Alabama Governor Apologizes to India Consul General for Police Mistreatment of Indian Vistitor by Local Police
Photo courtesy of NPR website (credited to Chirag Patel/AP)
This NPR story grabbed national attention and reveals the dangers of race-based policing on immigrant communities.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley recently apologized to the government of India for an incident, captured on a squad car’s dashboard camera, in which officers slammed an Indian man to the ground. In a letter to the Consul General of India in Atlanta, Bentley said he deeply regretted the “unfortunate use of excessive force” by Madison police.
Bentley’s apology — and the incident generally shows how, as the Supreme Court recognized in Arizona v. United States (2012), state and local governments’ treatment of noncitizens can have foreign policy repercussions. Alabama previously caused controversy when police arrested a Mercedes Benz executive under the state’s controversial state immigration enforcement law.
Officers in Madison, Alabama seriously injured Sureshbhai Patel, 57, an Indian man, in a confrontation that has brought renewed attention to excessive force by law enforcement officers. Patel was severely injured when police threw him to the ground.
Patel had been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks to help with a new grandson in Madison, a suburb of Huntsville in northern Alabama, when he was stopped by two officers responding to a call about suspicious activity.The police video reveals a language barrier. “He don’t speak a lick of English,” an officer says. Police stopped Patel after a neighbor called to report “a skinny black guy” with a toboggan hat, thought to be peering into garages.
This story should remind us of the problems in the United States with race and policing affects immigrant communities. Some of the issues surrounding how national origin can influence law enforcement in podcast sensation Serial, a spinoff of This American Life, which thoroughly reviewed the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the son of Pakistani immigrants. This American Life recently devoted two shows to race and policing (here and here).
KJ