In the last six years, more than 2 have died, 650 Latinos in the United States Unidos being in police custody or due to police actions, according to a new preliminary analysis.
This seeks not only to identify figures but to highlight the names of affected Latinos, of which is not spoken so much at the national level as of the cases of black people killed by police action, such as George Floyd.
The figure of 2, 653 is twice as much as was known until now through non-governmental projects, and it means that 2014 as of May of this year the number of Latinos killed by police officers has grown 24%. Another project, from the Washington Post, had already found that it is 55% more likely that the police will shoot to death a Latino who does it to a non-Hispanic white.
“The problem is that the Government is not doing this job of accounting, we We had to do it ”, highlights in an interview the Mexican-American academic Roberto Rodríguez, leader of the Raza Database project, who did the analysis.
Rodríguez regretted that, to One year after Floyd’s death sparked massive protests regarding police treatment of African-Americans, there is still not enough talk about how Hispanics are treated similarly.
“The figures of Latinos and Afro-Americans killed since the year 2000 by police hand are almost the same. But the difference is that when they kill a Latino it is almost like a secret “, said the academic in reference to the reactions that exist.
“When you have conversations about racial injustices and police treatment, you hardly talk about Latino,” he adds. Among the factors behind this gap would be the lack of reliable data and that there is a historical legacy of uncovering excesses of violence against black people in the United States for which these cases stand out more.
Dimes y diretes on the causes of deaths
The reports of deaths analyzed by Raza Database attribute the majority to gunshots or shootings to the confront the police.
But this general cause hides many factors, warns Rodríguez: “Sometimes the police only have to say that the other person had a gun or what they thought was a gun. gun, even if that person had a cell phone in hand, ”he says.
It indicates that the project has found cases in which it was said that the deceased Latino had a weapon when in fact in his hand It was a broom, scissors, a hose or even nothing.
As happened in March with the adolescent Adam Toledo , from Chicago. Toledo, 13 years old, was persecuted by officers who shot him point-blank.
First they said that Toledo had pointed a gun at them, but the videos of the body cameras of the policemen showed that Toledo – although he did have a gun when the chase began – was unarmed when he was shot.
Other deaths identified by Raza Database are attributed to immobilization maneuvers, to the use of electric shocks with tasers and to “medical emergencies” during arrest or while in custody.
Within this vague term are cases such as Carlos Ingram López, a resident of Arizona who was 27 years old. In April 2020 Tucson police came to arrest him for a public disturbance call; Ingram López ended up dead.
The official autopsy made initially said that the most probable cause of death was cardiac arrest because Ingram López had cocaine in the system.
But the videos of the body cameras, made public later, show that three officers put Ingram López on the floor and threw blankets over him while he yelled that he could not breathe.
Hidden in the numbers
Even though the numbers in the Raza Database are higher than previously known, researchers warn that there could be many more Latinos affected .
And the fact is that police departments have no obligation to record information on the ethnicity of those who detain or other demographic details. There are also no fixed guidelines on how to record that information.
The data “will never be complete because the standards are not centralized and the availability of information is not the same,” laments Rodríguez.
As Latinity is something ethnic indistinct of skin color “someone can say that Juan García is white, but in another place they can register him as Latino and in another place they can register as unknown . So all the statistics are out there flying “, indicates the academic.
It is for this reason that the data is only preliminary, says Rodríguez, since the Raza Database has identified” 6, 000 cases of which nothing is known ”and“ among which there are surely more Latinos ”.
Among the next steps, the researcher indicates, is to find out more about those 6, 000 people.
The project also wants to create a tribute with a virtual wall in which the names and biographies of those Latinos whose lives have been lost. And among the plans is to better account for cases of violence by law enforcement agencies against migrants.
Without expectations of change
What happened to Floyd and the subsequent protests have promoted initiatives such as the George Floyd Policing Act, legislation passed in the House of Representatives this March to prohibit the immobilization of people by the neck during a possible arrest.
The law, if approved by the Senate, would also establish a database to register accused officers of misconduct and the use of body cameras would become mandatory to corroborate what the agents report.
But Rodríguez does not believe that there will really be changes soon that reduce the cases of Police excesses.
Because Rodríguez himself was a victim of police violence. He says that in 1979 they stopped him in East Los Angeles because this He was recording with his camera officers beating a man.
The agents, Rodríguez says, ended up beating him. Rodríguez sued the department and won; he comments that he continues to have havoc from the trauma.
“From that experience of mine, I don’t think things will improve anytime soon,” he says. “Since 79 to the present I have seen a lot supposedly reform and promise, but no work later “.
” I think there are enough signs that despite high profile cases nothing has happened as a result, largely due to impunity “, explains.
In Floyd’s case there was a sentence against only one of the four policemen involved; Derech Chauvin was found guilty of murder.
However, most agents, when they are even investigated, “are just transferred to another unit or department, but that is not a conviction” , says Rodríguez.
The academic even relates that several years ago an acquaintance shared a prayer that her mother had devised over the years 1930: to pray that the police would not kill any of their children when they left home.
The prayer, which Rodríguez shared with Noticias Telemundo , it goes like this:
Virgin of Guadalupe, I entrust my son to you
Protect it against the police and those who are looking for someone to hit.
Son, be careful, do not turn your face or look eye to eye at any policeman …
By Marina E. Franco