Police Brutality Statistics

-By definition the term police brutality is “applied in the context of causing physical harm, it may also involve psychological harm through the use of intimidation tactics beyond the scope of officially sanctioned police procedure.” In today’s society we have police known as riot police, who are known throughout the world to use extreme force. Statistics show almost every time the riot police are involved in crowd control, there is at least one fatality and multiple injured. This is why I believe this is one of the most important issues in the World today. Police are there to protect us but from April 2009 to June 2010 in the United States there were 5986 reports of misconduct from police officers. Police brutality has today’s citizens doubting the police department, and how they go about their arrest. Police brutality is an everyday occurrence, especially in cities where there are large communities of Blacks, Latinos and Asians.

Police brutality has been a growing issue in the United States of the past century. The unique thing about police brutality is it does not discriminate. With that said some races have it worse than others. Such as the African American race they are continently in the news for African Americans being shot and killed by the police. Many look at police brutality as a physical abuse, but it is much more than that. Some people have suffered from mental issues to, such as thinking back to a incident with the police or having anxiety everytime they see a police officer. With that in mind if the police are viewed as a threat in the eyes of some of the public it can only get worse.

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.

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

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)

There is a major issue with police brutality within the confinements of the United States of America, within society in general. The problem of police brutality is not just a problem with African American, it is spread throughout all the races. “Mr. Castellani who is 20 years old, yelling and pointing at officers, who are posted down the street, after his ejection from an Atlantic City casino for being underage. Four officers rush him, take him down and begin beating him -- a fifth officer soon joins in.”(The Baltimore,Leonard Pitts Jr.). It just so happened that this man was black and had been brutally attacked by police because he said something they didn't like it. It isn't always African Americans that are attacked thought, in 2014 Donovan Duran, a Colorado MMA fighter, was beat and dragged to the hospital by police men claiming Duran was intoxicated and hallucinating. He was brutally attacked because of what he believed in, it didn't have anything to do with his skin color, as he was attacked by white police man and Duran turned out to be a Caucasian man with a family and a job. All of that was taken away from him the moment the cops dragged him into the hospital claiming he wasn't right in the head and the cops found him like that. In 2014 Donovan Duran, a Colorado MMA fighter, was beat and dragged to the

Police brutality has been a major issue since slavery. In slavery people, mainly whites, were able to do anything to black people without having to deal without dealing with the consequences. Families were destroyed, people died, babies were killed, and many unknown factors still to this day that will never be known. When slavery was abolished, it did not end right away. It took several years and still is not abolished if you look at in a political way. People of power, mainly white, were not happy that a black person could be seen as equals. This is the main reason why they feel it is okay to lash out at black people. There are several major issues that are causing and epidemic in The United States. However, the main issue that seems to be the most discussed is about police brutality in the black community. “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. Police brutality can be present in a number of ways. The most obvious form of police brutality is a physical form. Police officers can use nerve gas, batons, pepper spray, and guns in order to physically intimidate or even intentionally hurt civilians. Police brutality can also take the form of false arrests, verbal abuse, psychological intimidation, sexual abuse, police corruption, racial profiling, political repression and the improper use of Tasers”

Over the last two years in the United States the African-American people have been fighting a war within our own backyards. The Washington Post reports that since January 2015, the police have shot and killed over 175 young black men ranging from ages 18-29; 24 of them were unarmed. On the flip side 172 young white men were killed, only 18 being unarmed. With these statistics there are similarities in the numbers but, blacks were killed at rates disproportional to their percentage of U.S population (1.Washington Post). Of all unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015. With 40% being black men make up just 6% of the nation’s populations. In the wake of the killings of Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and many more the world has been made more publicly aware of injustices black people have to handle when dealing with law enforcement. Crime in the black community is nothing new in the black community or should I say black on black crime. There is a bad stereotype that has been put on black people since slavery times that I believe has help fueled the violence between the police and my people.

Police brutality is becoming a trend in America. Tensions among the public and especially the African American community are rising due to the latest cases of police brutality. Many people believe that we have come far in this society but to be honest Racism is still a factor. The use of brutal and lethal force by some police officers leading to unnecessary deaths have African American parents on edge to send their children outside for anything. Law enforcement and people whom we trust with our lives are the very same to take it. Some people may want to argue that these cases such as the shooting of Michael brown and choking of Eric Garner are isolated incidents. Others would argue that the work of a police officer is too difficult and that sometimes an officer needs to use such force in order to enforce the law and protect him/herself while on duty. Law enforcement proclaims to feel threatened however what about the civilians who feel threatened of becoming the next target or victim of prey. The society is well aware that not all police commit these crimes and that we do still have law abiding officers. However, with the effort from everyone we can eradicate the bad apples and create a safer road for the officers and civilians.

Police brutality is not a new topic in America. I have researched cases that date all the way back to 1991; although I am sure there are cases long before this. One thing I have noticed is how the public responds to police brutality incidents. As we have seen in Ferguson, people of the city are rioting to try to get their points across. Not much has changed. People back in the day did the same exact things, or maybe even worse. The Rodney King incident of 1991 in Los Angeles, which I will go into more depth later in the essay, sparked outrageous riots. Over a period of five days in the spring of 1992, more than 50 people died and more than 2,000 people were injured in these riots. They also damaged over 1,000 buildings and cost the city of Los Angeles over $1 billion. These are ridiculous statistics and, unfortunately, not much has changed. (cnn.com)

The rate for police brutality has not successfully decreased, in fact, according to the article “Racism and Police Brutality”, by Cassandra Chaney and Ray V. Robertson NMPSRP, “months of April 2009 and June 2010 there were 5,986 reports of misconduct, 382 fatalities linked to misconduct, settlements and judgments that totaled $347,455,000, and 33 % of misconduct cases that went through to convictions and 64 % of misconduct cases that received prison sentences.” The victims are usually black, in cases like this. Blacks feel like all cops don’t care about them or really see them as human beings, which creates tension and miscommunication. The miscommunication makes cops believe they have the right to be more physical or brutal, but some don’t realize it is all caused by police methods and treatment towards Blacks. People say such things like “cops are pretentious douche bags. Officers may have a dangerous job buy y choose a line of work where most off hates you” (Chaney, and Robertson 488), these are people’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs toward

Police brutality is a problem in our society mainly because there are police officers that are getting away with not only physically hurting innocent people, but murder as well. In the past year, there have been between 865-939 cases of people being shot and/or killed by cops (Calacal 1). Racial profiling is one of the main factors in this problem. African Americans and Latinos are the people we see being abused by police on the daily. So far this year, 215 African-Americans and 94 Latinos have been killed by police. Data shows that a black person is 3 times more likely to be killed by a police than a white person. Several officers

Police brutality has today society questioning the general police department and how their arresting procdure is done. Police brutality occurs everyday in cities where large communties of color is concerned. Black, Latino, & Asian youth are harassed and assulted on a daily basis this is why we hear so much hate agqainst police, the brutality against people is creating a horrible image for police they are suppose to protect & serve not beat & absue. Racial truma is real even for people that have never been absued by plice usally consume information through the news, social media, where situations like those turn into hastags people can see videos of officer-invloved shootings doctors have stated the viewing videos of people being gunned down, killed by police is NOT psychologically healthy. As of September 2nd more than 700 people had been killed by police and African Americans had the second highest rate of victimization per million behind Native

Police brutality is a factual thing and people have been observing ever since, to see if it’s a real problem for society, which it is. There have been lots of shooting happening lately, where the police shoot an unarmed person, for no reason. What if that happened to your loved ones? We haven’t heard the real background as to, why it happens? But as we can see from the research that people have done over the year, that the police targets most of the minority people. For example, when a police over at Florida, decided to shoot an unarmed black teenage man because he was walking at the night with his hoody on. Another similar case, where another black teenage man at Ferguson was shot by the police because he was a black person, walking down the

Police brutality against African Americans was a huge impact in Los Angeles, California in 1991, and continues to be a problematic situation in America today. On March 3, 1991, a group of white LAPD beat Rodney King. After this incident occurred a lot of negative events started to transpire. A lot of African Americans were angry and demanded justice. The relationship between the LAPD and the Los Angeles community in 1991 were horrific and still continues to be awful today. Police brutality just seems to be increasing more overtime, which means the increase in the community not trusting the police. Police brutality can be a huge disadvantage when it comes to community policing.