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© PressTV
Police violence in the US has been an "epidemic" throughout the country's history, with law enforcement officers using the same tactics on Americans that Israeli police use against Palestinians, an international lawyer says.

Each year in the United States, there are "thousands and thousands of cases of police brutality [and] these cases have been going on from time immemorial," Mustafa Ansari, who is also a human rights activist, told Press TV on Monday.

"The police officers and the district attorneys and judges and the criminal justice system are all in collusion to look the other way when there's instance of police brutality," Ansari said.

He noted that cases of police brutality only receive widespread attention when the evidence is irrefutable or if the incident gets caught on camera, like last month's death of Eric Garner by the hands of New York City police.


Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, died on July 17 after he was put in a chokehold by a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer who was trying to arrest him on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk.

The tragic event sparked outrage and several protests in New York. The chokehold tactic is banned by the NYPD, which says it is investigating why the maneuver was used.

Ramsey Orta, who recorded the incident on his cell phone, was arrested on Sunday on charges of gun possession. According to an NYPD spokeswoman, Orta has told the cops, "You're just mad because I filmed your boy."

On Friday, the New York City Medical Examiner said Garner's death was a homicide, adding that he died from compression of the neck and chest while being physically restrained by police officers.

US police agencies are using the same brutal tactics across American cities that Israeli police use in Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories with "the same non-trained, same uncaring" officers, Ansari said.