Media's Effect On Police Victims

A recent current event that is shown in media is the shooting of a Virginia State Trooper at a Greyhound bus station. This tragedy occurred Thursday, March 31, in the afternoon around three p.m. A Virginia state trooper was said to be talking to another individual, the suspect, and then the suspect pulled out a gun and shot the trooper leaving him with serious life threatening injuries. After the suspect shot the trooper other State Troopers began firing their weapons on the suspect. This tragedy ended with the suspect dead, Virginia State Trooper with serious injuries, then later died and two female civilians with not so serious injuries from the gun shots. Virginia state police do not know why the suspect pulled out his gun on the trooper and why in a bus station where many are surrounding and can get injured. Police also found out that the suspect has a long history of crime and gun use. Although there is many different

The Michale Brown shooting has forever changed policing in the United States much like the Rodney King beating by the LAPD in 1991. History will show that the death of Michael Brown will prove to have longer and more dramatic influence on how law enforcement officers do their job than the Rodney King incident. The reasons for this are many, to mention a few, society has become more sensitive and less tolerant of police misconduct weather the misconduct is real or perceived. The public is also better informed because of the speed that the modern news media, and social media, are able to disseminate pictures, video and other information. Facebook has probably had a greater affect on the way law enforcement agencies operate that any high profile

Police officers are individuals who enforce the law upon their community to ensure that their citizens remain safe. In the past couple of years, officers of the law have been involved in acts of brutality that seem to go beyond the proper measurements of protection for their citizens. Policemen are supposed to protect their citizens from danger and from harm, not impose a threat on them. The fact that officers have a history of abusing their power indicates that their trust amongst the community has been corrupted. Those who have been affected of police brutality feel as though they have been deceived. They no longer feel that police officers will protect them, but rather abuse them, and that is a problem. We have began to live in a community in which an individual feels frightened when seeing a cop, rather than feeling protected. Some individuals may argue that police brutality is not a problem due to the fact that it is not consistent enough to catch the attention of needing a solution. However, that idea means little when the level of brutality has led to the death of several innocent victims in some cases. We must not wait for there to be a pattern of death at the hands of police officials to consider this a problem. One death indicates that preventive measures must be taken to ensure that these officers are no longer put in the position to abuse their power to begin with.

As a police officer, I have dedicated my life in serving the people and keeping them safe from potentially dangerous criminals. I had just gotten home from duty and turned on the TV. The news was on and they were reporting about the officer that shot and killed Michael Brown. The first thing that I thought was that the media has blown this incident was out of proportion. Brown must have been seen as a threat by the officer to the public to actually be shot. The protesters are calling us cops racist, that we use racial profiling. That is so far from the truth. We take every possible suspect into consideration. We look at their motive, their alibis, etc. to make sure we arrest the right person. What we do not take into consideration is their

Borrowing a leaf from Randolph, so long as this development does not violate the safety and reasonable rights of others, the following steps or approaches could be adopted and applied to stop or at least reduce the prevalence of racial discrimination and police brutality to the barest minimum.

In chapter six “Police, Offenders and Victims in the Media”, it discusses the relationship between what the media portrays and puts out and the fears the public gets from it. The media tends to cover crime stores, but they selectively distort it so they can manipulate the public’s perception of the issue. This results in a false picture of crime that fuels the public’s fears and anxieties. When we talk about the publics fear we find that it is polarized along theoretical lines, which come from critical criminologist and left realists. We can also see that the media misrepresents victimization. This is because they present certain types of people to be more at risk of being a victim of a crime.

First of all a big “Thank You” to the cops who work day and night for the safety of the people and the society. The work cop do for the people is highly praise- worthy. Today we can walk and do legal things without fear because of cops who make it possible for us. But there are some people who doesn’t see this and instead tell others about the danger of cops. Yes, there are some bad cops out there who had intentionally or unintentionally taken wrong decisions and had harmed the reputation of the police department. This doesn’t mean every cops are the same.

I am writing my paper on police double standard. It came to my attention that when police are in the media, they are portrayed as the bad guy. I asked myself if that is the case, or is that the media perception. The police are in a position to protect and serve the community. The community should feel nothing but security and trust towards a police officer right? I am also aware that the media can also mislead and also contribute to the community feeling negative towards the cops. Very rarely do you see a cop doing an act of kindness, and that footage blowing up in the media.

media group in 2013. When teenage boys in Auckland posted videos of themselves for all to see, as smug power brokers in their ability to bully young girls into sex, they became known as the ‘Roast Busters’. The scandal highlighted why police handling and media coverage of these crimes is so vital, and why their response to the RoastBusters scandal was so horrendous. The resulting public perception of the police force, our current rape laws, and the implications for our justice system today are anything but appealing.

What the news reporter and my brother might not think about is that the Police officers might have a good reason for shooting sometimes. All people focus on is that a police officer shot someone else. But they never think about why. All they say is “oh police officers are abusing their power again” or “they should not carry weapons because then they just shoot other” or maybe even “They are shooting innocent people again”

As with most controversial issues, it is clear that the media play a strong role in people’s perception and fear of crime. Psychologists have proven that cognitive biases can skew our perceptions (Fogg, 2013). Crime is very prominent is all media and Robert Reiner (1997) claims:

Law enforcement has become a hot topic on everyone's radar because of the shootings have that taken place around the world involving a caucasian male police officer and an unarmed african american male, unnecessary force exerted and racial profiling. Our country has become angered because of the wrongdoings of the people who are suppose to protect our communities. The people of this nation are losing all hope for America because they feel the law can not be trusted. They have started an outcry for help by rioting, lawsuits and even taking it as far as killing police officers. The issue of police misconduct has become so big that it is not only that particular police departments fixings it has become the duty of the federal government to fix.

Having a good relationship between the police and the media is essential in giving and receiving factual information for and from the community. The media coverage demonstrated the police as being proactive and working with an iron fist to bring some type of order to the community. This is good because it gives their viewers a sense that the police are working for a solution to bring crime to a halt in the Anonymous Community. The police officers need to make sure they have good communication skills in order to accurately relay information to the media. When talking to the media the officers should not only focus on what they are doing to stop crime, but also on the history and longtime members of the community. This will give another outlook

When dealing media inquiries it is mandatory that officers know what to do. Each agency has their own way of responding to media, but for the most part the procedures are the same. Officer cannot share information with the media without approval from the boss or someone of higher authority. The media doesn’t care what the truth is they just look for juicy detail to make the front page. As we learned in professor Knott’s class “if it bleeds it leads”.

What we know and what we think we may know about victims is greatly influenced by what we see on television, on the internet and in many other forms of media. This representation although sometimes may be misleading it helps shape our outlooks and understandings of victims and the assumption we as society make about them. Media has always been seen as an influential tool that can manipulate society’s opinion and perceptions of a victim. In the public’s mind the term ‘victim’ is seen as a person who has become powerless or submissive due to the result of crime, whether they are injured, killed or involved in events or actions of misfortune in which they are seen as some kind of victim. The increasing visibility of victims within mass media due