by People Against Racist Terror

About the author: People Against Racist Terror publishes Turning the Tide, a quarterly journal of antiracist, antisexist, and antihomophobic activism, research, and education.

The horrifying police torture of Abner Louima in New York City in 1997 has once again drawn media attention to the issue of police abuse, brutality, and corruption. But the media has focused exclusively on the forcible sodomy of this Haitian immigrant—by cops with a stick apparently from a toilet plunger which police then shoved in his mouth, breaking his teeth after they had torn his rectum, bowel and bladder. By excluding numerous other cases, including killings, not only in New York but around the country, this reinforces the police claim that such a horrifying incident is only an “unfortunate aberration.” Nothing could be...