for a complete and full investigation to include the use of informants, the obtaining of questionable warrants, the possible planting of drugs by officers of the law, the allegations of a cover-up, and the use of excessive force in the Atlanta police force. [47]

  In a letter to the Justice Department, Congress' Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. agreed and indicated that this case was not unique :

  We are concerned that the Atlanta incident may be indicative of a systemic problem within the Atlanta Police Department. Additionally, we are disturbed that the actions of the Atlanta Police Department may be a reflection of conduct used in other jurisdictions throughout this country. Significantly, the number of "no knock raids" has increased from three thousand in 1981 to more than fifty thousand in 2005. [48]

US Killings by Police: Analysis

If the State Dept. reports that Cuba's "human rights record remained poor", while at the same time it reports that there were no unlawful killings by Cuba's government forces, and lists the 5 killings by UK police as one of the "human rights problems" of the UK, then how should 376 killings by US police forces be reported?

With 1 out of 4 countries (25%) reported as free from killings by government forces, as noted above, the State Dept. would certainly be forced to cite the US record as a "human rights problem". To determine the severity of the problem, the tables below compare the US record with that of other countries that were reported to be suffering from killings by government forces, where data could be obtained. For consistency, non-US figures are all from the Country Reports, or the sources cited in the reports. No claim is being made about the reliability of Country Report sources (e.g. the Malaysia report cites unnamed "Local NGOs").

The high killing rate by US police could be reported as a cost of battling the high incidence of violent crime in the US, using the argument provided by Amnesty International in a report on Jamaica, which has one of the world's highest murder rates: [60]

Law enforcement officers policing societies with high recorded rates of violent crime may justifiably be expected to face a correspondingly greater number of confrontations with armed individuals, which may result in more police killings.

But, regardless of the associated circumstances, rampant extrajudicial killing is a human rights problem. Even in Jamaica, which has one of the highest per capita police killing rates in the world, there's been acknowledgment of this: the Court of Appeals president, Justice Seymour Panton, has called for an end to the 'appallingly high rate of extra-judicial killings'. [61]

Moreover, the data below shows that the US, compared to its allies, Australia and UK, police kill at an increased rate that exceeds the increase in the murder rate.

Summary:
US police consistently kill at a much higher rate than the police of the US allies, Australia and UK.

• Although the US population is not quite 15 times that of Australia, the number killed by US police was over 60 times the number killed by Australia forces.
• Despite a population less than 5 times the UK, killings by US police in 2004 were over 120 times the number killed by UK police.
• In 2006, US suffered at least 376 killings by police compared to 1 UK killing.
• While the US murder rate was 3.7-4.2 times higher, the US police killing rate was 4.1-74 times higher.

US Killings by Police: Accountability or Impunity?

The US State Dept. report on Malaysia [53] cited that government's lack of police oversight:

The government maintained no independent body to investigate deaths that occurred during apprehension by police or while in police custody.

Those words describe the situation in the US as well. While the UK has its Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), mandated by law to be entirely independent of police [69], there is no comparable body in the US - even though 2006 marked the 25th anniversary of Who is Guarding the Guardians, a report issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that advocated joint efforts by local officials and the federal government for effective prosecution of police misconduct cases. [70]

In the US, oversight of law enforcement is organized locally (if it exists), with no requirements, standards, or consistency. The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, a peer networking organization for citizen review professionals, claims 71 of the nation's 100 largest cities have citizen review mechanisms. [71] That means over 1 in 4 of the nation's 100 largest cities have no external monitoring of police at all. And US citizen review is of questionable value, as reported in the 2000 update to Who is Guarding the Guardians: "Despite the Commission's recommendations, most civilian review boards remain without disciplinary power or meaningful authority over internal investigations into police misconduct". [70]

As mentioned earlier, there is no federal requirement that police-related deaths be reported. Furthermore, even if deaths are reported, investigations are not required by the US. The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice hints at how rarely it investigates, when it states:

Often, local authorities will take the lead in prosecuting violent conduct under state statutes even though such conduct also constitutes a violation of federal criminal civil rights laws. In such cases, the local prosecutive effort is presumed to vindicate federal interests. [72]

Moreover the federal investigative body, the FBI, cannot claim independence since it works with local police in tactical training and joint investigations.

Meanwhile, "the local prosecutive effort" serves only to vindicate accused police, as widely reported in the local press:

• Chicago Tribune - "a pattern of officials rushing to clear officers who shoot civilians" [73]
• Houston Chronicle - "law-enforcement officers seldom face discipline or criminal charges in the shootings" [74]
• Philadelphia Inquirer - "the Police Department has been criticized for dragging its feet and protecting fellow officers involved in shootings" [75]
• San Francisco Chronicle - "The department typically gives out light discipline, or none at all, for officers who use excessive force" [76]
• Washington Post - "The Post found several cases that cast doubt on how thoroughly and impartially police investigate shooting cases" [77]

In fact, the US government bureaucracy is itself split on the need for independent investigation. The findings of the 2000 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights dispute the presumption of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice that the "local prosecutive effort" vindicates federal interests:

State prosecution of police misconduct cases remains an ineffective means of correcting the problem. Most district or county attorneys rely heavily on the support and cooperation of the police departments in their jurisdictions, and as such, they are reluctant to pursue criminal charges against them. [70]

US Executions

Recall that the Cuba report established that the US considers death sentences as extrajudicial killings. Amnesty International reports: [78]

In 2006, 53 people were executed in 14 states, bringing to 1,057 the total number of prisoners put to death since executions resumed in 1977...People with serious mental illness continued to be subjected to the death penalty.

Amnesty International also reported that the United Nations Human Rights Committee called for a moratorium on executions in the US. [78]

US Extraterritorial killings

Amnesty International reports: [78]

There were a number of incidents of alleged extrajudicial executions or unlawful killings of civilians by US soldiers in Iraq.

• In November, a soldier pleaded guilty before a military court to charges of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her and three members of her family in Mahmudiya in March. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
• Eight soldiers were charged with the kidnap and murder of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad in the town of Hamdania in April. They were accused of dragging him from his home and shooting him while he was restrained. Four soldiers pleaded guilty to charges relating to the murder and were sentenced to between five and 10 years' imprisonment. However, in line with pre-trial agreements, their sentences were reduced to between 12 and 21 months' confinement. Other trials were pending at the end of the year.

In Dec. 2006, four enlisted US Marines were charged with murder in the slaughter of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilian men, women, and children in the Iraqi town of Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. Four Marine officers were charged for alleged failures in investigating and reporting the slayings. [79] By Jan. 2008, charges were dropped against two of the enlisted Marines. The remaining two had charges lowered from murder to manslaughter. [80]

In Jan. 2006 a military jury found Army Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer guilty of negligent homicide and dereliction of duty for using an "aggressive" interrogation technique on Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who died while undergoing questioning. Welshofer had the Iraqi general -- who already had been beaten repeatedly by Iraqi captors -- bound, gagged and placed headfirst inside a sleeping bag before the 19-year Army veteran sat atop the general's chest. The autopsy report said he suffocated. Welshofer was acquitted of murder, a charge that carries a sentence of life in prison if convicted. He faced a sentence of 39 months in prison for the charge of negligent homicide. Instead the military jury issued a reprimand, ordered Welshofer to forfeit $6,000 of his military pay and confined him to his barracks and place of worship for 60 days. [81] [82]

In June 2006 Ilario Pantano returned to the media spotlight promoting his autobiography, Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy, and was celebrated as "an extraordinary American hero" by his supporters. [83] A 2005 military hearing charged Pantano, a Wall Street trader and media entrepreneur who became a US Marine lieutenant, with the premeditated murder of two unarmed Iraqi civilians. Two weeks after the killing and mutilation of four US mercenaries in Fallujah in 2004, Pantano had the handcuffs removed from the two detained Iraqi men after searching them, then ordered the two US soldiers present to look away. Almost immediately, he then shot the Iraqis - emptying his M-16 in them, reloading and emptying again - firing a total of 60 times. Pantano said he acted in self-defense, thinking the Iraqis were charging him. One of the US soldiers who was ordered to look away thought he saw the Iraqis trying to flee. Pantano explained the excessive firepower: "I had made a decision that when I was firing I was going to send a message to these Iraqis and others that when we say, 'No better friend, No worse enemy,' we mean it. " [84] Pantano admitted he then wrote a sign and hung it over the bullet-ridden bodies: "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy". [85], [86] Congressman Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, where Pantano's unit was based, urged President Bush to intervene and dismiss charges. [87] The military officer presiding over the hearing recommended that murder charges be dropped, but that Pantano receive nonjudicial punishment (possibly 30 days' arrest in quarters and forfeiture of half a month's pay for two months) for "conduct unbecoming an officer" for hanging the sign, which the presiding officer described as a desecration, and for excessive shooting: "Shooting 30 extra rounds of ammunition into two bodies to send a message [to the enemy] is not moral and just," he wrote. "Once we allow ourselves to traverse down that slope, we become no better than the insurgents we are fighting." [88] Pantano's commander ruled that Pantano would face no punishment for any of his actions. [89] Later that year Pantano resigned from the military. But in Feb. 2007 he returned to uniform as a North Carolina deputy sheriff, working as a guard at a county jail. [90]

US Torture by Security Forces

Amnesty International reports: [78]

In June, three detainees died in Guantanamo, apparently as a result of suicide. They included Abdullah Yahia al-Zahrani who was reportedly aged 17 when he was taken into custody. The deaths heightened concerns about the severe psychological impact of the indefinite detention regime.

To measure the fatal impact of the detention regime within the US, we must look to BJS figures for 2003-05: [91]

Among the seven listed causes of arrest-related death, suicide and death by other/unknown causes stand out for their rising numbers. Even if the 2006 suicide figure fell back to the 2003 level, the US still would average over one arrest-related suicide per week.

In November 2007, the United Nations Committee against Torture stated at the conclusion of its 39th session: [92]

The Committee was worried that the use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use.

This suggests that death following Taser electroshock is a human rights problem that needs to be reported under the grouping "death in detention following torture", as in the case of Syria. Amnesty International reports that in 2006 more than 70 people died in the US after being shocked with Tasers. [78] The 376 justifiable homicides recorded by the FBI were all firearms deaths. The 70+ Taser-related deaths are not included in those FBI figures.

5. Summary Of US Respect For The Right To Life

With the US official death in custody rate comparable to the higher rate cited for India, it seems appropriate to use the State Dept.'s report on India [52] as a template for describing the severity of deaths under US government forces. Incorporating a summary of the above data in that template produced this State Dept-style summary on the US record in respecting the human right to life:

The government has numerous, serious problems in its record of respecting the human right to life. Security force officials who committed human rights abuses generally enjoyed de facto impunity and the government made little attempt to combat the problem, except for a few instances highlighted by the media. The lack of firm accountability permeated the government and security forces, creating an atmosphere in which human rights violations often went unpunished. Although the country has numerous laws protecting human rights, enforcement was lax and punishment of police was rare.

The following additional human rights problems were reported: extrajudicial killings and killings of persons in custody, executions, extraterritorial killing, torture by security forces.

6. Lessons Learned

Human rights monitors overlook violations of the right to life in the US

The message of the US State Dept. Country Reports is explicitly propagated to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that monitor human rights and use the State Dept. reports as their primary source of data. For example, the Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Project claims:

Covering 24 years (i.e., 1981-present), 13 separate human rights practices, and 193 countries, the CIRI Human Rights Project is the largest human rights data set in the world. [93]

But the project's FAQ reveals:

The primary source of information about human rights practices is obtained from a careful reading of the annual United States Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Coders are instructed to use this source for all variables. For a group of four rights known as "Physical Integrity Rights" (the rights to freedom from extrajudicial killing, disappearance, torture, and political imprisonment) coders also use a second source, Amnesty International's Annual Report. Both reports can be found online for recent years. If there are discrepancies between the two sources, coders are instructed to treat the Amnesty International evaluation as authoritative. Some scholars believe that this step is necessary to remove a potential bias in favor of US allies, although Poe, et al, (2001) have found evidence of great agreement between these reports.

Reference: Poe, Steven P., Sabine C. Carey, and Tanya C. Vazquez. 2001. "How are these pictures Different? A quantitative comparison of the US State Department and Amnesty International human rights reports, 1976-1995." Human Rights Quarterly 23.3: 650-677. [94]

Another widely-used source of human rights data is the Political Terror Scale (PTS):

The PTS measures levels of political violence and terror that a country experiences in a particular year based on a 5-level "terror scale" originally developed by Freedom House. The data used in compiling this index comes from two different sources: the yearly country reports of Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. [95]

These two data sources, CIRI and PTS, then form the basis for other influential works used to compare and rank countries by respect for human rights, like the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators [96] and Simon Fraser University's The Human Security Report Project [97].

Although the US positions itself as a human rights champion, we've seen that the State Dept. reports do not examine or report on the US human rights record. Because of this void, critical discussion of the US human rights record is monopolized by Amnesty International's Annual Report. While Amnesty's contribution to the dialogue on human rights has been exemplary, and it has led the probe into the effect of Tasers on human rights in the US and elsewhere, there are glaring shortcomings in Amnesty's Annual Report on the US, evident in the introductory summary: [78]

Thousands of detainees continued to be held in US custody without charge or trial in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In June, the US Supreme Court struck down the military commissions established by President Bush and reversed the presidential decision not to apply Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions to detainees suspected of links with the Taleban or al-Qa'ida.

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act stripping the US federal courts of the jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus appeals from such detainees, providing for trials by military commission, and amending the US War Crimes Act. In September, President Bush confirmed the existence of a programme of secret detentions run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

There were reports of possible extrajudicial executions by US soldiers in Iraq, with a number of soldiers facing prosecution. There was a continued failure to hold senior government officials accountable for torture and other ill-treatment of "war on terror" detainees despite evidence that abuses had been systematic. There were reports of police brutality and ill-treatment in detention facilities in the USA. More than 70 people died after being struck by police tasers. Fifty-three people were executed in 14 states.

There is an obvious disparity.
On the US human rights record in its global conflicts (first 6 sentences): 169 words.
On the US domestic human rights record (last 3 sentences): 32 words.

Moreover, the standard terms of human rights discourse are used to discuss the US human rights record in its global conflicts, e.g.:

There were a number of incidents of alleged extrajudicial executions or unlawful killings of civilians by US soldiers in Iraq.

But what about incidents involving US domestic security forces? No mention of alleged extrajudicial executions (Sean Bell on his wedding day) or unlawful killings (92-year-old Kathryn Johnson). In Amnesty's US report, the abundance of evidence of US domestic violations of the right to life - ethnic discrimination in the use of lethal force, excessive force against the mentally ill, unjustified use of heavily armed paramilitary forces and tactics - is cloaked in the vague term "police brutality".

But is Amnesty to be blamed for their monopoly? Workers in the human rights field could draw from additional sources. The Human Rights Watch World Report 2007 reports on the 2006 human rights record of the US. But, in the area of US domestic respect for the right to life, it is even more flawed than the Amnesty report: there is no mention of US police at all. [98] A more complete source is Beijing's answer to the US State Dept.'s unfavorable report on China: The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006, [99] which includes a section titled "On Human Rights Violations by Law Enforcement and Judicial Departments". [100] In addition, there is no lack of evidence of domestic US human rights abuses. Researchers in human rights could compile their own reports. What is the justification for continuing the blackout on the deplorable US domestic human rights record? When the world sees no mention of the US in the State Dept.'s country reports, and scarce mention of US domestic human rights abuses in Amnesty's annual report, the message is clear: human rights abuses happen elsewhere, not in the US.

US human rights record abroad and at home are linked

The link between the US human rights record in its global conflicts and the US domestic human rights record was well established by Abu Ghraib:

• US Army Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr., labeled the leader of abusive guards at Abu Ghraib, was sentenced to ten years for his role in abuse at the Baghdad prison. But earlier he had a tainted record of service in US prisons:
  • In 1992, he was working at a county prison in Pennsylvania with guards who acknowledge beating up prisoners as a means of control. [101]
  • In 1998, when he was working as a guard in a Pennsylvania state prison, he was accused by one inmate of slipping a razor blade into his food. [101] He was also at the center of an abuse scandal alleging that guards at the prison routinely beat and humiliated prisoners. After an investigation, the warden was transferred, two lieutenants were fired and about two dozen guards were reprimanded, demoted or suspended. [102]
• Sergeant Ivan Frederick, the highest ranking guard to be charged, was sentenced to eight years. But before Abu Ghraib, Frederick worked as a corrections officer at the Buckingham Correctional Center in central Virginia, a medium-security prison. Alan Elsner, author of Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons called the Virginia prison system "one of the worst in the country...the most violent, the most racist, the most ready to resort to force." [103]
• In October 2006, Human Rights Watch reported:

  One of the iconic pictures from Abu Ghraib shows an unmuzzled German Shepherd straining at his leash a few inches in front of a detainee, who is crouched in terror. Two Army Sergeants have been convicted in courts-martial of using their dogs to harass, threaten, and assault detainees. Yet five U.S. state prison systems - those of Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota, and Utah - continue to authorize the use of large unmuzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to secure their compliance with orders to permit themselves to be handcuffed and removed from their cells...Human Rights Watch knows of no other country in the world that authorizes the use of dogs to attack prisoners who will not voluntarily leave their cells. [104]

US arrest-related deaths need to be seen from the perspective of the universal right to life

Framing the issue of US killings by police and deaths in custody within the larger perspective of the universal human right to life provides alternative approaches:

• It enables us to discuss the issue using more precise, standardized terms, instead of using the local terms that often serve to obscure rather than communicate. Reinforcing the myth that human rights abuses happen elsewhere, not here, US domestic human rights abuses are often described in euphemism. The term "extrajudicial killing", accurately describes the event as a killing outside of the due process of a judicial system. But the same event within the US is often termed an "officer-involved shooting": a term that serves to evade the issue of circumvention of justice and remove the shocking lethality, while assigning the killer a passive role - reduced to merely being "involved" in some unstated way.
• We can weigh the severity of the issue, by placing it within the scale of police practices in comparable contexts around the world.
• It permits us to shift from the ethical view, which offers no clear course, to a view based on the rule of human rights law and agreements, as argued by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions:

  It is tempting to focus on the ethical probity of law enforcement officials rather than the domestic rules regulating the use of lethal force. However, as I indicated in my first report to the Commission, in relation to respect for the right to life by military personnel, "Remedial proposals to inculcate higher 'ethical' standards or to develop a greater 'moral' sensibility [are] inadequate. Respect for human rights and humanitarian law are legally required and the relevant standards of conduct are spelled out in squarely on those standards". [105]

As the US finds itself in the abhorrent position of discussing how much torture to allow and which methods are acceptable, it is useful to ask how the self-proclaimed monitor of human rights got to such a state. We can answer with another question: who's been monitoring the monitor? As long as the US is not held to its own standards there are no safeguards, no limit to the depths of horror US human rights practice can descend to.

George Bush received a reply to his claim, quoted at the beginning of this report, nearly 50 years before he stated it:

Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world ... . Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. But to uphold their rights, such concerned citizens need first to know them. "Progress in the larger world," must start with human rights education in just those "small places, close to home."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the UN commission that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [106]

7. Notes

References

[1] Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
http://www.state.gov/g/drl

[2] Appendix A: Notes on Preparation of the Country Reports and Explanatory Notes
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78910.htm

[3] U.S. Human Rights and Democracy Strategy
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/shrd/2006/80584.htm

[4] Nguyen Tat Thanh ( Viet Nam) at the Sixty-first United Nations General Assembly, Third Committee
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/gashc3863.doc.htm

[5] "The Right To Life In International Law",
Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Mr. Bacre Waly Ndiaye, submitted pursuant to Commission resolution 1997/61, Addendum: Mission to the United States of America
http://www.extrajudicialexecutions.org/reports/E_CN_4_1998_68_Add_3.pdf

[6] Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm

[7] See [2]

[8] The U.S. Human Rights Report -- Its Evolution
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/February/20040224122149maduobba0.176098.html

[9] Background Note: Canada
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2089.htm

[10] Background Note: New Zealand
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35852.htm

[11] Background Note: United Kingdom
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3846.htm

[12] Background Note: Australia
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2698.htm

[13] Appendix E: Country Assistance FY2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78914.htm

[14] Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance", Issue Brief for Congress
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/10871.pdf
But another calculation puts it at nearly double that:
see The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel
at http://www.washington-report.org/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm

[15] The United States in the General Assembly
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3500

[16] Israel and the occupied territories: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78854.htm

[17] Palestinians who died following an infringement of the right to medical treatment
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=21

[18] President Delivers State of the Union Address
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html

[19] State Sponsors of Terror Overview
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/64337.htm

[20] Background Note: North Korea
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm

[21] Background Note: Libya
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5425.htm

[22] Australia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78766.htm

[23] United Kingdom: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78847.htm

[24] Syria: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78863.htm

[25] Cuba: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78887.htm

[26] To encourage States to report such deaths to the Attorney General, the Act declared that, in order for a State to be eligible to receive a grant for correctional facilities, its grant application must include assurances that the State will follow the guidelines established by the Attorney General in reporting, on a quarterly basis, data on deaths that occur in two primary stages of the criminal justice system: first, deaths that occur "in the process of arrest" or during transfer after arrest; and, second, deaths in any municipal or county jail, State prison, or other local or State correctional facility.
RE: Amendments to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, United States Statutes at Large, 13 Oct. 2000
http://www.glin.gov/view.action?glinID=72342

Data collection from local jails began in 2000, State prisons were added in 2001, State juvenile correctional agencies were added in 2002, and coverage of arrest-process deaths began in 2003.
Corrections Statistics: Deaths in Custody Reporting Program
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/correct.htm#custody

[27] Press release
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/ardus05pr.htm

[28] Justifiable Homicide: by Weapon, Law Enforcement, 2002-2006
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_13.html - see footnote 1

[29] Uniform Crime Reports- Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucrquest.htm

[30] See table at [28]

[31] Photos online brew trouble, The News & Observer, 15 Jul. 2007
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/strickland/story/637859.html

[32] Reservist Due for Iraq Is Killed in Standoff With Police, Washington Post, 27 Dec. 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122601033.html

[33] Fatal Shooting of Veteran Justified, State's Attorney Finds, Washington Post, 11 April 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/10/AR2007041001524.html

[34] Did Police execute Antonio Bryant?, The Hudson Valley Press, Vol. 24, No.2
http://hvpress.net/agl-tmp-13.html

[35] How Newburgh's two worlds collide, Times Herald-Record, 1 Nov. 2006
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061101/NEWS/611010342

[36] Witness Rejects Police Account of Fatal Shooting, Washington Post, 28 Sep. 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092701913.html

[37] What Happened To James ChasseMental Health Association of Portland
http://jameschasse.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

[38] Leniency in Fairfax, Washington Post, 25 Mar. 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032401687.html

[39] Death raises concern at police tactics, BBC News, 21 Mar. 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4803570.stm

[40] Va. Officer Might Be Suspended For Fatality, Washington Post, 25 Nov. 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401308.html

[41] Potter fires cop, citing 10 mistakes, The Oregonian, 17 Aug. 2007
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1187321116227550.xml&coll=7

[42] Shooting Review Board Review Completed Regarding Fouad Kaady, Press Release from: Clackamas Co. Sheriff's Office, 21 Jan. 2006
http://web4.co.clackamas.or.us/mrm/1614.html

[43] Transcript of Taped Interview of Willard and Bergin
http://www.kgw.com/news/pdf/kaady_testimony.pdf

[44] 28 seconds: The Killing of Fouad Kaady (Video: Part 1 of 5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8WijDe5BhQ

[45] NY police in manslaughter charges, BBC News, 19 Mar. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6467801.stm

[46] Family of Woman Killed by Police Sues, New York Times, 22 Nov. 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/us/22atlanta.html

[47] May 2, 2007: Rep. John Lewis on Kathryn Johnston Murder
http://johnlewis.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=1

[48] Conyers Calls on Justice Department to Seek Answers for Wrongful Death of 92-year-old Woman in Drug Raid, Press Release, 3 May 2007
http://judiciary.house.gov/newscenter.aspx?A=810

[49] South Africa data found for 4/2005-3/2006 omitted: the custodial death rate of 14.0 skewed the range. Source: South Africa: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78758.htm

[50] CIA World Factbook

[51] Australia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61601.htm

[52] India: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
Cites two sources, providing very different figures:

From January 2005 through July of the year, the Home Ministry reported 139 deaths in police custody. However, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) confirmed 1,730 deaths in police and judicial custody during the same time period.

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78871.htm

[53] Malaysia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78780.htm

[54]Deaths during or following police contact: Statistics for England and Wales 2006/7
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/death_report_2006-07.pdf

[55]Deaths during or following police contact: Statistics for England and Wales 2005/06
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/death_report_0506_v7.pdf

[56] United Kingdom: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61683.htm

[57] "Death in custody" does not have a standard definition. For the US, this report assumes the BJS term "arrest-related death" is roughly equivalent. To be clear about the term's definition, its's worthwhile to fully quote the BJS report:

Defining deaths "in the process of arrest"
BJS had to define the term "in the process of arrest," specified in the Death in Custody Reporting Act (PL 106-297). BJS staff consulted with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA), and criminal justice researchers to identify which circumstances involved an "arrest process." All deaths of persons in the physical custody or under the physical restraint of law enforcement officers were included. This resulted in the reporting of 75 deaths over three years in which no criminal charges were involved. Law enforcement responses to people exhibiting mental health problems accounted for 44 of these cases, while another 9 cases involved persons who had to be restrained by police for medical transportation. In another 22 cases, the reason for law enforcement involvement was not specified, but the record indicated that no criminal charges were involved. The deaths of any other persons not subject to an attempted arrest were excluded, including bystanders and law enforcement officers killed during an attempted arrest.

State contacts were instructed to include all deaths resulting from use of force by law enforcement officers. Arrest-related suicides were also included in this collection, provided that law enforcement officers were in some type of contact with the arrest subject prior to the suicide. For example, if an armed suspect was surrounded by officers and chose to take his own life rather than surrender, the death would be included. However, if an offender was actively sought by police but committed suicide before the police located him, the death would be excluded. The reason for the exclusion is that no officers were present at the time of death to attempt an arrest.

Vehicular accident de