Excessive Police Brutality

In their article, “Excessive or reasonable force by police? Research on law enforcement and racial conflict,” John Wihbey and Leighton Walter Kille argue between the difference between police using excessive force or reasonable force. Another topic that is greatly focused in this article would explaining how the racial conflict in different places affect the police brutality rates. This leads to the characteristics of suspects and the use of lethal weapons or non-lethal weapons. Both the authors in this article use direct messages, facts, and opinions to communicate with the audience. To the reader or audience both of the perspectives of the authors are really one sided, they focus on the negatives of the topic a lot in this article.

The article

starts off by going over a time line about the U.S. law enforcement and how they were involved with many major police brutality events. Then, it explains how the 1992 Los Angeles riot started. It gives many examples of when victims were killed from excessive force from police officers. For example, the Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Walter L. Scott. They were all shot by police officers for no good reason and they were all African American. Lastly, the authors explained how none of the officers that were involved with the shooting were found guilty of any crime.
Next, the authors talk about the differences between characterizing suspects because of their race.

The FBI believes that there are two equal sides and views when it comes to police brutality. The truth is that the racial grouping is the main reason for police brutality because the police only push the excessive force towards a couple of groups. Survey shows latinos and blacks are the two biggest groups that are involved with police brutality. Wihbey states, “ Latinos and African-Americans, in particular suggest that confidence in law enforcement is relatively low, and large portions of these communities believe police are likely to use excessive force on suspects.”- Wihbey. Many statistics show in communities where there is a high rate of these ethnical groups those are the highest rates of police using excessive force. In the article it states, “The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.” In Missouri, where Mike Brown lived and died, black people are killed by law enforcement twice as frequently as white people. The nationwide, the rate at which black people are killed by law enforcement is 3 times higher than that of white people. Wihbey then talks about how this is a terrible statistic because it is very one-sided. Both of the authors in this article criticize the

police and law enforcement for being so blind to this statistic.
Then, the article talks about how the U.S. government and justice system is corrupt with this topic. They call it “justice homicide” this is because in all of the police brutality cases none of the officers get charged. There was an example of an officer being let off without any penalty and there was a video evidence that got tampered with. 90% of police officers don't even get to a trial in many police brutality cases. The worse part is that all of the police that get called into court have sworn to the justice system.
The last topic that the article goes over is the potential use of less lethal weapons and the use of body cameras. This will help get pure evidence of an officer if he or she is stuck in a situation that involves excessive force. This is a great idea states both the authors because it will bring justice to both the police officer and victim. However, the use of Tasers and other CEDs can reduce the statistical rate of injury to suspects and officers. The percentage of a suspect getting seriously injured or killed from a taser is reduced by 60%. Another thing that the U.S. government is trying to do is pass a law saying that many officers should wear a body camera. In many places officers that wear the body camera for a test run it shows that the excessive force fell by 90%.
In conclusion, this article was mainly about the history and examples of police brutality in the U.S.

This topic is very big in our society and modern day era because it impacts a lot of people. Throughout the article both of the authors explained all the different real life examples of police brutality. They talk about the different ways that police profile suspects and how the use lethal force. It is wrapped up by explaining how this problem could be solved and how police should use body cameras. I enjoyed this article because it gave me a lot of information about how the government it trying to take action on this

topic.
Evaluating the source
The article about police brutality by John Wihbey and Walter Kille had a very informal and opinionated approach. They both include a lot of evidence and facts about police brutality from different other reliable sources.
I think that this article was very persuasive. Mostly because it was a one sided type of argument against the U.S. law enforcement. Both of the authors were able use a lot of facts, stories, and evidence that made it believable. They both made me believe that police brutality is a huge problem in todays society. Also, it made me believe that the U.S. law enforcement is corrupt and unfair. Lastly, it made me think about the different ways that we could stop this problem. For example, the whole law about less lethal force and body cameras. I enjoyed this article because it was very clear and easy to follow because it was well organized. I think they did a very good job of pointing out there facts and where they got it from. One down side of this article was having a weak conclusion about the topic.