U.N. panel on racism and law enforcement ends first U.S. tour

It's time for America to hold itself accountable for its legacy of racism and slavery, a United Nations panel of three independent experts said at the conclusion of a 12-day U.S. tour.

Two panel members said on Friday they heard countless painful stories from victims and their families but also learned of some promising initiatives against racial discrimination.

"Overall, we have heard clear themes throughout the visit. It is time for the United States to address and acknowledge the history of slavery and the impact to this day of race," said panel member Tracie Keesee, president of the Los Angeles-based Center For Policing Equity.

"The overall themes that we've heard from the communities that we met with during our visit is that there is a culminating exhaustion in the Black community, and the exhaustion of being Black is present in their daily lives," she said. "They need systemic accountability for past and for future violations. This includes mental health services for victims and survivors and for family members."

Keesee, a retired 25-year veteran of Denver's police force and former deputy head of equity and inclusion for New York's police force, and another panel member, Juan Méndez, of Argentina, an American University professor of human rights law, visited officials, police, unions, citizen groups and victims in communities at Washington D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York City.

They also went to two correctional facilities in Los Angeles and Chicago. The panel's chair, Yvonne Mokgoro, was unable to join the tour as planned due to injuries from an accident, Keesee said. Mokgoro is a U.S.-educated former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where she spent 15 years.

"We placed a lot of emphasis on trying to understand the perceived impunity for many of the cases of misconduct of law enforcement that affect persons of African descent," said Méndez, who served as a U.N. special rapporteur on torture and as Kofi Annan's special advisor on genocide prevention.

"Throughout the visit, we heard the harrowing pain of victims and their families and the resounding calls for accountability and support," he said. "We support those calls for accountability unreservedly."

'There'll be no quick fixes'

The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva set up the panel on racism and law enforcement in July 2021 largely in response to the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. The panel was created to determine what concrete steps could be taken to counter racism and police brutality against Africans and people of African descent.

The panel – officially called the U.N. Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the context of Law Enforcement (EMLER) – said it already has shared its preliminary findings with the U.S. government and will draft a full report to the 47-nation council that will be published at its fall session.

The panel's first U.S. tour ended with a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, where it called for stronger state and federal actions including new standards of policing and reforms that define the mission and scope of police.

"Racial inequity dates back to the very creation of this country. And there'll be no quick fixes to the state of things. It needs a whole government approach," said Keesee.

"This needs to be more than a slogan and calls for comprehensive reform and strong leadership at all levels," she said. "Slavery and legalized discrimination have left a deep, entrenched legacy, still experienced in the daily lives of those people of African descent."

Given the diversity of people's experiences, the panel found "a divergent understanding of what safety means and what it needs to be addressed," Keesee added. "We also heard from law enforcement that they've been asked to do too much and that they've become a catchall for the community's every need."