Hugo Skavez normally drops one-man ska band singles, but here is something slightly different- a cumbia single. While this is a little different for his Hugo Skavez tracks, he has plenty of experience in both ska and cumbia.
Hugo Skavez songs are always message-driven, and this is absolutely not an exception. Not only a sharp critique on policing in America, but also an attack onAmerican’s insistence on ignoring root causes of problems or actually addressing problems in favor of increasing military and police budgets and mass incarceration.
This song questions how, if it’s just a few bad apples as many seem to say, then why do killings by police officers continue? In fact, the number of people killed by police continues to climb- there have been 56 more people killed by police in the US in the first 6 months of this year than last year… and last year broke a record for most police killings in a single year. Police have killed 760 people in the US through July 17th, in 48 states, and there have inly been 10 days this year where nobody was killed by a police officer.
This song was released the same month when Sonya Massey was murdered by a police officer when she called the cops to report that she thought she heard a prowler outside her house. After the police cleared the area and determined there was no threat outside, they asked to come in to get information from her. When the officer asked her to take the boiling water off the stove because she was making tea, she made a comment and the officer, who was standing quite a distance away in another room, drew his gun and told her to drop the water. She complied, put her hands up, and apologized, he shot her in the head. In this case, the officer has been charged and fired, but that is rarely the case. In fact, this officer was released from the military for drinking and driving. He had been arrested twice for drinking and driving, and had worked for 5 other police departments and released before this department hired him and he killed someone.
This is, sadly, a reality in America, where police officers who make the news for murdering or abuse of force, or deprivation of civil and human rights have been released or allowed to quit other departments while under investigation- ending the investigation and going unreported.
In the Sonya Massey murder, when the police notified her family that she had been shot and was killed, and the family asked what happened, the police said they were investigating the situation and they were aware that she had issues with a neighbour- allowing the family to infer that perhaps a neighbour had killed her. The reports to the media were that there was an officer-involved shooting, but no mention that the police had shot an unarmed woman in her own house who was never the suspect of any crime. They refused to answer questions about whether the woman was armed or if she was the suspect of a crime. The police lied through omission to protect their own officer for several days.
While these details aren’t specified in Hugo Skavez’s single- the chorus of “I guess the bad apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, will we ever see accountability” and includes the line “they put brotherhood and loyalty above serving community” so it definitely shows he is acutely aware of these facts.
These songs need to be shared and spread wide until people really understand what police corruption is like. In the wake of this murder, Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised that all police would be granted federal immunity. Please, stream this song, if just for support of the message.
Written by Gimp Leg
