Today in Eliminationist Racism

[Content Note: Eliminationist racism; police brutality; violent imagery.]

While people continue to protest in the streets, demanding justice on behalf of black men and women slain by police officers, police officers in North Miami Beach used mugshots of black men for target practice:

Members of the Florida Army National Guard showed up to a shooting range and found mug shots of African American men apparently used as targets by North Miami Beach Police snipers, who had used the range before the Guardsmen.

The Guardsmen were angry and one of the photos on the target was a Sgt.'s brother, a mug shot taken years ago, according to NBCMiami.com.

There is an image of the target at the link; it shows mugshots of six black men, with bullet holes torn through their faces. The target was left behind, like so much trash, where it was discovered by the National Guard unit, including the sergeant who recognized the face of her brother.

This rank eliminationist trash is utterly contemptible and indefensible. And yet the police chief is pretty fucking sanguine about the whole thing:

Police Chief J. Scott Dennis admitted that his officers could have used better judgment, but denies any racial profiling.

"There is no discipline forthcoming from the individuals who were involved with this," Dennis said.

None of the officers who participated in this spectacle of grotesquery should be allowed to keep their jobs. And "racial profiling" is hardly the issue: This is straight-up fucking terrorism. How are black people in North Miami Beach supposed to feel safe, knowing police officers are using images of them for target practice? And who—WHO—could possibly believe that using black faces for target practice has zero effect on officers' disposition to see black people oppositionally, zero effect on officers' inclination to shoot at black suspects?

This is not okay. None of this is okay.

[H/T to Jordan and Deeks.]