Police Brutality And The Police

Recent Surveys have shown that police brutality typically occurs in areas that are predominately African American and that have police departments that are composed of non-minority Officer. For Example in Ferguson Missouri there is a population of approximately blank. Minorities account for only about 5.6% of the population. White American citizens only made up blank percent. The demographics of Ferguson’s Police Department show that white Officer outnumbered African American officers 51 to 3.

Police brutality is the deliberate use by police of more than necessary force, used to accomplish legitimate police missions of subduing violent people, catch criminals and suspects or protecting life and public order.

In 2015, police brutality peaked to an all time high, with over 100 of the 776 people killed blacks. Yet only 10 out of the 102 killing of unarmed blacks resolved in the conviction of the officers . For example, the death of Freddy Gray was unnecessary and occurred because a white

Most people think that the police are not biased and that their use of excessive force is closely monitored. That is not true. Today many of the police, within the minority, are subjected to killing or fighting innocent people. The new definition of the police department has turned into a department that only resorts to violence as a first priority. The Police Department’s use of excessive force has brought to the attention of the people after multiple cases has happened where the Police are out of control. Police Brutality basically means it is an excessive, unnecessary force when dealing with civilians. But Many police officers argued that they are not using an excessive amount of excessive force. And that the news are painting the

Recently police have come under fire for the deaths of many unarmed African American males. This has broken the trust between civilians and police and torn our country apart. People are frustrated about the killings of unarmed citizens and how it seems every officer can get away with killing an unarmed suspect. Back in 1994 a law was passed that required the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to record date on police involved shooting and deaths by police officers. Except where are the numbers that would show there is an increase in unarmed African American deaths from police officers?

What is police brutality? It is the use of excessive and or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. Excessive force means a force well beyond what is needed to handle the situation. According to Deborah C. England, “Police brutality affects not only its immediate victims, but can undermine the community trust in its police force”. (England). Police brutality is not only just use of force, it also includes forcing civilians to perform sexual favors in order to avoid a ticket or jail time for various infractions of law.

The brutality of the police force has been a long worldwide problem, but especially between the years of 2012-2016. Black people are being unjustly beaten and shot in plain sight for doing nothing while being unarmed. Journal of African American Studies “Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system” (482). “Black males with more “Afrocentric” features may receive longer sentences than blacks with less Afrocentric features like lighter skin and straighter hair”(482). Nowadays it is important to know about the police force. It’s important to know our rights as citizens and be careful around cops. Not everybody is good, but not everybody is bad also. In The New York Amsterdam News 21 people were killed by Chicago police in 2008. Entire families were being attacked. They believe it’s because of their skin color and how they are different. The year of racism started off with the world seeing the police murder of Oscar Grant. “The media have pushed people away from hearing the issue of police brutality, and it has fallen off of the radar screen.”(2) “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit!”(2) African Americans say do not trust the cops with anything. “They will ruin you.”(2)

American Police brutality is unacceptable and needs to change. More than 15% of police in Ohio and 25% of police in Illinois surveyed, said they had witnessed a citizen being harassed by another officer most likely because of their race. 3 These percentiles show that many police officers in Ohio and Illinois, with a median hovering around 20% have harassed a citizen or seen a citizen be harassed by another officer

Imagine a family member being beaten to death by multiple police officers for looking suspicious or not pulling over in the car. Unfortunately these incidents are not uncommon in today’s society. Police brutality is a growing problem for people around the nation. Brutality is often and individual problem rather than a whole force of officers. Police are not obeying code and using excessive force, racial profiling is being used, and there are unspoken codes about not saying anything about injustices that happen.

Isn’t our police force supposed to serve and protect us? To me it seems as though a lot of them have been taking advantage of their power and taking advantage of American citizens. For whatever reason our police seem to be doing things backwards from every other police system in the world. For example our cops do not stand out to the public where as in Europe and Asia’s police are bright yellow with checkered patterns, in order to allow the public to easily notice them and have the ability to call out to them for help when they’re needed. However our police likes to stay hidden and undercover from its citizen, and for what reason? Why are they hiding from us, they sneak around to try and get us in trouble for things that aren’t even a problem in most cases, like minor speeding tickets. They do this to meet their quotas. But that’s not where it stops. Police brutality is not something that’s suddenly uprising; it’s been around for a very long time. however recently it has been brought to headliners and gained the attention of hundreds of Americans due to the more drastic story’s that have been happening lately. Unfortunately a lot of these stories center around racism that still exists these days and not all cases of police brutality are caused from racism, but a majority of them are and there’s no denying that.

There is no question that police brutality, when it occurs, is one of the most egregious violations of public trust that a public servant can commit. Police officers, those individuals taxed with protecting the public from danger, should never be in a situation where they pose a threat to the public. Furthermore, there is no question that police brutality occurs. Moreover, generally when there are allegations of police brutality, there has been some type of underlying violent incident. In addition, while issues of brutality may seem clear-cut to a disinterested observer, it is critical to keep in mind that law enforcement officers are not presented with textbook examples of the appropriate or inappropriate use of force, but real-life scenarios involving quick decisions. There are many arrest and non-arrest scenarios where officers need to use force to protect self or others; and the degree of force required may be greater than what a disinterested observer would assume. Another recurrent issue in debates about police brutality is that racial bias appears to be a motive behind police brutality. When one considers that minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes, one would expect to find a disproportionate number of minorities among those alleging police brutality. Therefore, while acknowledging that police brutality, when it occurs, is a serious problem, the reality is that most

Police brutality is a phenomena that is documented throughout a myriad of societies from Russia, China, Indonesia, Palestine, Egypt to the United States. Police brutality is the use of force which exceeds what is needed in order to accomplish a legal police purpose.Throughout America 's history, minorities, specifically Black people, have been the disproportionate target of police brutality. Amnesty International has documented several examples of police brutality, including instances of beatings, unjustified shootings, and excessively forceful detention methods which merit concern (Amnesty 1999).The pervasiveness of police shootings of citizens has been widely publicized in the media and stresses the fact that this is a national problem. While these occurrences are relatively infrequent the lack of any solution or way to minimize brutality has been an ongoing criticism by citizens and others of the United States’ police force. The term "excessive force" is utilized frequently, although there is no concrete definition of this term as it is subjective (Police Use of Excessive Force in Minority Communities). The use of force is either appropriate or excessive depending on if the use of force is necessary and justified for the officer to complete his job (Police Use of Excessive Force in Minority Communities). The use of deadly force is justified by law if the officer feels he or others are under imminent threat. There are many high profile cases of the use of excessive and

Police brutality is not a new subject. It has been around for numerous years, and like most issues, has resurfaced to the public’s eyes. The recent events brought up the question: Does there need to be a reform in the system in the police system? In this year alone, there have been countless cases of individuals being harmed or even killed by police officers for reasons that continuously are not explained. What has people more attentive to this injustice are statistics showing that most victims in these police attacks happen to be African Americans and other minorities.

Predictably, most complaints of police brutality involve excessive physical force by patrol officers during the course of arrests, searches, traffic stops, the issuing of warrants, and street incidents. Common forms of ill-treatment are repeated kicks, punches, or blows with batons or other weapons--sometimes after a suspect has already been restrained

Unfortunately, police brutality is a trend that continues to increase daily. In fact, the Washington Post stated there was 807 people shot, and killed by police in 2016. Not to mention, in 2015 there was 901 people shot, and killed by police in the United States. However, there are many underlying factors that lead to any police involved shooting, or police brutality incident that occurs. Furthermore, it is important to understand these factors, so officers could prevent any more police brutality incidents from reoccurring. One factor, that has led to police brutality incidents in the past, and continues to cause police brutality incidents today is when an officer makes a negative assumption about a specific ethnic group, or a distinct group of people who share cultural characteristics (Zastrow, Kirst-Ashman, 2015). This is may cause an officer to think that because the individuals are the same race, and share a common set of physical characteristics and common beliefs, that they are all the same (Zastrow, Kirst-Ashman, 2015).