preview

Essay On Police Brutality

Good Essays

J Free Argumentative Essays: Police Brutality 777 Words 4 Pages 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 Tampa Bay police Department (C.C. 27). The thing is, the Tampa Bay Police Department is made up …show more content…

“The number of people killed by police has gone down from the middle 1970 's to the middle 1980 's in major cities,” says Patrick V. Murphy, former head of police commissions in Detroit, New York, and Washington, D.C. (C.C. 17). Also, in Kansas City, Missouri, a police department there has 1,110 officers. Amazingly, the only received approximately 108 complaints from the public about those 1,100 officers. Adding to the belief that police brutality isn 't a very big problem, most legal authorities and officials agree that the use of excessive force by police officers is going down. In fact, they say that they see brutality declining from twenty years ago (C.C. 57). Police brutality is defined as involving the unnecessary and unjustified use of force be that either physical or verbal. Gerald Williams, president of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) commented, “Let me assure you we are committed to a professional level of policing with an emphasis on fairness, humanity, and integrity” (C.C. 168). Other than the police stopping brutality internally, the use of civilian review boards can be used. These boards must be able to receive all the evidence in a case, including the police audio tapes, in order to make fair judgment if excessive force was used or not. If excessive force is present

Get Access