African Police Officers

The police involved shooting of Michael Brown has changed the way society views law enforcement, and the method of how law enforcement officers have to interact with this same society. With the deaths of individuals like Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, and with the assistance of social media and bias news reporting, as well as high level officials within our social structure, who’s speech and words can carry a large impact on our behaviors, there has been a picture painted that police are murdering people of different ethnicities without regard for justifiable force. Politicians, celebrities and the media alike, have been a major contributor to the anti-police sentiment and the violent interactions that police

Seeing these events people conclude that these shootings are the result of law enforcements being bias to black or white people. But in“Paper finding no racial bias in shootings by police criticized” by Samantha nelson shares about the reality of the bias. Here she writes about a new study confirming that “black women and men are treated differently in the hands of law enforcements.. They are likely to be touched, handcuffed, and pushed to the ground…but when it comes to the most lethal form of force-police shootings- the study finds no racial bias”. She shares about Mr. Fryer a Black economic Harvard professor who studied the data of 1,000 shootings in major cities in America. In result, Fryer found that the results contradict to the image

Washington Post (TMP, 2016). Then it leaves the question as to why there were only unarmed minorities that were being blasted all over the media outlets when they were shot and killed if this were the case. The first reason was that this person was unarmed and black in America. Then it was that racism still existed even though many came to the conclusion that this was not the case. Now it is because of the Black Lives Matter movement. There are thousands of reasons as to why this is being done except for the real reason. The real reason appears to be exposing those departments that fail to adequately train their officers for all situations and determining when and where to use excessive force (Kesic, Thomas & Ogloff, 2012).

To show the other side of the argument, an article by CNN was written on December 20, 2016. The article, written by Jacqueline Howard, stated that black men are almost 3 times as likely to die from police use of force. The claim was that, among males aged 10 years or older who were killed by police use of force, the mortality rate among non-Hispanic black and Hispanic individuals was 2.8 and 1.7 times higher than that among white individuals. They claimed that because the population of white men is larger, the number of deaths per million in each demographic population was 2.8 times higher among black men and 1.7 times higher among Hispanic men. To someone who is looking at the article with a mentality that the police are looking to kill minorities

Police shootings are unfortunate events but whenever there is a shooting, the topic of race emerges. Police shootings have always been the highlights on news channels and there is always the racially biased narrative that keeps repeating itself yet no one seems to dispute this narrative. However, did you know that studies show a police officer is eighteen and a half times more likely to be killed by a African American male than an unarmed African American male is to be killed by a police officer? In fact, a recent “deadly force” study by Washington State University researcher Lois James found that police officers were actually less likely to shoot an unarmed black suspect than unarmed Caucasian or Hispanic suspect in simulated threat scenarios. Some would argue that there are still police shootings all over America and they occur when police officers

The statistics are heavy on how much blacks are killed more than any other race. This gives you the idea that this is real and its effecting African Americans who are been harmed, but the bigger problem is why aren’t the police not actually going to prison because as you know a regular citizen, would literally be going to jail but policer officers get the benefit of the dought which causes problems because when this happens no one can trust the police which can be a problem for the everyone involved.

“More than 920 people have been killed by the police in 2015. Black Americans are more than twice likely to be unarmed when killed. Excessive force is one of the most common forms of police misconduct. For every 1,000 people killed by police, only one officer is convicted.”

Writing for the Washington Post, Sunil Dutta informs us, “Using the data from Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 2003 and 2009 the police made approximately 98 million arrests. During that same time, there were 2,931 arrest-related deaths by police. This data is incomplete and most likely an under-count. However, it provides an important benchmark, suggesting that homicides by police are extremely rare.” And remember, that’s over a six-year period. Now, how many of those officers had reason to fear for their own lives? Well, as per the same article: “As many as 49,851 officers were assaulted while on duty in 2013; 29.2 percent were injured and 27 were killed.” That works out to as many as 14,556 injured and 13,459 killed. And that’s just in one year. Accounting for the sixfold difference in time period, police are as much as 28 times more likely to be killed in the line of duty than a civilian is to be killed by police. Even if we suppose both of those numbers to be off by a factor of 2, that would still equate to a sevenfold disparity. Statistically, a policeman has more reason to fear being killed by a civilian than vice

Each year citizens die in encounters with law enforcement officers. It is reported that “Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist” (Rucke, 2013). Although there is no official data base tracking these occurrences it is estimated that between 500 and a 1,000 people are killed by police officers each year. To put this in greater perspective this number equals approximately 5,000 since the 9/11 terror attack which is roughly the same number as U.S. soldiers who have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq (Rucke, 2013). This statistic is justifiably concerning. The cause of police related killings are multifold and cannot be attributed to only one factor. Many deaths may be unavoidable and perhaps, dependent on the situation, necessary. I contend, however, that many of these deaths may very well be preventable.

Lincoln A. Blades says, “The truth is, the real reason White victims of police brutality don’t get enough outrage is because the majority of white people are too busy condemning black and brown victims for their own assaults and deaths, ignoring the racialized elements of unnecessary force, and heaping praise on murderous police officers to realize that state-sanctioned violence is a problem that affects us all.” People are always complaining how no one cares for black people when they’re the ones getting all the attention when the police kill

These days, police are often stereotyped as aggressive, corrupt beings. The growing hatred for police officers widens the divide between citizens and law enforcement, causing tension and intensely aggressive feelings on both ends. The recent shootings of young African-American men have also added to the societal hatred of law enforcement. Through media exposure, these shootings have been portrayed as cruel, often times revealing the victim to be an unarmed man.

Thesis Statement: While some citizens argue that police officers are doing their job, is police violence more prevalent, because of social media dramatization, lack of proper tactical training, or is it the vigilante attitude that makes the officers’ feel above the law?

With the overwhelming recent media coverage of unarmed individuals being killed by police officers, it has now brought national attention to the seriousness of these events that should be addressed. One of the most notable event that caught the attention of the media and the public was the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. He was an unarmored black male that was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. This was not the first or the last time an unarmed person was killed by a law enforcement officer, it was an event that appeared to have caused citizens to start scrutinizing police department’s use of deadly force policy more in depth; especially the black community. According to “The Counted”, a database created by the Guardian that count the number of people killed by police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States; 190 unarmed individual were killed by law enforcement officer as of October 2015; 178 were male, 62 were Black, 28 were Hispanic, 76 were White, and 9 classified as other or unknown (guardian.com, 2015). Although the fact that the majority of the unarmed killing by police officers involved the death of White individuals, we have to keep in mind that Whites make up the majority of the U.S. population and that the number of minorities killed by police officers outnumbered their White counterparts, with the majority being Black individuals. While individuals should comply with the police, there is a need for better police and

How many times have we seen this transpire in the past year? What can we do to change the disparities that are taking place between police departments and African American boy/men? According to Attorney Benjamin Crump (Truth and consequences, 2015), far too many officers say that they felt threatened, but if not for viral video; the murder could have been swept under the rug. He also says there is a blanket of distrust, disrespect, and indifference thrown across Black men in America. He believes that this is the result of the many deaths at the hands of armed police officers who claim to be afraid.

In 2015, the total number of people killed by police officers in the United States was 1,134, and of that number the death rate for young black men was fives times higher than that of white men (Historic US Event). These staggering numbers caused outbreaks among the community. Black Lives Matter protesters point out… “...numerous incidents as examples of a justice system that supports the systematic harassment and brutalization of black people and does not hold police officers accountable for violence (Opposing Viewpoints). The people were upset. The counts of police brutality were simply going unnoticed and no one had to answer for their actions except for the men who died at the hands of the police. Following the death of Michael Brown, the