New Orleans police gun down mentally ill man

From the mainstream media story below, we get one account. Here is another account, giving more information and perspective. The photo above/right is of Robert Davis, the retired school teacher, who was badly beaten by the police earlier, and is mentioned in the report below.

A New Orleans man, described by relatives as mentally ill, was gunned down by police on Monday. Anthony Hayes, 38, was killed after allegedly lunging at police with a three-inch blade. Three bystanders videotaped part of Hayes’s confrontation with some 18 police officers, three of whom fired nine shots at the man. Eyewitnesses expressed anger over the fatal use of force given the victim’s apparent illness. They said that Hayes was a familiar, but solitary, figure in the neighborhood. Michelle Dawson, a Burger King employee, said that Hayes would spend hours at a table in the restaurant talking to himself without bothering other customers.

New Orleans police gun down mentally ill man

Both post-Hurricane Katrina cases of police violence in New Orleans would have received scant attention by the media had they not been captured on videotape. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana revealed that it is investigating at least 10 brutality complaints filed in the past month or so.

A mentally ill man, who by all accounts posed no threat, is gunned down in cold blood, and this execution is justified on the basis of the “shoot-to-kill” mandate given to police agencies. Such a state of affairs is indicative of the growing brutalization of American society and its underlying social polarization.

Read on . . . .