Zero tolerance or zero survival?
By Norm Dixon
The New York Police Department is issuing hollow-point ammunition — dum-dum bullets — to its cops. This is being done despite protests from citizens' groups and despite the fact that the use of such deadly ammunition in war is restricted by international treaties.
When dum-dum bullets enter the body of a victim, they immediately flatten and cause massive internal damage. Relatively minor wounds inflicted by standard ammunition become potentially lethal when hollow points are used.
It seems the NYPD and New York's authoritarian mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, have decided to extend "zero tolerance" towards street criminals to zero survival.
Giuliani claims that hollow points are safer than regular 9mm slugs because they are less likely to ricochet or pass through a victim and hit bystanders.
The switch to the deadly ammunition comes just weeks after four white elite NYPD cops killed an African street trader in the entry hall of his home, firing 41 shots and hitting him 19 times.
On March 10, 500 people — mostly high school and college students — protested outside City Hall. "How do you justify, in the wake of the killing of an innocent, unarmed citizen, giving deadlier ammunition to a police department with this blemish on its record?", asked Conrad Muhammad, an organiser of the rally.