ICP Asked UN About Philando Castile & Alton Sterling, Ban on Dallas

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 8 -- After the police killings in the U.S. of Philando Castile outside St. Paul, Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the UN said nothing. So Inner City Press on July 7 asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the killings, and pattern. And on July 8, more came from the UN in Geneva, then New York or really China, where Ban Ki-moon still is. Here's the July 7 transcript:Video here, UN transcript here:

Inner City Press: a US question.  Over the holiday or in the last 48 hours. two African-Americans have been, in a very high-profile way, killed, Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.  One was captured on film, the whole incident.  And I wanted to know, although these might seem to be disparate incidents, does the… what does the Secretary-General think, if the United States has enough protections for particularly members of minority or other groups… being shot by the police?

Spokesman:  First of all, our condolences go to the families of the victims involved in both shootings.  I think anybody who’s seen the videos, they are extremely disturbing, to say the least, and we would hope that each of these cases are investigated thoroughly in order to find out what happened and also to establish if there is, in fact, any pattern.

Ban Ki-moon on July 8: The Secretary-General condemns the killing of five police officers during a rally in Dallas yesterday.  He extends his condolences to the families and colleagues of the victims, as well as the Police Department of Dallas. There is no justification for such violence. Those responsible compounded the suffering that many in the United States feel following the killing of two African-American men over two days. Those killings must be the subject of a thorough and impartial investigation. They once again put the focus on the need to address discrimination, including racial disparities in law enforcement, in a comprehensive manner.

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