<HTML>I believe the Latin American death squad norm  and the US Lynch mob norm  both include varying degrees of involvement, participation, or looking the other way by police authorities at many levels. That should probably be distinguished from legal and procedural shredding of civil liberties including protection against police abuses. Police involvement as described above is certainly police abuse, but definitely not the only known form of that. DoreneC In a message dated 4/28/2003 11:56:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time, frank@marin.cc.ca.us writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Subj:[lbo-talk] Re: death squads in our future? Date:4/28/2003 11:56:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time From:<A HREF="mailto:frank@marin.cc.ca.us">frank@marin.cc.ca.us</A> Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org">lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org</A> To:<A HREF="mailto:lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org">lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org</A> Sent from the Internet "Didn't a few Black Panthers meet their ends at the hands of death squads of sorts?" police departments and informant-infiltrators, as I recall, but not vigiliante style lynch-posses or such...anyone know, or remember differently?? fs -- -- ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>