RT | The lack of civil rights, the lack of equality, the ‘ghettoization’, the
institutionalization of racism are fundamental and making what is
called ‘America in the 21st century'.
RT:
What impact could this
shooting have on police reforms that were supposed to take place
in Ferguson?
Eric Draitser: It’s going to have a significant
impact on everything that is happening in Ferguson. I think first
and foremost we should begin with the impact that it’s going to
have on the on-going protest movement, on the ongoing calls for
justice, and it is not simply reform of the Ferguson Police
Department, but calling attention to the institutionalized racism
that exists both within that institution as well as within the
larger institutions in Missouri and in the US. Of course this
will delegitimize those protests, it will delegitimize that
movement or at least that is the attempt that is going to be
made. We have a very clear precedent here in New York City in the
aftermath of the non-indictment of the killers of Eric Garner.
When we had a massive protest movement developing in New York,
you had a very similar incident in which two police officers were
attacked and that incident was then used to attack the
protesters, that is to say to attack them in the media, attack
them in public relations, and we can expect a very similar
outcome here. It’s very unfortunate because of all of the
information that has come out about the racism, about the
brutality and the other impacts that it was having in Ferguson
itself.
RT: The recent wave of resignations in the
wake of the Michael Brown shooting was supposed to ease tensions.
Does it look like they've had the reverse effect?
ED: They were certainly meant to present the
illusion of changes, cosmetic changes, but again, I don’t think
that anything was really addressing the criminal nature of the
police department there. And certainly it is not easing tensions.
We should come back to the facts in this case. We have
corroborated accounts, that is to say corroborated by multiple
eye-witnesses that the shots that were fired - which the
mainstream media is attempting to allege came from the protesters
- actually came from some distance behind them.
The question then becomes exactly who is benefitting from this,
and who might have perpetrated such an attack, naturally an
investigation is what is really called for. But the larger
question is: does anybody really expect justice and fairness from
the Ferguson Police Department as if they would be the once
investigating this incident. What might need to be called for a
some kind of a special investigation possibly even a special
prosecutor, special investigator, something along those lines,
because the reality is, the situation in Ferguson is a volatile
one and it … really addresses many of the most fundamental
questions in the US regarding racism, social justice,
institutionalization of the brutality, militarization of police.
All of these issues that many of us have been talking for quite a
long time; all of them come to the fore in the recent
developments.
