Police Brutality Essay

In the year 2014, 1108 people were killed in cases of police brutality. Of those 1108, 23.5% (265) of the victims were African Americans. In a poll conducted in 2009, 54.4% of African Americans said that they or people they knew experienced violence at the hands of police. Only 44.2% of the African Americans taking the poll

In recent years and in light of recent tragedies, police actions, specifically police brutality, has come into view of a large, public and rather critical eye. The power to take life rests in the final stage of the criminal justice system. However, the controversy lies where due process does not. While the use of deadly force is defined and limited by departmental policies, it remains an act guided chiefly by the judgment of individual officers in pressure situations. (Goldkamp 1976, 169). Many current studies have emphasized the racial disparities in minority deaths, primarily black Americans, killed by police through means of deadly force. The history of occurrences reveals the forlorn truth that police reforms only receive attention in wake of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct. The notorious 1992 Los Angeles riots brought the matter to mass public attention and prompted improved law enforcement policy. Significant local reforms resulted, for instance, ending the policy of lifetime terms for police chiefs. Additionally, on a broader platform, in 1994, Congress approved provisions to the Crime Control Act in effort to tackle police abuse in a more structured way.

Ironically, “Cops killed nearly twice as many whites as blacks in 2015, 50 percent of the victims of fatal police shootings were white, while 26 percent were black. The majority of these victims had a gun or, were armed or threatening the officer with potentially lethal force.” “Alternatively, some believe that these statistics are

The average annual rate of police killing in California is 4.987. That’s from 2013 to 2017. UC Davis researcher Cody ross went through 2,000 police shootings across the nation and found out that unarmed black men are more likely to be shot then white unarmed men. A study from harvard Roland Fryer says

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

“In 2015, nearly a thousand people were shot and killed by police. Almost all of those people shot, over 95%, were men” (Police Shootings, Travis). The racial breakdown of these killings consist of “51.3% white, 27.3% blacks, 17.8% hispanic, 38 people were other race” (Police Shootings, Travis). While it is true that African- Americans represent only 12% of the population, and yet are 2 times that rate in police shootings. According to F.B.I data in 2014, 4,224 black men were arrested and charged with murder in this country. Statistics also state that in 2013, 90% of African- American murders were committed by other African- Americans. While similar statistics can be stated about whites, since 84% of whites were murdered by other whites. Racial killings

Many say that black people hold 26% of the shootings but are only 10% of the total population. This is invalid as many will know that in the inner cities and poor neighborhoods like the streets of chicago many are involved in violent crimes, resulting in a heart-breaking death. Many will put in that statistic and rely on it with no further information. The millions that see this are influenced, and many people mostly youth begin to believe the false stereotype amongst white cops in particular. “ The second piece of evidence is another statistic showing rates of Police on Black Violence to Black on Police. “The article by the wall street journal says “Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police” As many say cops kill black males unproportionally the FBI says otherwise. The third piece of evidence is also from the Wall Street Journal.“Officers’ use of lethal force following an arrest for a violent felony is more than twice the rate for white as for black arrestees, according to one study” If their was an existing bias it would be in favor of blacks over whites. In many cases in poor neighborhoods where a vast majority of the inhabitants are blacks or hispanic, the crime is higher, and there still continues to be less violence against

A report made on May 31st shows that at least 385 people have been killed by American police since 2015 has started. FBI reports show that over the past decade, the annual average for fatal shootings by police is about 400, and this year they are close to surpassing that only half-way through the year. Two thirds of these people have been either African American or Hispanic with one in six of them being unarmed at the time of the shooting. More than 80 percent of the shootings were because of what had started as minor things that escalated into assaults. This is important because police brutality has become a bigger issue with police being more likely to shoot with race in mind.

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

African American groups, such as Black Lives Matter, have created a false narrative that African Americans in our society are victimized by law enforcement. The media has presented police officers to be murderers, and have created trends and discussions that encourage Americans to turn their backs on the ones that protect them. Police Brutality has become an ongoing conversation as black citizens experience law enforcement related deaths. Although society is blaming the killings of African Americans on white cops specifically, they fail to realize that black and hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at African Americans than white officers. This is according to a Department of Justice report in 2015 about the Philadelphia

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.

A man is in his car and is pulled over for having a suspended license, and for going 60 on a 40 road. The officer walks over to the car to see the man crying. The man claims that he was rushing to get to a relative's funeral. When asked to get out of the car he resists and the police officer grabs his arm. The man yanks his arm back and the officer pulls him out of the car and brutally beats him.

“Despite making up only 2% of the total US population, African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged this year by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age…”(Swaine et al, 2015; para. 2).

While police brutality rates being at a high rate in the us in the past few years most of the cases could have been avoided if the suspects had been listening to the officers. Statistics gathered by the Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project confirm that around 1% of all police officers commit police misconduct in a given year. As police rate rise people often mistake this for racism against different raises but if you look into those cases when black or other ethnic groups are shot or killed they are shot more often by a black police officer than a white officer.

Some cops are shooting black people for no reason. According to www.huffingtonpost.com a black person was reaching into his car to get his wallet to give the cop and the cop shot him dead.More than 50% of cops shooting and killing are of black people, most of these victims were unarmed black people according to Mac Donald, 12 percent of white and Hispanic homicide deaths were due to police officers, while only four percent of black homicide deaths were the result of police officers.to police officers, while only four percent of black homicide deaths were the result of police officers