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Introduction on police brutality
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Police brutality, An anthology edited by Jill Nelson.
This article goes in this police brutality is both ways, first they talk about the Guinea man who was shot by new York police 41 times and the black community wasn’t too surprised because they were used to police brutality in Brooklyn new York community. After this happened the case was moved from Brooklyn to Albany new York where it was overwhelmly more whites than any other race, with that all going on the 5 police men were charged with 2nd degree murder, mind you this town doesn’t convict cops when it comes to them being in trial for killing a citizen. And this article also talks about how white people see it different than black people for example this lady mentioned that she saw a
In today’s society, police officers are very cautious on how much force they can use on a suspect due to the police brutality going on right now. Police brutality is defined as the use of force exceeding what is necessary, many people argue that there should be new policies to determine how much force a police officer can use and also have laws that will convict officers who have killed people by using too much force, so that there is less incidents in the future.
Police brutality has been an apparent mark on the struggles, trials, and tribulations of people of minorities for years, primarily Black people. From the times of slavery to the present unlawful targeting and murders of black citizens with no justification, police brutality has been an enema in Black American culture for hundreds of years. Seen both in James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man” and in the current happenings of the United States. The hashtag “#BlackLivesMatter” has been a focal point in the current struggle for equality of the races. The current outpouring of support for black lives and
To illustrate, majority of blacks are stop by police more than any other racial groups. Police brutality is base on ethnicity. Officers seem to target black communities for many reasons. Racist cops might view blacks as less innocent compared to whites. Growing up as an African American you witness hearing your parents telling your male siblings to respect officers and to interact with them differently than they would do their families and friends. After the fatal shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The public wanted justice because the incident was not handled properly. The people wanted to express their concerns. After this incident I remember more allegation from black communities begin surfacing that the police use excessive force against them,
Today police officers are trained to kill. Steven Rosenfeld, a journalist in civil liberties for Alternet said, “The militarization of local police has been growing...They face few consequences for making mistakes, such as maiming or killing people” (Rosenfeld). This shows that the local police officers are trained with military tactics and receive no penalty for their wrong actions. Not only is there an increase in police brutality, it seems as if they are targeting specific nationalities. Tony Brown, a writer for Raw Story agrees by saying “young black males in recent years were at far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts”(Brown). Brown is blantly saying that the police seem to target one group to discriminate against. According to Brown it is 21 times greater chance for a black male to be killed over other
Police brutality is hypocrisy; as the police are meant to protect society from harm, not cause further damage and stress. Police should be trained properly so they do not resort to violence and abuse of power. Many cases of police brutality and not sanctioned and are undertaken by a group of police as a form of "mob mentality". Police are placed on a pedestal of authority and respect by the rest of society. To maintain this image, rules and codes of ethics within the police force should be maintained at all possible times. If police are using brutality to resolve issues, it doesn't set much of an example of dispute resolution between individuals. Over the past decade police abuse remains one of the most serious human rights violation in the United States. Police officers are trusted and expected to respect society as a whole and enforce the law. There is a time a place for aggressive force if needed, apprehending a suspect, however the environment and situation might influence the moment thus resulting in the brutal and barbaric behavior from the cop. The important thing to do is to understand the circumstances when excessive force can be used and times where the use of force has to be abstained. Police officers follow a strict guideline in how to handle encounters from escalating into something much more serious. The use of excessive force, in this case police brutality brings liabilities that cannot be taken lightly with the department and the community. Usually the high crime rates tend to revolve around low-income minority areas and officers tend to assume that minorities living in the areas are guilty. Police brutality that does exist is most likely result of emotional exhaustion.
The New York Police Department has a mission to "preserve peace, reduce fear, maintain order," and protect its civilians in their communities (NYPD, 2016). On the contrary, civilians do not see the police officers as individuals who are there to protect them because they do not trust the police officers or the justice system. In the past few decades, police officers have not been held accountable for their actions in a few incidents where a few unarmed young black males were killed by the police. Communities responded to this issue with the Black Lives Matter movement with protests nationwide to show support for the unarmed young black men who were killed by police. In response to the aggressive policing, methods of using body cameras and detailed incident reporting ...
In America, police brutality affects and victimizes people of color mentally and socially. Social injustice has become a major issue, which involved the principle of white supremacy vs minorities. The current police brutality that has been occurring is culturally disconnecting ethnicities from one another. According to Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell, “…the cultural disconnect is very real; you have the weight of generations of abuse on African Americans,” (Flatow, 2016). For example, over the past four years, there have been countless acts of police brutality. The three key deaths of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, and Alton Sterling have become the face of police brutality in the year 2016. People knew that it was unequal treatment of black people by police in the United States and they made it known by creating #BlackLivesMatter.
Let’s begin with the most known, Rodney G. King. Rodney was caught by the Los Angeles police on March 3rd, 1991 after a high speed chase. He was beaten by officers with their batons. A video was taken of the whole incident. The officers were acquitted. Numerous people of all colors became livid after they heard this. There were protest and riots, although many just wanted whites and blacks to come together. There are several other accounts of police brutality among individuals. To name a few; Robert Davis, Frank Jude, Steve Biko, Sean Bell, Kathryn Johnston, and the list goes on and on. What many might not notice is all the names I stated are black individuals. Zachary Hammond was a white unarmed teen who was killed on July 26, 2015. His case did a lot of attention but not nearly as much attention as any of the people I stated above. This proves a good point that Caucasian people can be shut out when it comes to police brutality. It seems as many don’t believe that whites are brutalized by police. This can be an example of falsely stereotyping one another. There are other ways we falsely stereotype one another. For example if you live in an area where there is a high population of one color of individuals no matter black or white and abundance of the police officers who watch over that area are the other color, it’s not hard to make an assumption that those officers are racist when they use excessive
For many years in the past, police action particularly police abuse, has come to be unclear. Citizens are worried about protecting them from criminals. In fact they need to me aware of the corrupt police officers that are in the streets today as well as the criminals. There are many examples that make police brutality the worst as it is today. This one is one of them. Police Officer Daniel is in the choke hold death of Eric Garner, come in the wake if November 15th by the channel 24 news in Ferguson Missouri, police officer would walk free after killing 10 year old Michael Brown. (www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523) In the present police brutality does exist in the mist of us in the time and age we live in everyday. We just haven’t seen it yet. There are people that think if a police
Police Brutality Police work is dangerous. Sometimes police put in situations that excessive force is needed. But, because some officers use these extreme measures in situations when it is not, police brutality should be addressed. The use of excessive force may or may not be large problem, but it should be looked into by both the police and the public. For those people who feel racism is not a factor in causing the use of excessive force, here is a startling fact. In Tampa Bay, Florida, five men died while in the custody of the
Furthermore, many individuals believe that the police officers are misusing their power by taking extreme measures when situations arise. In shootings for example, we see that many police officers claim that their lives were in danger and the individual displayed threatening behavior that required them to fire. Many people contend this as they think that the police officers did not have sufficient discretion in firing their weapon and used their deep rooted, or even subtle, racism in handling the situation. In other words, had the individual been White the situation would have ended differently, and not with a dead African American person. The fact that in each of these cases of police brutality the individual ends up dead and unable to tell their side of the story is extremely alarming to
When hearing the phrase “police brutality,” many people imagine batons cracking skulls, tasers electrocuting bodies and bullets penetrating innocent teens. While police officers have been known to use violence, police brutality does not occur as often as many believe. In many situations, officers have to act on impulse and curiosity, despite the backlash the media may create.
Police brutality is one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States and it occurs everywhere. The reason why I chose this topic is because police brutality happens all the time in the United States and still remains unrecognized by many. Additionally, the public should be knowledgeable about this topic because of how serious this crime can be and the serious outcomes that police brutality can have on other police officers and the public. The job of police officers is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crimes. They are involved in very dangerous and stressful occupations that can involve violent situations that must be stopped and controlled by any means. In many confrontations with people, police may find it necessary to use excessive force to take control of a certain situation. Sometimes this makes an officer fight with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all cops in communities are great cops. At least once a year, the news covers a story about a person being beat by an officer. The article “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities” by Malcolm D. Holmes from the University of Wyoming, uses the conflict theory to explain why officers go after minorities sometimes causing police brutality. It explains the police’s tension with African American and Latino males. Those minorities are the ones that retaliate more against police officers which causes the officer to use violent force to defend themselves.
Walsh & Conway(2011) suggested standards of police should be to implement transparency be responsive and maintain professional, human rights. The black people and lower class people face this violence in form of deadly force and shootings. In the 2011 publication, Gabbidon, Higgins & Potter suggested police to be more corrupt, unfair , harsh and cruel against black people.The police needs to be accountable to its community and department but by doing these kind of acts they are felt to be unsafe in the smaller communities. The brutality lead to push the black people to slavery in many countries by enforcing racial discrimination on them. In the past brutality was done by police in situations of racial discrimination which is still going on at many places to preserve power of upper class white people and for political purposes. This practice of brutality has a strong effect on minority groups like the blacks. If it is observed in a legal context police brutality is an abuse in law enforcement where a police officer has an upper hand because of the uniform they are wearing and the firearms they use which cannot be used by an ordinary individual. Examples of police brutality can be taken from the United States of America where in reality the black people are being discriminated by violating
Police brutality is an act that often goes unnoticed by the vast majority of white Americans. This is the intentional use of “excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bruises, broken bones, bloodshed, and sometimes even death” (Harmon). While law-abiding citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been revealed that they must also keep an eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve. According to the National Police Academy, in the past year, there have been over 7,000 reports of police misconduct; fatalities have been linked to more than 400 of these cases (Gul). Police brutality is often triggered by disrespect towards the police officer.