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Essay On Police Brutality

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When you have a brother who is an adult african american and fits the image of the men being shot by police in the news you start to pay a little more attention to police brutality. Police brutality has been going on for decades but now with the technology we have, stories about the victims of police brutality are spreading like wildfire. But yet no matter how many cases come up it seems as if very few people are doing anything about it. Police that shoot and beat civilians are getting off with a not guilty verdict. Police brutality in the United States has long been a serious problem even if people have only seemed to realize it this past couple years, and it’s a problem that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

The first use of the term “police brutality” was in 1872 and by the Chicago Tribune in an article about police beating a civilian that was under arrest at the Harrison Police Station. There have been many cases of police brutality since then inciting many riots. For example the Rodney King incident in March of 1991 in which the police brutally beat Rodney King, an african american suspect. Although the police were arrested after someone caught the whole thing on video they were acquitted at trial. This caused a huge uproar. The Wikipedia article “Police Brutality” states, “...the Los Angeles riots of 1992 commenced, causing 53 deaths, 2,383 injuries, more than 7,000 fires, damage to 3,100 businesses, and nearly $1 billion in financial losses. After facing federal

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