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Analyze the relationship between race and the criminal justice system
Analyze the relationship between race and the criminal justice system
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Under the name of the “Death Angels”, Manuel Moore, Larry Green, Jessie Cooks, and J.C.X Simon killed at least 15 people and injured at least eight others between 1973 and 1974 during the most brutal killing spree in the history of San Francisco. Christine Lamberson (2015) recounts “The Zebra Murders”; her journal article addresses the issue of clashes between civil liberties and race. It was believed that the murders were racially instigated because whites were targeted as victims. The spree reached full race-war status on Jan. 28, 1974. That night, five shootings in various parts of the city resulting in four deaths and one injury were carried out by a gang of men using a .32 caliber pistol. Afterwards, Operation “Zebra”, named for police …show more content…
radio frequency Z that was dedicated to the operation, launched with the aim of arresting the murderers. Lamberson (2015) reports that African Americans protested the name of the operation as racist and it evoked massive civil movements against the operation to hunt down the “Zebra” murderers, then symbolizing African Americans. The entire calamity was an indicator of rising crime rates, radical violence, and distrust in law enforcement aims. There occurred to be a rift between the civil liberties and security afforded to the community by officials making it difficult to control San Francisco’s residents. Under Mayor Joe Alioto, San Francisco enacted racial profiling by ordering the police to interrogate every African American in the city and to issue them a card to show the next police officer to confirm they had already been interrogated.
Eventually, the four suspects, all African American Muslims, were apprehended. Even so, the San Francisco Bay Area was negatively affected and it was deemed a dangerous region. The memory of the murders still lingers in the background of San Francisco culture to this day. There has been a sour relationship between the African Americans and police since that time, and today many whites in San Francisco may still hold a racist attitude towards African Americans because of everything that happened. One area hit by this drift was Bayview-Hunters Point since it possesses the highest percentage of African Americans of any district in the city. According to Lamberson (2015), the murders created cleavages down racial and political lines. They were a redevelopment of the old rivalries between people of color and whites stemming from the well-known instances of turmoil such as slavery in the old South, Jim Crow laws, and the death of Martin Luther King Jr. The implication of supposed involvement of a Muslim cult in the shootings was a future radicalization of other racial groups and stands out as an indication of political violence that has evolved to less visible but potentially more deadly threats hidden in today’s society (Lamberson,
2015). Given the intensity of the murderers, only time will tell what sort of long-term ramifications the implication of racial and religious principals in the murders will have on socio-cultural fabric. I feel the “The Zebra Murders” article lends a key examination of the way attitudes about the way that race and criminal violence are tied to each other in San Francisco. Homicide is a very pronounced violence, so attributing the stigma of violence to the city’s African American community must be all too easy for residents of other races. Personally, I feel that stigmatizing a community as prone to committing crime instead of trying to understand how time can change the way that people feel about each other and learn to get along is a very popular idea. Nevertheless, it’s only important for society to concentrate on building cooperation between races and caring about each other if we hope to live comfortably in our cities. I know that in the years since the murders, there hasn’t been a similar incident in San Francisco. I take that as a positive sign that nobody wants anything like “The Zebra Murders” to happen again.
Months before Emmett's death in 1955, two African American activists in Mississippi had been murdered. An NAACP field worker, the Reverend George Lee, was shot and killed at point blank range while driving in his car after trying to vote in Belzoni. A few weeks later in Brookhaven, Lamar Smith was shot and killed in front of the county courthouse -- in broad daylight and before witnesses -- after casting his ballot. Both were active in black voter registration drives. No one was arrested in connection with either murder
In February 1998, Watertown, SD, was not bursting with riveting activity. Watertown had a population of 20,127 people in 1998, which is not much less than the 22,000 residents it has today. Brenda Barger was mayor of Watertown, SD, during the years of some of the worst flooding ever in Watertown. Although the little town of Watertown seems like the perfect rural town to raise a family, it’s not all butterflies and rainbows. On February 1, it was reported that two teenage girls were accused of beating a 47 year-old man to death in his home. David Paul Bauman died of a head injury caused by the girls. Bauman was currently unemployed and mildly disabled due to a car accident a number of years earlier (“2 Teen-agers Arrested in Watertown Killing”
October 2002 was the beginning of what seemed like the longest three weeks in the Washington Metropolitan Area. No one wanted to believe that what was happening would change the lives of thousands. What appeared to be a random killing spree by an enraged lunatic, turned out to be part of a massive plan that claimed the lives of ten innocent people in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. When these shootings first began, they were believed to be linked to a white van or truck. It was later discovered that these shootings were being carried out by a man named John Allen Muhammad, and his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan.
Over a three week period in October 2002 a series of random sniper attacks paralyzed the Washington D.C. area. The shootings happened in in various establishments such as super markets, gas stations, restaurants and near schools turning normal tranquil areas into chaotic murder fields. There were no age group, gender or ethnicity that was safe, Victims were randomly selected and everyone was targeted. After the murderous spree, ten people were declared dead and several others wounded. The perpetrators were finally apprehended while they were sleeping at a resting spot and later identified as forty-one-year-old John Allen Muhammad and his seventeen-year-old Jamaican-American protégé, Lee Boyd Malvo.
Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly Force, by David Klinger, explores the effects that shooting a deadly weapon will have on law enforcement officers. The author interviews over eighty men and women from a number of police agencies spread across four states. He conducts these interviews to note the pre and post mental conceptions police officers have after shooting a gun in the line of duty. Klinger shares his interviewees’ stories in the novel to show readers how pulling the trigger of a gun can cause a variety of issues both within and outside of a police officer’s life.
1-The story tells, Real facts occurred in the 1940s, where it was a racist society. Gangs were scattered throughout the cities, and regions, and the streets. To live, you have full get away, or belonging to one of them. You should help the gang members that they were right or on falsehood. Also, it is a kind of bigotry, not much different from intolerance, national, ethnic, and sectarian That were prevalent in American society. in fact, it is the inevitable result of this society. When the corruption becomes prevails, injustice and lawless prevails too, and justice will disappear.
As the buzz begins to build surrounding the death of a beautiful and vibrant young 28-year-old black woman from Illinois, Sandra Bland, it is important that blacks take the time to examine their mindset and approach to confronting the suspicious circumstances behind her death. According to an article by ABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News in Chicago, this young lady had just completed an interview with her alma mater, Prairie View A&M, for a job position there in the Student Outreach program — a job she was awarded.
Rodney King thought that the misconduct of the police would pass by as many other misconduct reports that had not been successful due to the lack of evidence. However, Rodney King case was different. A bystander had film part of the brutal beating that Mr. King had received by four officers of the LAPD. A few months later Mr. King filed a lawsuit against the four officers clamming that the officers had use excessive force and had assaulted him with deadly weapons. On the other hand, the four officers alleged that Mr. King had resisted to the arrest, and had attempted to rush over one of the officers. The following three months of trial a sensation of racial tension could be behold by the African American population and the mostly White Police Department. On the final day of the trial, the Jury which was composed of no African American members decided to acquit the four officers of all charges (CNN, 2012). The African American population of Los Angeles did not liked the decision the jury had given and exploded in outrage. Rioters started to destroy the city and attack individuals who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. According to CNN (2012) the three day riots caused more than fifty
This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
Tension between the LAPD and African American residents boiled over and had its hand in starting the Watts riots. The traffic stop of Marquette Frye made the community believe excessive force was used. Once the residents of the Watts suburb witnessed Marquette, his brother and mother get arrested they went into battle mode. The riot got so bad that the California National Guard was called to active duty to assist in controlling the rioting. The five
Chief Magnus’ position on racial bias, which plagues many police departments, caused outrage, for Chief Magnus decided to join in on the recent movement of “Black Lives Matter”, by hold up a protestor’s sign that says, “Black Lives Matter”. Chief Magnus’ statement, by holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign during a demonstration, shocked the community and the nation, but brought the communities’ ideals of justice in line with his own ideals. Though there were some people that frowned up on the actions of Chief Magnus, there were many people that agreed with his decision to join the protest, as well as many people were promoting Chief Magnus’ courage to speak out. The communities outrage of the officer involved shooting that happened almost on the other side of the country, stems from the ideal that police officers have systemically been racially bias against the African American community; the racial bias and excessive force proponent in dealing with African Americans is a crime to the community. In an interview with Chief Magnus, by SF Gate (2014), Chief Magnus said, “It was intended to be a humane statement,” but at the same time, he’s also with the police officers by saying, “I can understand how it is hard for a lot of
In Malcom’s speech Malcom brings up a riot in New York City caused by police brutality. Malcom justifies the riots of his peers by saying in his speech “but they gave the impression of hoodlum’s vagrants and criminals, but this is wrong. The landlord is white, the merchant is white, and in fact the entire economy of the Black community is white.” Malcolm uses this ideology to justify the rioters breaking windows and causing trouble in their own community because they are not hurting themselves; however they are hurting the white population by destroying the white’s property. Since the time of the New York riots many other riots have occurred based on the same ideology, some of which have occurred within the last few years. In 2014 the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked riots within the town of Ferguson and unrest throughout the nation. In this specific case it was found that the officer did not kill Brown based on race rather out of self-defense, regardless of the findings by the investigation the people of Ferguson continued to riot. In a more recent incident on April 18th 2015 in Baltimore the riots ensued because a man by the name of Freddie Gray was killed by police days earlier. In this instance the investigation found the killing to have been a murder; never the less, riots still ensued in Baltimore for multiple days protesting police
It was a glorious April 4th evening as Martin Luther King and hundreds of followers were gathering for a civil rights march. Many cheered on as the civil rights leader graciously out step on the second floor balcony of the Motel Lorraine. Roaring cheers rose from the crowd rose up as Martin Luther King stand there waving his arm with his heart warming smile waiting for the uprising taper off so he can continue with his speech. When suddenly a piercing blast broke the noise and the crowd’s cheerful spirit died. A cold chill went through all who were present fore in the back of their minds there was no doubt that their King had just been shot.
Latinos accounted for one third of those who were killed, one third of those who were arrested, and almost one half of the shops that were looted and burned belonged to persons of the Latino ethnicity. Based on the 1990 US census, South Central Los Angeles, which was the area most heavily attacked during the riots had a population that was 45 percent Latino and 48 percent Black. The large percentages did not unite the community yet divided South Central into two dominant cultures, that of the Latinos and Blacks. Since Rodney King was an African American, the news predominantly focused on the black community in South Central. Yet, even though the two communities were viewed as totally separate entities, different spaces and places, during the riots they eventually grew to unite over common sentiment such as mistreatment from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD), and huge unemployment rates in downtown Los Angeles. From the years of 1984-89 citizen complaints about police brutality rose 33 percent. In addition, according to the Los Angeles Times, from 1986 to 1990 around 1,400 officers were all investigated for claims regarding excessive force, yet only one percent was prosecuted. When a nationwide recession hit Los Angeles, it caused already major unemployment rates to spike to almost 45 percent for black males in South Central Los
Chaney, Cassandra, and Ray Robertson. "Racism and Police Brutality In America." Journal of African American Studies 17.4 (2013): 480-505. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.