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Introduction to racial profiling essay
Racial profiling in society
Racial discrimination in the police force
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Imagine you’re driving down the highway, and you’re speeding. You get pulled over and the cops ask you to get out of the car, the next thing you know you’ve been shot (Que Rainey). You know speeding is a crime, but since when is it punishable by death? In the year 2017, 223 Black people were killed in the United States by Police Officers, when not committing a serious crime. The case of Patrick Harmon is racial profiling, it lead to his death.
Police officers should not shoot Black men, or any race unless they have committed a huge crime, or if they are going to hurt someone. The Guardian article says, “The death of Patrick Harmon is another reminder, that progressive policies do not stop officers from unjustly killing Black Americans who do not pose a threat.” J-walking, speeding, and walking down the street with your hood up should not be a reason to get shot by a Police officer. One can see the case of Patrick Harmon and see that he didn’t commit a crime that should be punished by death.
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It says in the Guardian article, “Salt Lake officials have claimed that the killing of Harmon was legal because the officers feared for their lives, even though the video, released the local media, revealed that Harmon was not advancing toward them.” If it’s not racial profiling then why did the police officers have to lie about the situation, when clearly their body cameras don’t show Patrick going after the police? In the report, if the officers had to lie about the shooting of Patrick, then they know that shooting him was
The justice system is in place in America to protect its citizens, however in the case of blacks and some other minorities there are some practices that promote unfairness or wrongful doing towards these groups. Racial profiling is amongst these practices. In cases such as drug trafficking and other criminal acts, minorities have been picked out as the main culprits based off of skin color. In the article “Counterpoint: The Case Against Profiling” it recognizes racial profiling as a problem in America and states, “[In order to maintain national security] law-enforcement officers have detained members of minority groups in vehicles more than whites”…. “these officers assume that minorities commit more drug offenses, which is not the case” (Fauchon). In relationship to law enforcement there has also been many cases of police brutality leaving young blacks brutally injured, and even dead in recent years, cases such as Michael Brown, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Freddy Gray just to name a few. Many of these young men were unarmed, and the police involved had no good justification for such excess force. They were seen as threats primarily because of their skin color. Despite the fact this nation is trying to attain security, inversely they are weakening bonds between many of its
Your statement clearly states that this shooting was unjustified because the system is corrupt and has always been towards people of color. Even with videotaped evidence the eyes of the American people remained unconvinced that this is not a systematic problem. The incident involving Crutcher could have easily been handled without the use of deadly force. Today’s officers are supposed to be professionals who know the rules and understand the need for proper conduct (Criminal Justice in America, Page 149). Officer Betty was the first to arrive on scene. Her dash cam was never activated which leads to missing evidence that could be very helpful in this ongoing
This political action memo explains that I want the speed limit lowered in my neighborhood. Then it provides five political actions I can take to get the speed limit lowered on my residential street. First, I will explain why the speed limit should be reduced and how it will benefit my neighborhood's safety concerns. Then I will explain both the positives and negatives of the five political actions I could take: making a phone call to my city council member, completing a Traffic Service Request form, sending an e-mail to my state legislature, attending a city council meeting, or creating a petition. Finally, this political action memo concludes that sending an e-mail to the Transportation
There were no charges made against officer Wilson even with the suspects that claimed Michael Brown didn't do anything wrong . Police brutality has made black people take a stand and they formed the Black Lives Matter Movement.The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2012 after George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community, shot and killed Trayvon Martin. Following Martin’s death protests, rallies, and marches were held all across the nation. The Black Lives Matter movement includes all the ways in which black lives are less powerful at the hands of the state, it is a call for action against brutality by police and vigilantes, people who take the law into their own hands by trying to catch or punish someone in their own way. Politicians are also trying to straighten gun laws to prevent homicides like Bernie Sanders. Sanders wants stricter background checks so guns won’t be in the wrong hands. He also wants to ban assault weapons to citizens that were made to kill people. I personally think this can help improve our nation because it will give people with a criminal history less chances of owning guns but it also gives a right to people without a criminal background to be able to own guns for their own
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
The article, Racial Conflict, written by Peter Katel in January 8, 2016, is about racism in the United State and to discuss if U.S. policies are discriminatory. Propelled largely by videos of violent police confrontations with African- Americans, protesters have taken to the streets in Chicago, New York and other cities demanding changes in police tactics. These brutal policing tactics had lead persons to say that U.S. policies are discriminatory. For example, Chicago police officer shot 17-year-old Laquan Mc Donald 16 times in the street. Official kept the video away from the public until a reporter forced its release through freedom of information request. Keeping the video under wrap prove that Mc Donald was killed innocently which also
Despite the fact racism has been around for hundreds of years, upcoming generations are becoming more open minded and less likely to publicly berate minorities; racial profiling, however, is the one loophole of racism America overlooks. Police officials often use the practices of racial profiling to discretely single out minority races. A common approach to this is through traffic patrols. According to a statistic based in San Jose, CA, nearly 100,000 drivers were stopped; during the year ending in June 2000; and of these drivers less than 32% were white, the remaining 68% of drivers were a... ... middle of paper ... ...
The police department does not reflect the demographics of the town’s residents which has three black officers out of a 53 officer department. The people in the community lost trust and respect for an organization that was put in place to protect and serve their people. Instead they have lost complete control of their society. The Rodney King case is another case that was a problem relating to police brutality. Rodney King was severely beaten in 1991 by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. He was severely beaten with batons and kicked and punched by a group of officers. He was also hit with a stun gun, received over fifty baton blows, and kicked several times (Walter, 2014). The officers were acquitted in state court on excessive force charges which led to riots in the city causing multiple deaths and injuries. Researchers have discredited the idea that police brutality is simply an individual problem, which is certain officers are just bad cops, while others are good cops. The videotaped beaten of Rodney King was not a tragic enough lesson for the police departments across the country, police beatings and killings of African
The duty of a police officer is to protect the people with the laws and enforce them, not hurt the people. For all the African American women and men that have been killed by a police officer should be brought to justice. However, this is not the solution to the problem of police brutality in America. The solution to police brutality is the proper training and certification of police officers, so they understand how to handle various situations without using lethal weapons. For instance, Moore states that “extensive training for several weeks in patrol and observation, narcotics activities and community relations” (Moore, 2010) will lead to the solution of police brutality. Also, in order to dissolve the police brutality in America, America must recognize race as more than just one complexion and accept that people of color shouldn’t be dehumanized, but equal to their
He was pulled over and asked if he had his license on him. Samuel didn’t have his license on him. The officer Ray Tinsing asked him several times for his license. Then the officer tugged on the door handle. These events then led to Samuel Dubose being shot in the head. The officer Ray Tensing then tried to lie about the about the events leading up to Samuel being shot and killed. Ray Tensing was wearing a body camera, which showed the truth of the events that happened that day. This police officer didn’t use discretion. He did not take into consideration how minor the situation was that lead to the death of Samuel Dubose. Uncontrolled discretion is what caused this cop to shoot this unarmed citizen. If this officer would have took a second to think about what actions he was going to take next rather then just acting out of anger because the man didn’t answer if his license was suspended or if he even had a license. The law enforcement officers are supposed to be trained and taught how to go about certain
Racism is happening before the suspect even gets a chance to explain themselves or be accused of any crime, and the rules of being able to do such a thing are becoming even more lenient so that police are able to perform such actions. “The rule requiring police to have ‘specific information’ was loosened. This piece of writing explains that for no other reason than race, these people get convicted far more significantly than others who have the same charge but are white, which continues as far as giving a person of color the max sentence that they can have on a certain charge just for the color of their skin. The justice system has turned into the opposite of what it claims to be and continues to grow as a racist overseer, bashing down on those that they believe should be punished as harshly as possible simply for the color of their skin.
A seven-year study conducted by USA Today analyzing the FBI’s justifiable homicide database revealed that 96 percent of all cases involve Black people dying at the hands of white police officers, who are rarely indicted, let alone brought to trial.” (Kaplan 2014). “Some have called the Black Lives Matter a hate group whose rhetoric is partially responsible for the recent shooting of a sheriff in Texas”. Police cars were destroyed, and several police were injured.
History has shown that certain racial groups, especially Black and Latino have had a long, and poor relationship with the police largely due to socio-economic and racist discrimination in one way another. Race is a tremendous part when it comes to the fact of police brutality, but you only see something have a tremendous outbreak when it is the white officers assaulting someone of the opposite race. Maybe it isn’t always the race that comes to the problem but the fact that the citizen was doing something wrong. Then just because he or she is of a different race then all fingers are then pointed at the officer who was just trying serving justice. This is saying that it could go both ways, it isn’t always the cops at fault but that is what media has perceived it to be and has but a stereotype toward officers of the law. Maybe it was the civilian that has egged them on or threatened them. They do have a right to protect themselves, and sometimes that is exploited by the media and even the community at
“People, including police officers, hold strong implicit associations between blacks, and probably Hispanics, and weapons, crime and aggression," said Jack Glaser. Police brutality statistics show that African Americans are three times more likely to be murdered by cops than any other race. Racial disparity in the United States is a coherent reason for the increase of criminal injustice in the United States. Whenever you hear about an African American being killed by the United States police, you never see All Lives Matter supporters protesting.
The movement BlackLivesMatter have outed hundreds unlawful officers and victims that never got the justice needed. The same characteristics (color and style) that emulates strong, noble people can backfire. Black people in this country who actively resist dehumanization makes a call to action and a response to anti-Black racism in our current society. (Cullors, 2015) The growth of the movement has moved country-wide, first starting in the south; the south had always had history of racism and anti-black impulses. This movement is continuing to carry up north and west, and is projected that any officer can be the next one to unlawfully kill another black individual. These immoral police officers are no different from the rest of the police force, their uniforms are no different color or style they do not have different titles, there is no distinction between the these two types of officers. African Americans are persuaded to be more cautious and angry towards police officers; anyone with a cop uniform can be considered a threat to their life. Innocent cops were murdered in retaliation to the unfair judicial systems that are not punishing these cops. Once a police-like uniform is worn it not only once symbolizes honor and power, but t too many communities