Shannon Younger
English 111
Professor Paden
November 2, 2014
Hold All Firearms What is police brutality? “Police brutality is the use of excessive and/ or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians” (Danilina). Not only does police brutality happen in the form of excessive force but it can also be psychological, racial profiling, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse (Danilina). There are infinite forms in which police brutality can take place. Police officers are constantly infringing on civilians human rights when it comes to police brutality. Former human rights activist, Malcom X, says “We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this
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Acco rding to recent studies, 313 African Americans in 2012 alone were killed by police officers, security guards and other types of law enforcers. In turn, this indicates that an African American was killed every 28 hours. “Of the 313 killed, 124 (40%) were between 22 and 31 years old, 57 (18%) were between 18 and 21 years old, 54 (17%) were between 32 and 41 years old, 32 (10%) were 42 to 51 years old, 25 (8%) were children younger than 18 years old, 18 (6%) were older than 52, and 3 (1%) were of unknown ages” (Adam Hudson). He also writes that 40% of the prison population is made up of African Americans. “It is often perceived that people of certain races are more likely to be guilty of crimes, and this may factor into police choices. While this is technically illegal, because discretion is not an exact science with specified, codified rules, it is very difficult to prove this in court” (Hirby). This act is called police discretion. Racial profiling plays a major role in police …show more content…
Following the Michael Brown case, hundreds of African American students responded at Howard University by standing in solidarity with their hands up. This “’Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” meme was mimicked across the country in order to get the message of surrendering across. Michael Brown put his hands up to surrender to the police. These protest of police brutality are sometimes held by the victim’s family. In the Oscar Grant case, sparked riots in the area. The officer of this shooting faced second degree murder charge with the maximum of 14 years. Did he serve his time for this crime? In fact, he barely even served a year. Mehersle served only 11 months and then was released. It’s clear as to why people, especially the families of these victims, wanted justice for these
Police brutality is one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States and it occurs in every community. The job of a police officer is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crime. They are engaged in a dangerous and stressful occupation that can involve violent situations that must be controlled. In many of these confrontations with the public it may become necessary for the police to administer force to take control of a situation. Sometimes this force takes the form of hand to hand combat with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all police officers in communities are good cops. At least once a year the news is covering a story about a person
A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.
"... the legal test for excessive force... is whether the officer reasonably believed that such force was necessary to accomplish a legitimate police purpose..." (qtd. in U.S. Department of Justice). This is the legal test for excessive force as quoted from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, the majority do not accept this test or any others as the legitimate test for excessive force.
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.
no one is trying to stop what is going on because it is an irrelevant situation that
The topic that I am proposing is police brutality. Are police officers committing police brutality or are they just doing their job? We as a community are hearing more and more about police brutality in the United States. It is really common to see on the news or social media videos of police brutally beating individuals that seem not to resist arrest or even with their hands up in the air as a sign of surrender. My intended audiences are, communities, and police departments. Communities need to understand why this is happening and if there is going to be any change. On the other hand, police departments need to not more a blind eye any more when these situations occur and start disciplining the officers. I am a true believer of
The police was arresting a overweight African American. While they were arresting him he had a asthma attack but while the man was trying to grab for his inhaler while he was trying to show the officers that he couldn’t threw him on the ground and forced him to put his hands behind his back, and in the mix of all that he died of a asthma attack. In America today there is a problem with police brutality, there are a lot of cases were the police beats or either kills the victim in minor events, also.
Recently there have been many conflict emotions when it come the topic about police brutality. Police brutality is where men or women from the police force use an excessive amount of force or abuse towards people in the community. Whether it was done with for the right reasons of wrong reasons, many agree that the amount of police brutality in our country in this past few years have risen where citizens either fear or are angered at the police. Some on the other hand could say that it is not all of the cops fault. It takes two to tango, so the other person involved must have had an impact on why the outcome was so brutal. But people also must realize accidents do happen. This is an issue that has a lot of controversy and not a lot of attention
In recent times, the police have been exhibiting an increase in brutality and racial profiling towards minorities. The police are constantly resorting to violence and racially profiling the African American and the Mexican community. Cops are being driven racially to arrest and many times even murder our own people. Even though the police are always abusing their power, the media still finds a way to make the police look bad.
Have you ever thought how many people die from police brutality. I want to tell you about how many police officers kill innocent people, many times “ 2 out of 3 people are innocent and harmless and the 1 person is dangerous and is equipped with weapons. This is a big issue because during the years police brutality has been increasing and most officers just kill because of the civilians race or skin color. In the next few minutes, I am going to discuss police brutality, how it affects civilians , and how we need to protest or start a club so instead of increasing police brutality we decrease it.
In recent years, many believe that police brutality and the use of extreme force has become oblivious to the public eye. “Police brutality is the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. Excessive use of force means a force well beyond what would be necessary in order to handle a situation.” (Wooden, 185). Members of our nation continue to shelter and protect themselves from criminals, but now they must be aware of the men and women that are supposed to be the “peace keepers”, who protect and serve. The horrific events in the last couple of years involving law enforcement agents that have prompted another go around of national reforms from human rights activists, politicians, and citizens will be discussed within this essay. Minority groups must be able to protect themselves from the police officers taking advantage of their powers as a law enforcement agent. But, with this distinguishable difference in power, the citizens are prominently at a standstill for justice.
“New York Man Detained, Choked and Thrown to the Ground by NYPD- For Dancing in the Street”, “San Francisco Cop Caught Choking a Sleeping Hospital Patient, then Falsely Arresting Him”, “Police Kill Unarmed Man On His Doorstep As He Brought Dinner To His Family”, and “Cop Trying to Kill the Family Dog, Kills Woman Instead, In Front of her Husband and 4-year-old Son” are few of many controversial headlines of police brutality-related articles on thefreethoughtproject.com. Police brutality is when cops use unnecessary force while dealing with citizens and it takes place in many different ways. The most common and recognized type of police brutality is physical abuse, but there is also verbal abuse, psychological intimidation, false arrests, racism, and improper use of guns and Tasers. Police brutality is a huge crisis in our country and needs to be eliminated.
Police brutality has been a major problem for years now. just now American citizens are able to see because of technology and social media. Throughout everything citizens have seen or heard they have never heard about police brutality against military men. Until the death of Sergeant James Brown. Sgt. Brown reported to El Paso, Texas county jail for a two-day sentence because he was driving under the influence or intoxicated while driving . While serving this sentences cops say that Sgt. Brown refused to speak with guards so guards called in their riot team. As the riot team approaches they remove Mr. Brown from his cell and places him in a chair with a spitting mask over his face. During the process Sgt. Brown yells out twenty times “I Can’t
In June of this year it was recorded that there had been 490 people killed by the United States police force and a concerning amount of 138 of those citizens were African-American. Compared to the twelve percent that make up part of the U.S. population, thirty percent of the citizens killed by police is disarming. This study was broken down with the inclusion of fatal police shootings by race, ethnicity and region (Joseph). Since the 1992 there has been a great deal of awareness brought to the fact that the black population are the victims most affected in these police brutality instances. It seems imminent that African Americans in particular face this racial injustice compared to white people like myself who are exposed to privilege. For example, in comparison to the media coverage of Michael Brown being justified because he was labeled as a thug and “struggling with an officer, Trayvon Martin who was labeled as “ a kid suspended three times from school”, or 25 year old Derrick Varner who was labeled as “ having a history of narcotics abuse and tangles with the law” (Wing). On the other side of the spectrum a person of Caucasian decent can commit a crime and be treated humanely by police and covered by the media in a good perspective. For example, Jared Michel the Oregon school shooter was labeled as “ fascinated with guns but was a devoted Mormon”, or Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara mass shooter who was labeled as “ soft-spoken, polite, and a gentleman”
When people see a white police officer that pull over a black person they think that police officer is racist. People think that police officer is going to kill the black person because they are different race. Their are some police officers that are not racist but just trying to help people and make sure that their country is safe for other people but their is police brutality in the United State that is making people racist. Police brutality from racism can cause a lot of problems in america because it affect a lot of lives in our country.