Black Eyed Peas star will.i.am has said the US police force is a “terror squad” which has “inflicted fear” on the nation’s black and brown youth.
The 45-year-old rapper, who grew up on a housing project in Los Angeles, said deprived areas needed investment rather than more policing.
He said that as an African-American, he had friends who had been killed by police officers. Will.i.am’s comments came after Black Lives Matter protests in the US and UK, sparked in May by the death of unarmed man George Floyd in Minnesota.
He said: “As an African American, you know, you’ve been brought up in a community, in communities where the police have been the terror squad – trying to find the right word. “They’ve killed your friends.