BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) — The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China published a document titled “Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2016″ on Thursday.
Following is the full text of the document:
Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2016
JANUARY
Jan. 4
The Washington Post website reported that Eric John Senegal, a 27-year-old black man, was shot by police in a house in Ragley, Louisiana.Jan. 5
The Washington Post website reported that Albert Thompson, a 28-year-old Hispanic man armed with a hand torch, was shot by police in an apartment building in Ceres, California.
Jan. 12
The Washington Post website reported that Herman Bean, a 49-year-old native American man, was shot by police in an apartment in Spenard, Alaska.Jan. 14
The Washington Post website reported that Miguel Hernandez, a 39-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by police on a street in Santa Clarita, California.
Jan. 16
The Washington Post website reported that Kelsey Rose Hauser, an unarmed 25-year-old woman, was shot by police in El Cajon, California.
Jan. 17
The Washington Post website reported that the Education Department in fiscal 2015 received 65 civil rights complaints related to K-12 school districts’ handling of sexual violence — triple the number the agency had received the year before.
Jan. 27
The Washington Post website reported that Janet Wilson, a 31-year-old black woman driving a vehicle, was shot by police near a shopping center in Dearborn, Michigan.
Jan. 29
UN News Center reported on its website that a delegation of the UN Working Group of experts on people of African descent appointed by the UN Human Rights Council visited Washington D.C., Baltimore, the town of Jackson, Mississippi, Chicago, and New York City from 9 to 29 January.
The experts expressed serious concerns about the police killings, the presence of police in schools, and violence targeting the African American community with impunity, and racial bias in the criminal justice system, mass incarceration and the criminalization of poverty which disproportionately affects African Americans.
The experts’ report said that there has been no real commitment to recognition and reparations for people of African descent in the country. Systemic racism continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights of African Americans. The experts expressed serious concerns about the police violence targeting the African American community and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The working group is concerned about the problem of killings and excessive use of force committed by law enforcement officials while on duty, and it is deeply concerned about the low number of cases in which police officers have been held accountable. The experts found that contemporary police killings and the trauma it creates are reminiscent of the “racial terror and lynching” of the past. Impunity for state violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency. The report said that killings of unarmed African Americans by the police is only the tip of the iceberg in what is a pervasive racial bias in the justice system. The incarceration rate for African American males is 5.9 times higher than the rate for white males. African Americans, constituting 14 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for 36 percent of sentenced federal and state prisoners. From an early age African Americans are treated as a dangerous criminal group and face a presumption of guilt. Racial bias and disparities in the criminal justice system and the tough-on-crime polices disproportionately impact African Americans. Race was a significant factor in death penalty cases in the United States. The report also noted the disparities in access to education, health, housing and employment. More than 10 million (26 percent) of African Americans remain mired in poverty, and 12 percent live in “deep poverty.” In 2015, of the more than half a million homeless people in the United States, African Americans constituted 40.4 percent.
“The persistent gap in almost all the human development indicators, such as life expectancy, income and wealth, level of education, housing, employment and labor, and even food security, among African Americans and the rest of the U.S. population, reflects the level of structural discrimination that creates de facto barriers for people of African descent to fully exercise their human rights,” Ms. Mendes France, head of the group, stressed.
Jan. 30
The Washington Post website reported that Philip B. Salazar, a 38-year-old Hispanic man armed with a scissors, was shot by police in a house in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Jan. 31
The Washington Post website reported that Bruce Kelley, a 37-year-old black man, was shocked with a stun gun and shot by police in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Family said that he suffered from mental illness.
FEBRUARY
Feb. 1
The Washington Post website reported that Peter John, a 36-year-old black man, was shot by police on a street in Washington, D.C..
Feb. 4
The Washington Post website reported that Antronie Scott, an unarmed 36-year-old black man, was shot by police in San Antonio, Texas.
On the same day, Pew Research Center published a national survey conducted December 8-13 2015, among 1,500 adults. The survey finds that 62 percent say the federal government does not do enough for middle-class people, 59 percent say the government does not do enough for poor people or for children, 66 percent say the government doesn’t do enough to help older people, 49 percent say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living and 62 percent say that good jobs are hard to find in their community.
Feb. 5
The Guardian reported that after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had forced the Pentagon to release nearly 200 photos of Bush-era torture in Iraq and Afghanistan after a court battle that has lasted more than a decade. Those pictures featured bruises, reddened marks and bandaged body parts. The ACLU called the release insufficient, selective and indicative of a cover-up of detainee abuse stretching across the Bush and Obama administrations. It also pledged to keep fighting for approximately 1,800 more images the Pentagon continues to withhold, which it believes documents far more graphic detainee torture.
Feb. 8
The Washington Post website reported that David Joseph, an unarmed 17-year-old black male, was shot by police in Austin, Texas.
Feb. 9
The Washington Post website reported that Gustavo Najera, an unarmed 22-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by police in a park in Anaheim, California.
Feb. 11
The Atlantic reported that more than 500,000 people were homeless in the United States at the end of 2015, citing a report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “You have to understand this: We people as homeless have lives, just like you all have lives. We don’t want to be out on the street but we don’t have an alternative. People have no other place to go,” said Owen Makel, 65, who has been homeless for nearly 14 years in Washington, D.C. On November 20, 2015, the residents of Makel’s camp were evicted from the area, according to local reports.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that Mohamed Barry, a 30-year-old black man was shot by police in a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.
Feb. 13
The Washington Post website reported that Calin Roquemore, an unarmed 24-year-old black man, was shot by police in Beckville, Texas.
Feb. 17
New York Daily News reported that Paul Gaston, a 36-year-old black man, was shot by Cincinnati police officers. Before that, Gaston had just been in a serious car accident. Witnesses called 911 after witnessing Gaston “stumble” out of a pickup truck he had been driving before crashing into a telephone pole. When police found him 650 feet from the crash scene and ordered him to the ground, he followed their initial orders, but appeared to be confused. After lying on the ground for a moment, he comes back to his knees and is immediately killed in a hail of gunfire from three different officers. Police claim Gaston appeared to reach for a gun in his waistband — but it was a fake one. However, things were totally different just one day before. Cincinnati police on Feb. 16 were called to a home to investigate an assault. When they arrived to investigate they were met by 26-year-old Christopher Laugle (a white man), who pulled a gun out and pointed it at police, who have since openly admitted that they “felt threatened” and “did not know the gun was fake.” Police peacefully arrested Laugle after he resisted and in his mug shot, he doesn’t appear to have a scratch. Simply charged with “menacing,” his bond was set at the low price of 2,000 dollars. The report says that the two incidents and their differing outcomes highlight the different police attitudes towards black and white men.
Feb. 21
The Washington Post website reported that Marquintan Sandlin, a 32-year-old black man, was shot by police in Inglewood, California. The man was a passenger in a car stopped at an intersection. Inglewood police approached the car and noticed that the woman who was driving had a gun. Officers shot and killed Sandlin and the woman, Kisha Michael.
Feb. 23
The Washington Post website reported that Travis Stevenson, a 48-year-old black man driving a vehicle, was shot by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
On the same day, the Daily Mail reported that Dana Ericson, 59, of Nashiville, Indiana, allegedly attacked Chinese exchange student Zhang Yue with a hatchet as she was taking photos for a school project. Zhang survived the alleged attack thanks to her thick coat but still suffers from lacerations in her back that are two-inches deep. Ericon told police he is a white supremacist and that he wanted to kill Zhang as an act of “ethnic cleansing.”
Feb. 24
The Washington Post website reported that Victor Rivera, a 27-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by police in Phoenix, Arizona.
On the same day, Francisco Garcia, a 26-year-old Hispanic man driving a vehicle, was shot by police in a gas station in Cerritos, California and Christopher J. Davis, an unarmed 21-year-old black man, was shot by police in East Troy, Wisconsin, according to the Washington Post website.
Feb. 25
The Washington Post website reported that Greg Gunn, a 56-year-old black man armed with a pole, was shot by police in a yard in Montgomery, Alabama.
MARCH
March 2
The Los Angeles Times reported that there were over 100 colleges and universities under federal investigation for cases of sexual misconduct in the United States by the beginning of March 2016. The story said that Gabriel Piterberg, a history professor with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), paid a fine of 3,000 U.S. dollars and was suspended without pay for 11 weeks over sexual harassment. It said 38 faculty members wrote a letter to UCLA’s chancellor in protest of the light punishment. In the letter, the teachers said allowing Piterberg’s return to campus would make students feel unsafe and serve as a sign of tolerance for sexual harassment. In a separate protest letter, more than 65 graduate students criticized the secrecy surrounding the case and said the administration was perpetuating the unsafe and hostile climate of their department by allowing Piterberg to return. The Los Angeles Times story said a poll of 200 graduate students at University of California, Santa Cruz showed 32.6 percent of the respondents had either been sexually harassed before or known other victims.
March 3
The Washington Post website reported that Sergio Ochoa, a 27-year-old Hispanic American, was shot and killed by police in the backyard of a Gilbert home, Arizona.
March 4
The Guardian website reported that the U.S. economy added 242,000 jobs in February, but Americans’ wages declined 0.1 percent from the prior month. Unemployment rates remained far higher for minorities: African and Hispanic Americans were jobless at rates of 8.8 percent and 5.4 percent respectively.
March 5
The Washington Post website reported that in a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll published in 2015, one in five young women who had attended a residential college in the past four years reported being sexually assaulted.
March 8
The Washington Post website reported that in 2016, U.S. women still made less for doing the same work as men and predicted the U.S. women wouldn’t reach pay parity with men until 2058. According to the National Women’s Law Center, mothers in the United States who work full time, year round, make an average of 40,000 U.S. dollars, compared to 56,999 dollars paid to fathers.
March 10
The Washington Post website reported that German Gonzalez, a 23-year-old Hispanic American man, was shot dead by police in Colorado City, Colorado.
March 12
The Washington Post website reported that Peter Gaines, an unarmed 37-year-old African American man, was struck with stun gun and then shot dead by police in Houston, Texas.
March 13
The Washington Post website reported that unarmed Jose Raul Cruz, a 16-year-old Hispanic American man, was shot dead by police in Addison, Texas.
March 16
The Washington Post website reported that unarmed Cristina Rene Medina, a 23-year-old Hispanic American man, was shot dead by police in Florence, California. Medina’s family said he suffered from depression.
March 27
The Washington Post website reported that Loreal Tsingine, a 27-year-old woman, was shot dead by police in Winslow, Arizona, for having a pair of scissors in her hand.
March 30
The BBC reported that Chicago saw 575 shooting cases and 125 murder cases by March 20, 2016.
APRIL
April 1
The Los Angeles Times reported that some of America’s most racially integrated neighborhoods and cities were on a path to becoming segregated all over again. Covina, 22 miles east of downtown L.A., provided an example of one city at risk of re-segregating. Whites made up about 26 percent of Covina as of 2014 and Latinos about 57 percent. By 2025, Covina is likely to be overwhelmingly Latino. Something similar happened already in nearby Norwalk. In 1990, just under half of its residents were Latinos and about a third were whites (not unlike Covina now). By 2014, Latinos made up 70 percent of residents and whites 11 percent. The data showed that vast portions of south and east Los Angeles were slipping from mixed populations toward single race populations. And the change had not just occurred in formerly white areas.
April 5
The Washington Post reported that unarmed Kevin Hicks, a 44-year-old African American, was shot dead by police in Indianapolis of Indiana.
April 6
The website of Miami Herald reported on April 6 that a disabled prisoner who used a wheelchair was suing the Florida Department of Corrections, alleging that he was denied use of a restroom by officers, who laughed at him as he urinated on himself. A disability rights group received complaints from 32 inmates and filed a federal lawsuit against the state, alleging that the prison system has routinely discriminated against prisoners who were deaf, blind or in wheelchairs, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the lawsuit, handicap showers and toilets were frequently not available for people in wheelchairs and wheelchairs were often taken away from inmates in confinement. The suit also claimed that guards and other prison staff frequently refused to allow handicapped inmates to participate in programs available to other inmates. The violations caused inmates to suffer “humiliation, indignity and difficulties.” The group also said that prisoners were repeatedly denied assistance and threatened with punishment if they complained.
April 10
As reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune website, Jennifer Reisch, legal director at Equal Rights Advocates, said that there was plenty of evidence to show women of color were facing lower pay for many reasons and one of those reasons was the combination of race and gender. According to a review of federal labor statistics by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), women comprised about 60 percent of California workers earning minimum wage or less, and the majority of those women were not white. According to NWLC’s study of U.S. Census Bureau surveys, compared to their non-Hispanic and white male counterparts in California, Latinas made 43 cents to every dollar, Native American women made 50 cents, black women made 63 cents and Asian American women made 72 cents in 2014.
April 11
As reported by The New York Daily News website which cited a new report by Public Advocate Letitia James, women working for the municipal government agencies of New York had a gender pay gap three times larger than those in private sector. James’ analysis found women with city government jobs made 18 percent less than men, compared to 6 percent for jobs at private for-profit companies, and 7 percent at private nonprofits.
April 13
The Washington Post website reported that 35-year-old African-American Rodney Watts was fatally shot by police in Stockton, California.
April 15
The Washington Post website reported that 38-year-old Hispanic American Clemente Najeda armed with baseball bats was fatally shot by police in Lake Elsinore, California.
April 18
The USA Today website reported that a group called “Democracy Spring” on April 11 began a 140-mile walk to the U.S. Capitol to “demand Congress take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice.” A related group “Democracy Awakening” joined the efforts on April 16 to protest discriminatory laws, such as Voter ID laws. U.S. Capitol Police arrested more than 900 protesters.
April 22
The CNN reported that eight family members found dead in rural southern Ohio community were shot in the head “execution style” at four crime scenes. Killers were at large.
April 23
The Washington Post website reported that the 21-year-old African-American Demarcus Semer was shot by police in Fort Pierson, Florida.
April 29
The Daily Caller website reported that New York Times and its top executives were socked with a race, gender and age discrimination class action lawsuit by two older African-American female employees who claimed they were denied promotion in favor of younger whites on April 28.
MAY
May 8
The BBC website reported that in April 2016, three men from the ethnic minority groups, Mario Woods, Alex Nieto and Amilcar Lopez, were shot dead by police in San Francisco. Some members of the public accused police chief Greg Suhr of heading a racist force and staged hunger strike calling for Suhr to be sacked from his job. There are more than 1,000 fatal shootings by police in the United States each year, and those killed are disproportionately African-American.
May 11
A research by the Pew Research Center showed that in 2016 the American middle class were shrinking in metropolitan areas across the country. From 2000 to 2014, the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas. The decrease in the middle-class share was 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.
May 12
A report by the Pew Research Center showed that a widening wealth gap resulted that fewer people remained in the middle class. “The shrinking of the American middle class is a pervasive phenomenon. It has increased the polarization in incomes,” said Rakesh Kochhar, lead author of the report. The report found that in nearly one quarter of metro areas, middle-class adults no longer made up a majority. Even many of the cities with substantial middle-class populations were under stress.
May 14
The Washington Post website reported that the number of homicides increased in the first months of 2016 in more than two dozen major U.S. cities, going up in places that also saw spiking violence in 2015. Then White House press secretary Josh Earnest said some cities were experiencing a troubling surge in violent crime.
May 17
The Guardian website reported that an analysis by the AFL-CIO union found that chief executive officers of the top 500 companies took home 12.4 million U.S. dollars on average in 2015, about 340 times the average worker’ s wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average production worker, who does not hold a supervisory role, earned about 36,900 U.S. dollars a year in 2015. Adjusted for inflation, the wage had remained stagnant for about 50 years.
May 19
The Washington Post website reported that Jeremias Cruz, an unarmed 30-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by police in Las Vegas, Nevada. On the same day, the website reported that Jessica Nelson-Williams, an unarmed 29-year-old black woman, was shot by police in San Francisco, California.
May 21
The Guardian website reported that on May 20, the largest gang attack occurred in Chicago and lasted two days. Three people were killed and 11 were wounded. Among the dead was a city employee caught in crossfire after she left a Starbucks near the Chicago police headquarters. Gun violence killed more than 200 people in Chicago in 2016. There were more than 700 homicides.
May 22
The Christian Science Monitor website reported that on May 21, the United States launched a drone strike against the leader of the Afghan Taliban in a remote border area inside Pakistan. U.S. officials said the strike was authorized by the President and included multiple drones. On May 22, Pakistan said the United States did not inform the Pakistan government beforehand and accused the United States of violating its sovereignty.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that Michael Eugene Wilson Jr., an unarmed 27-year-old black man, was shot by police in Hallandale Beach, Florida.
On the same day, the website reported that Vernell Bing, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, was shot by police on a street in Jacksonville, Florida.
May 25
The Washington Post website reported that Doll Pierre-Louis, a 24-year-old black man driving a vehicle, was shot by police in Miami Gardens, Florida.
JUNE
June 7
The Washington Post website reported that Omar Villagomez, a 21-year-old Hispanic man driving a vehicle, was shot and killed by police in a parking lot in Turlock, California.
June 12
The Washington Post website reported that on June 12, a gunman opened fire inside a crowded nightclub in Orlando, killing 50 people and injuring 53 others in a rampage that was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. history.
June 14
The Washington Post website reported that the CIA released 50 previously classified documents, exposing details of the agency’s treatment of terrorism suspects after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Among the newly released files was a detailed internal investigation of the interrogation and death of Gul Rahman, a militant suspected of ties to al-Qaeda. He was locked at a CIA prison in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit and was regarded as a defiant adversary who was unlikely to “break” unless being subjected to increasingly severe measures. He was “shackled in a sitting position on bare concrete while nude from the waist down,” repeatedly doused with cold water and was “showing early signs of hypothermia.” Patrollers noticed him shaking one morning. Two hours later, he was found “lying motionless on his right sid… a small amount of blood coming from his nose and mouth.” An autopsy concluded that Rahman had died of exposure to severe cold. According to the documents, at Salt Pit, prisoners were routinely kept in diapers and then stripped of them when they failed to cooperate. The CIA acknowledged the mistaken arrest in 2004 of Khalid al-Masri, a German citizen. He was transferred by the CIA to the Salt Pit, where interrogators “quickly concluded he was not a terrorist and had no al-Qaeda connections.” However, the two Agency officers primarily involved in al-Masri’s rendition justified his continued detention, despite the diminishing rationale, by insisting they knew he was “bad.”
June 15
The Christian Science Monitor website reported that according to the National Center on Elder Abuse, five million older adults were abused each year and 90 percent were abused by their family members, and half were the person’s children. Abuse can be verbal, financial, physical, or sexual.
June 16
The Washington Post website reported that Nicholas Damon, a 30-year-old Hispanic man driving a vehicle, was shot by police in Westminster, Colorado.
June 22
The FOX News website reported that the American Civil Liberties Union sued former Air Force psychologists James E. Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen for helping design CIA interrogation techniques in October 2015 on behalf of three former CIA prisoners. The lawsuit contended the psychologists condoned waterboarding, loud music, confinement, slapping and other harsh tactics. Lawyers for the pair filed documents in federal court, denying that they committed torture or war crimes. But Mitchell and Jessen declined to respond to many of the allegations, saying much of the information was classified. They asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit and award them court costs.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that Isaiah Core, a 20-year-old black man driving a vehicle, was shot by police in Birmingham, Alabama.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that Deravis Caine Rogers, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, was shot by police in Atlanta, Georgia.
June 25
The Washington Post website reported that Rodrigo Guardiola, an unarmed 36-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by the police in Gainesville, Georgia.
June 27
A survey by the Pew Research Center found profound differences between black and white adults in their views on racial discrimination, barriers to black progress and the prospects for change. Eighty-eight percent of blacks said the country needed to continue making changes for blacks to have equal rights with whites, but 43 percent were skeptical that such changes will ever occur. Fifty-three percent of whites said the country needed make changes for blacks to achieve equal rights with whites, and only 11 percent expressed doubt that these changes would come. Blacks were more likely than whites to say black people were treated less fairly in the workplace (a difference of 42 percentage points), when applying for a loan or mortgage (41 points), in dealing with the police (34 points), in the courts (32 points), in stores or restaurants (28 points), and when voting in elections (23 points). Blacks were also more likely than whites to say racial discrimination (70% vs. 36%), lower quality schools (75% vs. 53%) and lack of jobs (66% vs. 45%) were major reasons that blacks may have a harder time getting ahead than whites. A majority of blacks (71%) said that they had experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity. Only 5 percent of whites said their race or ethnicity made it harder for them to succeed in life.
JULY
July 7
The BBC reported live that on July 7, as hundreds of people in Louisiana continued protesting over the police killing of African American man Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, police in Minnesota stopped a car with a broken rear light and found a gun inside. As African American man Philando Castile was reaching for his driving license, police suspected he was reaching for the gun and shot him. Castile’s girlfriend live-streamed the incident, which showed he looked painful after being shot and his right chest was covered in blood. About 200 people protested and requested a federal investigation into the shooting. U.S. President Barack Obama said these shootings were not isolated incidents, but “symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system.” The man’s mother said that her son was just “black in the wrong place” and that there was “a silent war against African-American people.” Data show that U.S. police shot 1,152 people in 2015 and 30 percent of the victims are African Americans. 97 percent of the deaths were not followed by any charges against police officers.
July 8
The Washington Post website reported, a total of 509 citizens in the United States had been killed by police since 2016 and 123 of those shot were African Americans, a relatively high percentage given that they only accounts for about 13 percent of the population. Of the 509 killed so far this year, at least 124 were thought to be suffering from mental illnesses. In at least 22 cases, police officers mistook toy guns for real ones.
July 10
The Chicago Tribune website reported, women tend to earn less than mean during their working years and they are more likely to live in poverty during retirement. The National Institute on Retirement Security reports, women are 80 percent more likely than men to be impoverished at age 65 and older. Women aged 75 to 79 are three times more likely to be impoverished than men of the same age group. According to the Census Bureau, over a 40-year career, the pay gap between men and women adds up to an average of 430,480 U.S. dollars. For minorities and women of color, the number is much higher.
July 14
The USA Today website reported, police killings of African Americans Alton Sterling and Philando Castile had prompted public outrage after videos of the incidents went viral. On the night of July 7, a gunman named Micah Johnson shot five white police officers in downtown Dallas and injured nine others. The man said he did so to protest against police brutality. In a New York Times/CBS News survey, 69 percent of poll respondents said race relations are generally bad, 31 percentage points higher than a year earlier. The Times noted, it was the most discord since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles during the Rodney King case.
On the same day, the New York Post reported, an investigation found Tennessee State Representative Jeremy Durham had used his position to sexually harass at least 22 female interns, lobbyists, staff and political workers.
July 20
The Guardian website reported that U.S. air strikes on a Syrian village have killed at least 73 civilians, including 35 children and 20 women. The rest of the dead bodies were charred or had been reduced to shreds.
July 26
According to the Daily Mail website, the Major Cities Chiefs Association released their mid-year report for 2016, which shows that violent crime overall in major cities was up by two percent in the first half of 2016 compared with the same period of 2015. Among that, homicide cases have seen particularly dramatic increases, with 307 more cases reported than the same period of the previous year, a rise of up to 15 percent. Chicago reported 316 homicide cases, up by 48 percent.
July 27
According to the Washington Post website, Dalvin Hollins, an unarmed 19-year-old black man, was shot by police on a street in Tempe, Arizona. Hollins’ family told police he had been struggling with mental illness.
AUGUST
Aug. 7
Data released by the U.S. Public Religious Research Institute show, a chasm separates black and white Americans’ attitudes toward the police: 64 percent of African Americans and 17 percent of white Americans say that police mistreatment is a major problem in their community. 65 percent of whites say recent killings of African American men by police are isolated incidents, while only 15 percent of black Americans say the same. Eighty-one percent of black Americans and 34 percent of whites say recent police killings of African American men are part of a broader pattern of how police treat African Americans in the country.
Aug. 10
The New York Times website reported, Baltimore’s zero-tolerance policing approach had spread from New York to many departments big and small. It encouraged police officers to make large numbers of stops, searches and arrests for minor, highly discretionary offenses. The approach led to a breakdown in police-community relations in Baltimore and prompted a frenzy of unconstitutional policing aimed at African Americans that was more about racking up statistics than reducing violent crime. Data from police departments around the country show, officers using the zero-tolerance strategy focused their arrests on African-American men in poor neighborhoods, while ignoring the same offenses in wealthier white neighborhoods. For example, from 2008 to 2011, New York police officers issued eight citations for riding bicycles on sidewalks in Park Slope, a predominantly white Brooklyn neighborhood, but 2,050 in nearby Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is primarily African-American and Latino. In June 2015, an American Civil Liberties Union report showed, African Americans and native Americans were nearly nine times more likely than whites to be arrested on minor offenses.
Aug. 14
The San Diego Union-Tribune website reported, women who worked for San Diego County’ s five supervisors were paid 62 cents for every dollar earned by the men who worked alongside them, which amounts, on average, to a difference of 37,380 U.S. dollars in pre-tax pay per year. In cases where two people have similar job descriptions, women, on average, earn less than men. In the case of legislative analysts, women with this job earn, on average, 21,400 U.S. dollars less than men.
Aug. 15
The Washington Post website reported, Jovany Martinez, a 29-year-old Hispanic man armed with a metal pole, was shot by police in Falls Church, Virginia.
Aug. 16
According to the Guardian website, report released by the U.S. National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) showed, Latino women earn as little as 54 cents for every dollar white men make. Black and Latino women will lose more than 877,000 and one million dollars respectively over a 40-year career compared to their white male counterparts. The report also shows, even black women with a high level of education still experience a wage gap. Emily Martin, vice president of NWLC, said, “If we don’t act now to ensure equal pay, for many women of color, the cost of the lifetime wage gap will surpass a million dollars.” There are six states, including the District of Columbia, where the lifetime wage gap has already surpassed one million U.S. dollars: 1,595,200 for the District of Columbia; 1,231,600 for New Jersey; 1,140,400 for Connecticut; 1,134,880 for Louisiana; 1,046,960 for California; 1,022,440 for Massachusetts.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported, Marcos Antonio Gastelum, an unarmed 25-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by police in Tucson, Arizona.
Aug. 17
The Washington Post website reported, Omer Ismail Ali, a 27-year-old black man armed with a piece of wood, was shot by police in a gas station in Kelso, Washington.
Aug. 25
According to the International Business Times website, the public schools of Richmond, Virginia, have allegedly discriminated against black and disabled students for a long time. On August 24, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed an indictment to the U.S. Department of Education, alleging that the Richmond public schools practiced inconsistent punishment regarding student code of conduct between black and disabled students and their peers (black or disabled students received more punishments like suspension and expulsion). An analysis of 2014-15 school year data from the Virginia Department of Education show, black and disabled students in Richmond were suspended almost 13 times the rate of white students without disabilities.
Aug. 30
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a 10-year-old girl named Victoria Martens was murdered in Albuquerque, the largest city of New Mexico. A week later, police said they had found the dismembered body of Martens in her mother’s apartment. The girl’s mother, the mother’s boyfriend and his cousin face charges of child abuse resulting in death, kidnapping and tampering with evidence. Local law enforcement and school district officials said drug abuse and poverty are at the root of much of the violence that children might face at home.
SEPTEMBER
Sept. 11
The Urban Institute released a report noting that an estimated 6.8 million people ages 10 to 17 are food insecure, meaning they don’t have reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. Another 2.9 million are very food insecure, and roughly 4 million live in marginally food secure households, where the threat of running out of food is real. Food-insecure teens who don’t get enough to eat sometimes resort to extreme measures to cope with hunger. Such measures may include engaging in criminal behavior, ranging from shoplifting food directly to selling drugs and stealing items to resell for cash. Some traded sex for money to buy food.
Sept. 12
A Washington Post website report said that Christian Vargas, a 25-year-old Hispanic man, was shot dead in a parking lot in Colton, Calif. by police.
Sept. 16
Mapping Police Violence website revealed that police have killed at least 263 black people in the United States as of September 16, 2016.
Sept. 19
The Guardian website reported that a new survey showed that Americans own an estimated 265 million guns and there are an estimated 55 million American gun owners. There are America’s gun super-owners – an estimated 7.7 million Americans who own between eight and 140 guns. Since 1994, America’ s estimated total number of gun owners has grown by 10 million. More than 30,000 gun deaths take place annually.
On the same day, the CBS reported on the same day that an African-American man Terence Crutcher was fatally shot by a white Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer responding to a stalled vehicle. Crutcher had no weapon on him or in his SUV.
Sept. 20
An article at the Gallup website said that the percentage of Americans who say they are in the middle or upper-middle class has fallen 10 percentage points, from a 61 percent average between 2000 and 2008 to 51 percent today. That could means that 25 million people whose economic lives have crashed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total U.S. adult population that has a full-time job has been hovering around 48 percent since 2010 — this is the lowest full-time employment level since 1983.
Sept. 21
The Guardian website reported that on September 20, Keith Scott, 43, was shot and killed in Charlotte, North Carolina by Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer Brentley Vinson, who is also black, after being mistaken for a wanted man. Police said officers went to a Charlotte apartment complex looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when they encountered Scott, who was not the suspect they were looking for, inside a car. According to the police, officers saw the man get out of the car with a gun and then get back in. When officers approached the car, the man got out of the car with the gun again. At that point, officers deemed the man a threat and at least one fired a weapon. A weapon was recovered by detectives at the scene. However, the police version is at odds with that of Scott’s family. Scott’s sister insisted that Scott, a father of seven, was disabled, sitting in the shade reading a book, waiting on his kids to get off the bus. She said Scott had no gun and wasn’t messing with nobody. Protesters took to the streets after the fatal police shooting. As protests swelled on, police used teargas in an attempt to disperse crowds heard yelling “Black lives matter” and “Hands up, don’t shoot!” One person held up a sign saying “Stop killing us;” another sign said: “It was a book.”
On the same day, the Miami Herald website reported that a 16-year-old girl in Georgia told her high school she was sexually assaulted by a boy at the school’s newsroom, but was suspended for multiple times for the case. In the course of the school’ s investigation, officials forced her to participate in questioning in the same room as her alleged assaulter, act out what had happened.
Sept. 26
The FBI released its annual compilation of crimes noting that there were an estimated 1,197,704 violent crimes committed around the nation in 2015 and the estimated rate of violent crime was 372.6 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, about 4 percent and 3.1 percent increases respectively when compared with 2014 data. Aggravated assaults accounted for 63.8 percent of violent crimes reported to law enforcement in 2015. Robbery offenses accounted for 27.3 percent of violent crime offenses; rape accounted for 7.5 percent; and murder accounted for 1.3 percent. There were an estimated 7,993,631 property crimes, resulting in losses estimated at 14.3 billion U.S. dollars. Nationwide, law enforcement made an estimated 10,797,088 arrests in 2015. Of these arrests, 505,681 were for violent crimes. The estimated arrest rate for the United States in 2015 was 3,363.0 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants.
On the same day, the U.S. State Statista website revealed statistics that in 2015, an estimated 15,696 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter occurred nationwide.
Sept. 27
The website of Washington Post reported that Alfred Olango, an unarmed 38-year-old black man, was shot in El Cajon, California by police.
Sept. 30
Chicago Tribune website said in an article that the Chicago State University reported that only 86 new students enrolled in its freshman class in September 2016. The total enrollment of 3,578 that year is less than half the 7,362 students who attended CSU in 2010. Other state universities also reported significant declines in freshman enrollment. Eastern Illinois University in Charleston said its freshman class was 25 percent smaller than a year ago. It is believed that the situation is “a result of the ongoing Illinois budget crisis.” The per-student funding for Illinois’ public colleges and universities is 54 percent below 2008 levels. Arizona has cut education funding by 56 percent.
OCTOBER
Oct. 4
The Washington Post website reported that Isaias Salgado, a 31-year-old Hispanic man armed with a brick, was shot dead by police in Riverview, Florida.
Oct. 5
The USA Today website said in an article that more than 160,000 children in 19 states are the victims of corporal punishment in schools each year, according to a new research released by the Society for Research in Child Development. African-American children in a few southern school districts are more likely than white students to be smacked or paddled by a school worker. Black children in more than half of school districts in Alabama and Mississippi, for instance, are at least 51 percent more likely to receive corporal punished than white children, while in one-fifth of districts in both states, black children are more than 500 percent, or five times as likely, to be spanked or paddled. Using data issued periodically by the federal government’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), researchers found that black students in several other southern states — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee — are also more likely to get corporal punishment.
On the same day, the USA Today website reported that a coalition of community activists and parents of students in the Indian River School District is suing the district in federal court, contending its leaders operate one special-education school as a “dumping ground” for African-American students who would be treated better if they were white. The lawsuit alleges George Washington Carver Academy is effectively a segregated school within the district, a “punitive dumping ground for African-American students.” White students who bring cellphones to district schools, the lawsuit claims, usually see them confiscated for a day. But when an African-American student was seen with a phone in her backpack, a referral to Carver followed, the lawsuit says. Indian River, the lawsuit alleges, makes a habit out of “removing them [black students] from its mainstream schools and sending them to Carver in disproportionate numbers on flimsy pretexts, segregating them at Carver on arbitrary grounds and for arbitrary periods of time, and neglecting their educational needs.”
Oct. 11
A CNN report said that the U.S. Supreme Court grappled with a case concerning racial bias in jury deliberations, as the justices considered the case of a juror in Colorado who urged other jurors to find a man guilty “because he’s Mexican and Mexicans take whatever they want.” The case pits secrecy rules in jury deliberations against the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a fair and impartial jury. Justice Elena Kagan noted there was “screaming race bias” in the jury room. Lawyer Jeffrey Fisher called racial bias a “stain” on the entire judicial system.
Oct. 14
The Associated Press and the USA Today website reported that during the first six months of 2016, minors died from accidental shootings — at their own hands, or at the hands of other children or adults — at a pace of one every other day, far more than limited federal statistics indicate.
Oct. 16
USA Today website said in an article that homelessness is everywhere in the United States, but there are often no enough shelters for them. Lorraine Yarbrough, executive director of Day By Day Warming Shelter, said that there are more than 60,000 people who are homeless in Wisconsin but lack of transitional housing hinders anti-homelessness efforts.
Oct. 19
The Washington Post reported that police officers who kill civilians rarely face criminal charges. About 1,000 civilians are killed by police each year, but since 2005 only 77 officers have been charged with manslaughter or murder in connection with those deaths. And criminal investigations in these cases usually drag on for months or years before the community and the victims’ family members know whether charges will be filed.
Oct. 28
The New York Times website reported that the Justice Department has branded the Baltimore Police Department’s response to sexual assault cases “grossly inadequate.” Baltimore officers often disregarded some complaints filed by sexual assault victims and sometimes humiliated women who tried to report sexual assault. There were even complaints that some officers target members of a vulnerable population — people involved in the sex trade — to coerce sexual favors from them in exchange for avoiding arrest, or for cash or narcotics.
On the same day, the Los Angeles Times website reported that one in three homeless people in Los Angeles County are women, according to government figures released in 2016. The total of more than 14,000 women is a 55 percent increase from 2013. The number of women camped out in RVs, tents and lean-tos doubled in the last three years. Homeless women face staggering levels of violence. A survey released by the Downtown Women’s Action Coalition found that nearly half of skid row women had been attacked in the previous 12 months; more than a quarter of them were sexually assaulted.
NOVEMBER
Nov. 6
The Washington Post website reported that David Contreras, a 33-year-old Hispanic man, was shocked with a stun gun and shot dead by police on November 6, 2016, in Santa Ana, California.
Nov. 8
The CBS website reported that Americans who were running for federal elective offices spent about 6.8 billion U.S. dollars, more than what consumers spent on cereal (six billion). The nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics estimated spending on the Clinton-Trump contest at more than 2.65 billion U.S. dollars.
Nov. 9
According to the website of the Los Angeles Times, U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed eight civilians, including three children, in the Iraqi village of Faziliya, north of Mosul, late last month.
Nov. 14
The FBI National Press Office released the Hate Crime Statistics 2015, saying that law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 5,850 criminal incidents and 6,885 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity in 2015. There were 5,818 single-bias incidents involving 7,121 victims and 32 multiple-bias hate crime incidents involving 52 victims.
Nov. 15
According to the website of the Christian Science Monitor, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said in a report that U.S. armed forces and the CIA may committed war crimes by torturing detainees in Afghanistan. The report added that “the victims were deliberately subjected to physical and psychological violence, and that crimes were allegedly committed with particular cruelty and in a manner that debased the basic human dignity of the victims.”
Nov. 16
The Independent website reported that a spy base named Titanpointe located in a windowless Manhattan skyscraper with sheer concrete walls that could reportedly survive an atomic explosion appeared to be a secrete location used for NSA surveillance program, using equipment of the company AT&T and spying on phone calls, fax messages and internet data. The NSA took advantages of satellite antenna of the skyscraper to intercept satellite data including emails, chats, Skype calls, passwords, and internet browsing histories. It targeted at least 38 countries including U.S. allies, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
Nov. 19
The Washington Post website reported that Erickson Brito, a 21-year-old black man armed with a baton, was shot on November 19, 2016, in an apartment building in Brooklyn, New York.
Nov. 21
According to the Guardian website, organizers from the group Fight for 15 said that tens of thousands of low-wage workers would protest at 20 different airports on November 29. In addition to the strike at airports, fast-food workers, home care and childcare workers also planned to protest as part of the Fight for 15 dollars movement calling for a 15 dollars-an-hour minimum wage and union rights.
On the same day, the United States again voted against the draft resolution of “The right to development” at the 71th UN’s General Assembly.
Nov. 25
The Washington Post website reported that a Louisiana mother called Jackson said that her eight-year-old son was injured when he tried to protect his four-year-old sister during an after-school altercation in which other children hurled racial insults before slamming the boy on the ground. Another child told her son “You need to go back to the cotton farm.” A family member said the other children involved in the attack were white.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that, Carlos Valencia, an unarmed 26-year-old Hispanic man, was shot on November 25, 2016, in Tucson, Arizona.
Nov. 29
Al Jazeera News and Agencies website reported that thousands of Native American in North Dakota had spent months protesting against plans to route the oil pipline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock reservation and camped on government property near the project they were trying to stop. Governor Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota had ordered the expulsion of thousands of Native American and asked the demonstrators to vacate their encampment before December 5. The demonstrators were sprayed with water in sub-freezing temperature, while they vowed to continue their resistance to the project which posed a threat to water resources and sacred Native American sites.
Nov. 30
The CNN website reported that in the presidential election 2016, voter turnout dipped to nearly its lowest point in two decades, with about 55 percent of voting age citizens casting ballots.
DECEMBER
Dec. 2
The Washington Post website reported that a guard at New York City’ s troubled jail Rikers Island “savagely” kicked an ailing inmate to death four years ago, before persuading fellow guards to lie about what happened.
Dec. 6
The Washington Post website reported that, in the afternoon on December 4, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, was alleged to have entered the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington and terrorized the place with a semiautomatic rifle. Welch surrendered and walked backward out of the pizzeria unarmed and with his hands up. Police did not shoot him. But that didn’t work for African American Terence Crutcher, 40, who had his hands up and back turned, and he was unarmed, but was shot and killed by Tulsa police in September. A Washington Post report on police shootings in 2015 found that black Americans were 2.5 times as likely to be shot and killed by police as white Americans. Unarmed black men were five times as likely to be shot and killed by police as unarmed white men.
Dec. 8
The Santa Fe New Mexican website reported that, on December 5, three children were shot dead inside their Albuquerque home. The three were aged from five to nine. Investigators said they were killed by their mother’s ex-boyfriend and their mother tried to save them.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that two police officers were killed in shooting near the campus of a Georgia university. The suspected shooter was found dead.
The USA Today website also reported, on the night of December 6, Giants fullback Nikita Whitlock had his home marked with “KKK” letters and the words “Go back to Africa” while he was away. “Racism is real and instead of close to home this time they came inside. My family is safe but we are saddened by the hate,” Whitlock said, adding that it was the second time in the last few weeks when his place was broken into. The last time happened during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dec. 11
According to the gunviolencearchive.org website, as of December 11, 2016, the total number of gun violence and crime incidents was 54,322, including 364 mass shooting incidents, causing total deaths of 14,027 and 28,844 injuries. 640 children aged 0 to 11 were killed or injured, and 2,921 teens aged 12 to 17 were killed or injured.
On the same day, the Washington Post website reported that as of 22:00, December 11, 896 people were shot dead by police in 2016. More than a third of them fled from officers and under a third of them were under age 30.
Dec. 12
The Washington Post website reported that President Barack Obama on Dec. 12 turned down a request from some senators to declassify a Senate report documenting the CIA’s harsh treatment of detainees after 9/11. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, top Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence panel, said “It’s my very strong belief that one day this report should be declassified.” “This must be a lesson learned: that torture doesn’t work.”
Dec. 14
The San Francisco Gate website reported that 73-year-old Francisco Serna walked out of his home and into his driveway shortly after police arrived. When Serna, who was unarmed, did not comply with officers’ orders to remove his hands from his jacket pocket, one officer fired seven shots at him, killing him. Serna’s family members said he was suffering from the early stages of dementia.
Dec. 19
The Washington Post website reported that a U.S. prosecutor told a federal jury the former head of the nation’s largest sheriff’s department was the driving force behind a conspiracy to thwart a federal investigation into beating by guards and other abuses at the Los Angeles County jail system. The conspiracy by ex-Sheriff Lee Baca and his aides deprived inmates who were beaten of justice and allowed deputies to escape accountability. The corruption probed led to convictions of 20 members of Baca’ s department, including nine on obstruction-related charges.
On the same day, at the 71st UN’s General Assembly, the United States voted against draft resolutions related to human rights including “Human rights and unilateral coercive measures,” “Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order,” and “Declaration on the right to peace.”
Dec. 20
Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that in 2014, 1,053 inmates died in local jails. This was an eight percent increase from 2013 and the largest number of deaths reported by the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP) since 2008. Causes of death Suicide was the leading cause of death in local jails in 2014, and accounted for 35 percent of all deaths in 2014. The number of suicides in 2014 grew by 13 percent than 2013. Respiratory disease deaths increased 32 percent from 2013 to 2014.In 2014, there were 3,927 inmate deaths in state and federal prisons, the largest number of inmate deaths reported in state and federal prisons since DCRP began collecting data in 2001. Of the total deaths, 3,483 were in state prisons and 444 in federal prisons. The number of deaths in 2014 in federal prisons rose by 11 percent than 2013. In state prisons, AIDS-related deaths increased 23 percent, and the number of suicides increased by 30 percent from 2013 to 2014.
Dec. 31
The Washington Post website reported that 963 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016. According to monthly statistics, in 2016, the U.S. police shot 81 people dead in January; 86 in February; 92 in March; 73 in April; 74 in May; 92 in June; 72 in July; 82 in August; 78 in September; 77 in October; 78 in November; and 78 in December.