Dominican Republic: Police killed 2,367 people in 5 years

Amnesty deplores police abuse in Dominican Republic

By TOM BROWN | REUTERS

Oct 25, 2011

SANTO DOMINGO: Amnesty International issued a scathing report on the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, saying its national police force was responsible for killing and torturing with impunity.

The police force was responsible for an average of 15 percent of recorded violent deaths each year in the Dominican Republic from 2005 to 2010, according to the report.

“That proportion is alarming and raises significant concerns that police frequently employ disproportionate force with deadly consequences,” the report said.

The London-based human rights group said police abuse in the Caribbean nation came against the backdrop of a surge in violent crime linked to drug trafficking, a proliferation of firearms and growing social inequality.

It said “hard-line policing methods” were contributing to escalating violence and crime rather than helping to curb it and that police abuse had flourished due to inadequate government oversight and reforms.

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Cuffed, Pepper-Sprayed

Published on Sunday, September 25, 2011 by the New York Daily News

by Matt Deluca and Christina Boyle

Women screamed in pain after police rounded them up and sprayed them with pepper spray. (Photo/Jefferson Siegel)

Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent.

Hundreds of people carrying banners and chanting “shame, shame” walked between Zuccotti Park, near Wall St., and Union Square calling for changes to a financial system they say unjustly benefits the rich and harms the poor.

At least 80 people were carted away in police vehicles and up to five were hit with pepper spray near 12th St. and Fifth Ave., where tensions became especially high, police and organizers said.

The National Lawyer’s Guild, which is providing legal assistance to the protesters, put the number of arrests at 100.

Witnesses said they saw three stunned women collapse on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face.

A video posted on YouTube and NYDailyNews.com shows uniformed officers had corralled the women using orange nets when two supervisors made a beeline for the women, and at least one suddenly sprayed the women before turning and quickly walking away.