Who Is Karl Vicks What It's Like Being A Cop Now

Following events like Ferguson, America’s police force has received heavy criticism recently regarding police brutality. The public is questioning whether police are using their position of power to better society or to benefit their own agendas of racism. Karl Vick’s article, “What It’s Like Being a Cop Now,” fails in his usage of anecdotes and statistics to argue that the public is wrongly retaliating against police.

To begin, Karl Vicks makes use of many personal stories from police officers in his article. His goal is to make his audience sympathize with the obstacles the police face when dealing with the public. One of the obstacles is camera phones. Vicks writes, “[t]hey hold them out from their bodies, like shields, and up in the faces of officers, like taunts” (34). Although Vicks makes a valid point, the way people use their phones today can be very rude, but why would this action be threatening to a police officer? Someone who’s been through training, who supposedly has no intention of harm, should not be bothered by this. Vicks describes the police as “watchmen who are used to being watched” (34), yet the use of camera phones makes them uncomfortable. If they’re carrying out their duties like they should, then camera phones wouldn’t be

seen as “taunts,” especially in light of recent events regarding police brutality. By not mentioning the other side of the argument, that people want to protect themselves from the possibility of being wrongly arrested or assaulted, Vicks damages his own argument.
Furthermore, Vicks continues to wrongly integrate personal stories and statistics into his article. He again misses the mark by not mentioning or arguing against the lasting wounds caused by police officers that have wrongly used their position of power. He states that “[t]here are some 680,000 police officers in the U.S., and in the past 12 months, everyone of them has had to answer, in one way or another, for the actions of colleagues they will never meet except on the screens running the latest viral police incident” (34). Although it is unfair that police officers all over America are receiving backlash for actions that don’t accurately portray their work ethics, they’re still at fault. In his article, Vicks only mentions police brutality as to how it damages public relations, but he doesn’t mention how the police force is trying to fix it. By ignoring the masses’ outrage and obvious discontent, police officers are only adding to the problem.
To continue, Vicks makes use of a variety of statistics.

He states that confidence in police has decreased significantly since 1993, and with this statistic shared the audience is expected to feel sympathy (39). What Vicks fails to convey with this statistic is that the public’s confidence in police would increase if they made an effort to fix race relations between the police force and the public. Regarding the significantly low confidence in police in 1993, he even mentions in the article “[t]he atmosphere then was defined by the beating of Rodney King...” (34). The connection can be made that confidence in police is down because they’re using unnecessary overt force, but Vicks fails to argue against the

possibility.
Additionally, Vicks provides the statistic that “72 police officers [were] killed this year” and “601 people [were] killed by officers this year” (38). In all actuality, though, people joining a police force are aware of the risks their job entails. The public, on the other hand, should not be endangered by the same people who are paid to protect them. Again, Vicks only looks at the evidence as to how it supports his own argument. By completely ignoring the opposing side, he fails to enhance his own argument. A well thought out argument acknowledges the opposing side and then argues against it. Vicks makes no effort to do this and completely invalidates his own argument by this choice.
To conclude, with his use of anecdotes and statistics, Karl Vicks fails to provide conclusive evidence to portray the injustice police face from the public in his article, “What It’s Like Being a Cop Now.” He provides only circumstantial evidence and overlooks all counter arguments. By omitting this crucial piece of every argument, his own argument flounders and holds no real impact. While the sob stories shared by police officers are well written and enjoyable to read, it’s clear throughout the article that his arguments don't have logic or concrete evidence to support what he’s arguing.