Black men used for target practice

North Miami Beach, Fla., cops have taken racial profiling to a new level. They’re shooting at old mug shots of Black teenagers.

“Why is my brother being used for target practice?” asked Valerie Deant after she found his picture with a bullet hole in it. Police had left the Medley Firearms Training Center before Ms. Deant arrived with other members of her National Guard unit.

Bird killers, also known as hunters, practice by shooting clay pigeons. Racist police rehearse by shooting at targets of Black people.

Local police Chief J. Scott Dennis announced that no disciplinary action will be taken against the officers. He said that shooting at pictures of African Americans “is vital for facial recognition skills.” (The Root)

Those “facial recognition skills” were apparently used by North Miami Beach police to kill 57-year-old Ernest Vassell, a Black man with autism, on Aug. 31, 2011.

People with disabilities are often targets of police terror. Cops claimed that Mr. Vassell had a toy gun.

Ernest Vassell’s sister, Claire Harding, told WFOR-TV, “That’s no reason for you to kill somebody!”

There was no reason either for Cleveland cops to kill 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a Black youth with a toy gun, on Nov. 22 last year. The killer cops then tackled Tamir’s sister, who was trying to help her dying brother.

“Robocop” Brian George didn’t need a reason to kill Nicholas Naquan Heyward Jr. on Sept. 27, 1994. The 13-year-old honor student was playing with a toy rifle in the Gowanus Houses of Brooklyn, N.Y.

North Miami Beach is a small town with about 43,000 people. The population is more than three-quarters Black or Latino/a, with a large Haitian community.

Police in North Miami Beach; Ferguson, Mo.; and New York City don’t arrest slumlords or racist bosses. The cops are there to terrorize poor people.

These terrorists in blue need to be disarmed. Power to the people!