Extrajudicial Killings - United States

United States

See also: Lynching in the United States See also: Disposition Matrix

In the late 19th and early 20th century, lynching was a common form of extrajudicial killing practised in the Southern United States.

In 1934, a group of six law officers ambushed the outlaw couple Bonnie and Clyde, and opened fire with automatic weapons and shotguns. Since that incident, it has become standard procedure for law officers to order suspects to halt or stop. Laws in the U.S. continue to be reviewed and revised, and agents are monitored in a system of internal checks and balances coupled with citizens' advocacy groups, to minimize the possibility that government officials will exceed their lawful authority.

On September 30, 2011 a drone strike in Yemen killed American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both individuals resided in Yemen at the time of their deaths. The executive order approving al-Awlaki's death was issued by the Obama administration in 2010 and challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights in that year. The U.S. President issued an order, approved by the National Security Council that al-Awlaki's normal legal rights as a civilian should be suspended and his death should be imposed, as he was a threat to the United States. The reasons provided to the public for approval of the order was Al-Awlaki's links to the 2009 Fort Hood Massacre and the 2009 Christmas Day bomb plot, the attempted destruction of a Detroit-bound passenger-plane.

Read more about this topic:  Extrajudicial Killings

Famous quotes related to united states:

    I feel most at home in the United States, not because it is intrinsically a more interesting country, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do. We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.
    Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)

    So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.
    Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)

    America—rather, the United States—seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, overfriendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The schnuckle among the nations of the world.
    Edna Ferber (1887–1968)

    The popular colleges of the United States are turning out more educated people with less originality and fewer geniuses than any other country.
    Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)

    The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)