Xenophobic white americans and their police leave 57 year old visiting Indian grandfather in hospital with partial paralysis !!

WASHINGTON: Sureshbhai Patel was walking on the footpath outside his son's home in Madison, Alabama, when patrol cops accosted him because someone called the police to report a suspicious character in the neighbourhood.

Patel, who came to the US only two weeks ago to help his son and daughter-in-law with their 17-month-old child, was roughed up, shoved to the ground, and cuffed — a standard operating procedure that usually involves excess force if the suspect is coloured.

The incident, which occurred last Friday, left Patel temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized for surgery.

On Monday, the Madison police issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer concerned and were investigating the use of force in the case. The police also wished Patel a "speedy recovery", while suggesting there may have been a "communication barrier".

Patel's son Chirag acknowledged that his father speaks mainly Gujarati and Hindi and has limited English, but he maintained that his father was not looking into other people's garages, and he clearly told the police his house number when he was stopped. "There is nothing suspicious about Patel other than he has brown skin," said Hank Sherrod, the attorney retained by the family told the local media. "This is just one of those things that doesn't need to happen. That officer doesn't need to be on the streets."

While the family plans to sue the police, the incident underscores the well-chronicled police brutality against minorities and coloured people in America even as its president goes around the world delivering lofty lectures about tolerance, human rights, and civil liberties.

[link to timesofindia.indiatimes.com]

And here was Barack Obama lecturing India about religious tolerance 2 weeks ago !