Police Brutality In African America Essay

“The African American community is not making this up. It’s not something that’s being politicized. It’s real”

Sandra Bland, Mike Brown, and Tamir Rice – these are just some of the names of the unarmed Black people whose lives were taken by police officers in the last year. The alarming rate at which young Black men and women are being killed is evidence that their lives are not held with high regard. Police brutality against young Black men and women has been perpetrated at alarming rates. Yet, we have not seen much, if any, consequences or responsibility taken by the policemen committing these crimes. Often times, the families of these young men and women who, because of their race, have been killed by police officers have not seen any justice, instead the names of their loved ones go from headlines to outdated hashtags. Not only do young Black men and women face the chance of being criminalized on the street, but also such targeting begins at a young age in institutions that are typically regarded as “safe places”, such as the classroom. We see evidence of this in the way students are racially profiled and in the growing number of protests that are currently being held on college campuses nationwide. While it may seem as though we live in a post racial society, since overt racism, such as legalized segregation, is a thing of the past, institutionalized racism, a system that distributes opportunities based on the racial hierarchy, still remains and is deeply rooted in our education system, which inhibits any potential academic success by restricting resources and criminalizing

Police brutality is the lavish physical assault or verbal assault during police procedures which can involve interrogating or apprehending a suspect. Police brutality originated from the labor worker strikes in the 1800’s through the 1900’s. The violent brutal act of these officers usually formed around the lower socioeconomic class. Since then police brutality has hit an all-time high in the 21st century. In New York alone there has been reportedly over 72 police brutality reports some reports even ended in the deaf of a citizen. There’s been claim of police officers violently choking citizens at traffics stops and beating citizen up in public. There’s been new technology such as body cameras which are used by most police but not all.

As I was conducting research about police brutality I came up with three questions I wanted to find out. I wanted to know what race group is affected by police brutality the most, why they were affected by this the most and what to do to stop police brutality involving shooting civilian. This Paper talk about how police brutality is a major issue in America right now. There’s many different types of police brutality but police officers killing civilians is something that is issue in our nation currently. After doing reaching this topic I was able to find out that African Americans have been affected by this the most out of any race. African Americans are affected by this the most because in some cases African Americans are usually stereotyped and this causes them to be treated different by police. Ways we can help this issue is by supporting these organizations that are against police brutality and encouraging police officers around the nation to always have a body camera on them at all times.

Over the past decade, police brutality has covered major headlines because officers have acted out in ways that have made citizens question their motives. Things such as unjustified shootings, deadly chokings, and rough treatment have all added to the constant problem of police brutality in the black community. Annoyingly, the police officers responsible for the killings and abuse are not held for long before they are discharged to their normal routines. Since many people believe that the issues of police brutality is based on race, officers should be held accountable for their misconduct. Accountability will permit officers to treat all with equality; therefore using the appropriate amount of force on everyone. Often cops are indicted in less than 1% of killings, but the indictment rate for citizens is 90% which is a major problem. If someone does wrong they should suffer the consequence no matter who they are. As a result of misconduct officers tend be mistrusted by their communities. Deaths in the black community often stems from police officers using excessive force such as assaults, beating and shootings.

However, this is not the case. Both past and recent events show that African Americans are still not free. This is specifically due to the fact that unarmed African Americans such as Tamir Rices, Walter Scott, Travon Martin, and Ramarley Graham have all been victims of police brutality. The many killings of innocent African Americans have left African Americans fearful for their lives since the police officers who are meant to serve and protect them are the ones who are brutally ending their lives.

With 232 African-Americans killed by the police in this year alone (the Guardian), the issue of police brutality has become more than just an occasional occurrence. In order to remedy this ongoing issue, law enforcement should undergo thorough training to eliminate ingrained racism and racial profiling; officers should wear misconduct tracking devices to hold themselves accountable for their actions; and perpetrators of such transgressions should receive harsh consequences. Because these tactics for the prevention, identification and punishment of racial profiling will reduce the unnecessarily high amount of police brutality against African-Americans, they are a viable way to solve this crime and prevent it from descending into a more dangerous

“Don’t Shoot”, a young African American male says to the police before they shoot him multiple times killing him. He was eighteen year old Michael Brown, and his death shed light on the ongoing issue of police brutality against African Americans. Police brutality is the use of unnecessary force on individuals by law enforcement. These civilians mostly be minorities especially African Americans. Police brutality toys with human rights and violates the fourteenth amendment. In the Constitution, The Fourteenth Amendment states that “States cannot make or put into effect any laws that restrict the rewards or protections of any citizen of America. No state can remove any citizen’s life, freedom, or belong­ings without right use of the regulation. Everyone is given the equal protec­tion under the law.”(United States Constitution). Police brutality against African Americans is a serious civil problem, but in order to stop police brutality, Americans must diversify police departments, eliminate racial profiling, instill body cameras, and focus the fight of police brutality on local and state levels.

This is why I do not think these Police Brutality cases involve racism. In the past year, there have been 4 notable cases where an african american man or woman was treated with excessive force by police. Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Walter Scott. Sandra Bland was a woman who failed to signal a lane change and ended up dead in a jail cell. Eric Garner was a man who refused to follow directions from police, was suffocated, and had a heart attack in an ambulance to a hospital where he died. Walter Scott was a man who fled from a policemen during a pull-over. All of these cases do involve police brutality but do not necessarily involve racism and could have been involved had the victims followed directions.

African American face a lot of hardship. Police brutality is one of them. Police would see a black person waking down the street minding there own business and they would beat them up for no reason or the reason was because they were black. Some other hardship is not being treated equity. In the text it say that “ whites were able to do more things the black people.” So that’s the hardship that black people had to face.

The police work to keep everyone safe and keep order in society by enforcing laws, by investigating and preventing crimes. Recently it has become clear that things do not always work on that way. Sometimes police officers brutalize civilians and damage their possessions. The United States of America is one country where this phenomenon of police brutality is intensifying with no signs of slowing down. According to the statistics of The Washington Post, American police merely shot a thousand of people last year, and of those, just five hundred and sixty four were armed with guns. Kimberly Kindy, an investigative reporter at the newspaper Washington Post warned the public opinion about the trend of this phenomenon when she said, "In fact there has been an increase, a six per cent increase in fatal shootings when we compare the first six months of last year to the first six months of this year. There are about three people who are dying a day fatally shot by officers”. Her investigation provides evidence that the violence is increasing daily. It becomes clear that the violence of police forces becomes a serious national problem. However, this police brutality is the tree that conceals the huge crisis of the American Police.

African Americans have been through a lot, they had to face their worst fears. They were treated like they meant nothing to nobody. Every African person was considered a “ three fifths “ of a person. They including their children were affected in many ways. For example, there was this law named, Jim Crow, this law was passed in the 1880s. This law stated that African American children's had to go to a separate schools from the American “ Whites “, they were not allowed to drink from the same fountain as whites, they had to seat all the way in the back of the buses, they had to eat from a separate restaurant, can not step in a public library or even attend the publick parks. This also affected the adults, they were not allowed to work in department

Race is a topic that has been a part of American history since the beginning of the colonized America. This country has always struggled with the idea of people with different ethnicities and what that means for the society in which both live in. These differences have caused a lot of animosity in the country and changes had to be made. The country has changed and adapted to overcome obstacles once ethic discoveries were made. However, the road has been long and hard for many individuals who have faced decimation and persecution. Many key events have taken place in history since 1877 for the African Americans to have the rights they do today but three stand out and those are Plessy v. Ferguson, the Civil Right Act, and the New Jim Crow laws

Today the U.S. is falling apart due to the causes of racism. As the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Freddie Gray have captured headlines and sparked protests across the United States over the past year, there has been a renewed discussion

Racism has had a great impact in our country and around the world. African Americans get treated poorly for their race, how they look, and their differences from whites. There have been many attempts to make it known that blacks are facing these prejudice actions. These actions include hatred, abuse, discrimination, and many other things.