Racism In Racism

Also, in Kansas City, Missouri, a police department there has 1,110 officers. Amazingly, the only received approximately 108 complaints from the public about those 1,100 officers.

Racism in police treatment of minorities has created great disparities in incarceration amongst the races. Blatant cases of racist law enforcement that are covered in the news are a testament to the fact that racism within police departments exists from coast to coast. However, these are only the cases that people find out about; there are countless other cases of police racism and brutality that are not reported.

The term “Police Officer” by definition is [1]“ :a person whose job is to enforce laws, investigate crimes, and make arrests”.[1] For such a straight-forward position there is quite a massive amount of stigma attached to the title. Police officers are supposed to be seen has community heroes or helpers, but it seems as the year 2016 continues the general public have manifested a resentful standing towards the law enforcement system. There are many factors that play into these emotions, but the reoccurring problem is the presence of police brutality.

Does this data suggest that African Americans are simply more violent than the rest of the population, or is this an example of racial injustice by police officers? Is a black citizen more likely to be arrested when committing a crime than a white citizen who commits the same crime? University of Wisconsin-Whitewater criminologist Marvin D. Free, Jr. believes that today, African Americans are still being targeted by police officers, and are being left at a disadvantage. Free believes that black defendants are more likely to be arrested under less definite evidence than whites are. He also believes black defendants are more likely to be overcharged in crimes (Schmalleger,

Police officers are often viewed as oppressors and unjust by the community, when in reality they are just doing their jobs. The job of a police officer is to apprehend criminals and detect crime, and the maintenance of public order and to the extend and complication of this duty police officers often need to make split second decision that is not often view by the public as what we call “self-defense” which is a right we all have as human beings and stated in the Universal Declaration of

The problem of police brutality being linked to race is not a new one. Most officers do not believe that they are at fault and usually blame the victim for instigating the conflict.

While racism might appear to be the primary cause of a higher proportion of African American deaths by police, when comparing that to crime rates and police encounters by African Americans, the proportional gap significantly lessens. According to “the counted” police shootings database by the guardian newspaper, police shootings of African Americans in 2016 make up around 25% even though they only make up 13% of the population. This one statistic has led many people from the general public, media, and scholars to attribute this as evidence for racism. What they fail to mention however, is that according to the FBI database on crimes committed by race in 2011, African Americans commit 28.4% of all crimes, 50% of homicides, 55.6% of robberies, and 33.6% of aggravated

Many Americans have noticed patterns regarding the victims of police brutality. A source from the New York Times written by Timothy Williams, a graduate from Columbia University, concludes that, “Although officers employ force in less than 2 percent of all police-civilian interactions, the use of police force is disproportionately high for African-Americans — more than three times greater than for whites”(Williams). He observes that although police brutality doesn’t occur often, African-Americans face police brutality more so than Caucasians. Another source by Julie E. Samuels, a senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, notes that “about one in six (17 percent) believed that whites are treated better by police than blacks and other minorities, and about one in 10 (11.1 percent) believed that more police violence occurs against blacks than against whites”(Samuels). This information also

Police brutality in the United States is a serious issue. The news media has broadcast different incidents of police brutality over all the major news networks in the past 24 months. The coverage of events by the news media has shaded a negative light over how police officers use force while attempting to apprehend or communicate with African American males and other minorities. Federal Bureau of Investigations along with state agencies collects statistical data on police brutality to help state and local agencies address issues of police misconduct. The data use does not factor in the officer's personal life ex-posers, the department call load, shortage of police officers, or the officer's previous history involving similar incidents. Police brutality goes beyond the use of unjustified physical force that might cause death. It also can include verbal intimidation that dehumanizes a citizen (Alang, 2017). Law enforcement agencies can reduce police brutality by effectively training officers in cultural diversity and conflict resolution.

Numerous people claim that many police brutality cases, such as the Michael Brown case, the Trayvon Martin case, or the Tamir Rice case, are the result of racist officers. It is true that in some police brutality cases, racism towards the victim is apparent. Especially earlier in the 20th century and before, when many people were prejudiced against blacks, and other ethnic minorities. But more often than not, police brutality cases are not racist, even if the officer is white and the victim is a minority. Every case of police

In 2013, 49,851 officers were assaulted in the line of duty. That same year the injury rate was up to 29.2%. In 2015 a poll was conducted for the justice department. They analyzed 394 incidents involving deadly police force. They found that “officers do

Police officers are constantly being faced with the unknown. Police face the danger of getting shot in any situation. Policemen could get shot during a building search, or even at a traffic stop. For example in El Paso, Texas, a dash cam video was released showing that an officers was being shot at in a drive by while conducting an unrelated traffic stop. Reports state that Officer Mike Garcia stopped Horacio Castaneda because he didn 't have his headlights turned on. As Officer Garcia conducted the stop, Frank Aparicio fired four shots from his vehicle as he passed by. Ron Martin, the President of the El Paso Municipal Officers Association said, " Yeah we get shot at, we get attacked, people try to kill us on a daily basis but this is the firest time somebody just opened fire." This incident proves that the chances of a policemen being shot, are very high.

“These controversial deaths have also contributed to the American public having the lowest confidence in their police force in twenty-two years according to a 2015 Gallup Poll,” (John Murillo). Police are meant to be the protectors of innocent civilians and to lower crime rates. People who don’t trust their police force take justice into their own hands in the form of protesters and cop killers. Rachel talks about how in St. Louis a peaceful protest turned violent against police officers. A police officer, Schellman, of St. Louis for 12 years talking about the most violent night in St. Louis said “I haven't seen anything remotely close," (Rachel).

Unfortunately, police brutality is a trend that continues to increase daily. In fact, the Washington Post stated there was 807 people shot, and killed by police in 2016. Not to mention, in 2015 there was 901 people shot, and killed by police in the United States. However, there are many underlying factors that lead to any police involved shooting, or police brutality incident that occurs. Furthermore, it is important to understand these factors, so officers could prevent any more police brutality incidents from reoccurring. One factor, that has led to police brutality incidents in the past, and continues to cause police brutality incidents today is when an officer makes a negative assumption about a specific ethnic group, or a distinct group of people who share cultural characteristics (Zastrow, Kirst-Ashman, 2015). This is may cause an officer to think that because the individuals are the same race, and share a common set of physical characteristics and common beliefs, that they are all the same (Zastrow, Kirst-Ashman, 2015).

As for police violence towards blacks, a study analyzing data from the U.S. Shooting Database found that in America “the probability of being black, unarmed, and shot by police is about 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed, and shot by police on average.” As you read the only