Alton Tong Conflict Theory

Alton Sterling was an African American man that was killed outside of a connivence store by two white police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on July 5, 2016. Sterling was pinned down by the two officers and shot multiple times at close range. The two officers were responding to a call made by a man outside of the store who claimed a man that was selling CDs (Sterling) had threatened to kill him with a gun (Kaleem & Hennessy-Fiske, 2016). The death of Sterling created a lot of controversy and started protests throughout the country. In addition, this unfortunate event received a lot of news coverage from many different sources throughout the entire nation. The New York Times and Cable News Network (CNN) were two news sources that published

While the two articles had differing views of the event, both can be applied to sociological theories that explain a divergence in class and race. Conflict theory was prevalent in the New York Times article, whereas functionalist theory was prevalent in the CNN article. In The New York Times article, “Alton Sterling Shooting in Baton Rogue Prompts Justice Department Investigation”, writers Richard Fausset, Richard Perez- Pena, and Campbell Robertson explained that the unfortunate deadly encounter was caused by an injustice in the criminal justice department. In addition to the injustice of the event, many members of the community and state officials encouraged the idea of federal investigation of the event rather than a local or state investigation (Fausset, Perez- Pena, & Robertson, 2016). This is highly supported since many investigations that are conducted through local or state law enforcement are highly criticized as there is thought to be a

Shoichet, Joshua Berlinger, and Steve Almasy claimed that the death of Alton Sterling was ultimately caused by the police officers doing their jobs (Shoicet, Berlinger, & Almasy, 2016). The CNN article is a key example of the functionalist perspective. Functionalism explains that every single aspect of a society is interdependent, and ultimately all of the aspects contribute to a society’s functioning and stability (Durkheim, 1938). The police officer’s job function is to enforce the law and create peace within a society. The article explains thats there was a conflict in the society due to Sterling not following the social norm. The two police officers were called to the store because a man’s life was threatened, and ultimately the officers did whatever it took to keep the society functioning normally (Shoicet, Berlinger, & Almasy, 2016). According to the article, Sterling should not have acted as a deviant because that was ultimately the cause of his