Sureshbhai Patel, who is not fluent in English, was roughed up, shoved to the ground, and cuffed by policemen in Alabama.

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”.Apparently, when the police officer attempted to frisk Patel, the 57-year-old grandfather attempted to pull away, following which he was “forced to the ground, which resulted in injury”. The police also said they were responding to a call about a man looking into the garages of people in the neighbourhood.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.The US has the largest number of incarcerated people in the world, far more than the dictatorships and totalitarian regimes it chastises (and also patronizes), and it hardly seems embarrassed about its awful record.On Tuesday, the MacArthur Foundation announced an initial five-year, $75 million investment that “seeks to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails”.The foundation said its safety and justice challenge will support cities and counties across the country “seeking to create fairer, more effective local justice systems that improve public safety, save taxpayer money, and lead to better social outcomes”.According to the foundation, there are nearly 12 million local jail admissions every year in America. Nearly 75% of the population of both sentenced offenders and pretrial detainees are in jail for nonviolent offences like traffic, property, drug, or public order violations. Local jurisdictions now spend $22.2 billion annually on correctional institutions.Alabama itself has a reputation as a poor, racist, underdeveloped state. Its intolerance is in the news right now on account of many of its local officials defying a federal ruling legalizing same-sex marriages, a situation worthy of a presidential lecture on forbearance.