I'm not sure it's forgiving to say that they killed them out of expediency.

We have literal recordings of the motivations behind much of it, or cases where they documented the decision plainly. Poor communities don't have the political pull to get a serious response, so directing traffickers they want to have continued funding there is a way to protect that trafficker.
The war on drugs was structured to target black people and anti-war groups.

Is it really better to say they weren't trying to hurt them, they just didn't view them as people so were entirely unconcerned with what happened to them?