Rebecca Ruiz Summary

In looking at Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) history with using excessive force, there needs to be a way that hold these police officers accountable to prevent citizen-police tension and create transparency for the public. During the 1990s, 61% of police officers from the LAPD were white and considered aggressive with African American communities which suggest racial tension among the two groups (Suburbanstats, 2017). Eula Love and Rodney King are two victims of

Recently, our country has undergone tremendous suffering due to police brutality. Some police officers are taking the law into their own hands and intertwining their personal views and stereotypes on the black community. They are committing inhumane crimes on African Americans and our justice system is allowing it to continue. Several police officers are noticing that if they commit this crime out of pure hate it is acceptable and the courts will rule in their favor. It continues to happen because there is no punishment for their wrong doing.

Usually, people who commit homicide are convicted and sentenced to many years of incarceration but almost all police that has murdered are never found guilty. For example, Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white police officer, killed Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, after shooting at least 10 rounds at him. Just imagine losing your child just two days before their first day of college over cigarillos. Then a mere three months later Wilson was found not guilty even with the amount of compelling evidence against him proving that police have always, subjected minorities to apparently discriminatory treatment and have physically abused minorities while using racial epithets(Collins, Cynthia 2). Even though Michael deserved some punishment Wilson had no right to take it to the extreme and shoot a

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)

For as long as there have been Police Officers society has had to deal with misconduct and corruption in the institution. Through the nineteenth century, police officers became muscle employers used to violently end strikes. The rough police officiating and the racist Klu Klux Klan prompted the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The “anti-Klan bill”, intended to enforce both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the first federal law passed defining United States citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. The 1871 Civil Rights Act, “Section 1983 makes an officer liable for deliberately depriving any citizen of the United States of his or her Constitutional Rights.”(Prusinski,

“Officer Jeronimo Yanez, charged with second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black Minneapolis man” (Capecchi). “Brian Encinia, former Texas trooper charged with misdemeanor perjury stemming from his arrest of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was later found dead in a county jail” (Almasy). “Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, charged with failure to supervise in connection with the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black Staten Island man who died after police to administered a controversial choke hold” (Eversley). These are a few examples of the mistreatment suffered by young black citizens at the hands of police officers that resulted in the death of a suspect. Throughout the nation, the mishandling of the authority given to police officers has increased and is not merely coincidentally occurring.

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.

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.

There are so many people getting murder by cops, black people especially. There are many innocent cops being killed as well. People are getting killed every day for no reason at all. When a cop kill an African American seem like nothing is never done. They did not indict that officer for the death of Eric Garner.

If there was any wrongdoing, i.e shooting an unarmed suspect, one might believe the officer would have charges brought against them and that there would most likely be a conviction if there was any police misconduct present. Not exactly, in 2015 of the 104 unarmed African Americans that were shot and killed, only 14 officers had charges brought against them, and only 4 were convicted (Sinyangwe, 2018). The system that is supposed to be protecting violent offenders and other menaces from society seems to be delicately prosecuting police for their conduct in shooting unarmed civilians. These police officers should be held to the same standard as anybody else that shoots a person unarmed. Any other citizen is held to a different standard than police are currently being held to in our country. The fact that police are held to a different standard in a shooting shows that there is a problem with their conduct and the way we treat them for treating other

Police brutality against the black youth in America is not uncommon news to us, it dates as far back as 1999 when four police officers shot forty-one bullets at and killed Amadou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, in the Bronx, NYC. The officers later claimed to have seen Diallo reaching for something that looked like a weapon but actually all he had in his hand was his wallet. However, all four policemen were acquitted if all charges in the case, in fact, one of the killer cops, Kenneth Boss, stayed on the force and was allowed to carry a gun again in 2012.

Police brutality is increasingly prevalent and is constantly being swept under the rug. The dynamic between police officers and citizens is overwhelmingly racist. Cops (white or black) are in the position of power and use that to their advantage the same way any white person would over black man. Chief Justice Taney is a prime example of how white men can make and enforce laws that blatantly disadvantage colored people. In the Dred Scott case, he used his power to ensure that black men could not be considered citizens even though he had no right or authority to do so (“Speech on the Dred Scott Decision at Springfield Illinois” 111-120). The same racist institution that allowed Taney to make that decision decided Timothy Loehmann was not at fault for Tamir Rice’s murder. The justice system is built on and fostered by this racist power

In many cases law enforcement likes to do justify many of their wrongdoings on the hunch that he was “just doing his job” in the instance of killing or brutality injuring an innocent man or child for being somewhere at the wrong place or time can be validated with a simple statement (Kiely 209). Similar to when Paul was once telling Quinn “It’s harder to be a cop here now than it used to be” (Kiely 167). Nostalgically thinking back on time when Whites made up majority of the town's population and minorities precisely made up a unreasonably small fraction less than half thus implying that because there are more minority races particularly African Americans taking occupancy, the town has become more prone to violence, stealing, and other crimes . According to The New York Times, “In 15 high-profile cases involving deaths of Blacks, one officer faces prison time” (Lee). Implicating that only one officer out of 15 cases was convicted for the crime he committed and the others were given a leave of absences from duty. For the families of those who didn’t receive rightful justice they were granted payouts to pay for funeral expenses leaving the officer able to walk away scot free acquitted of all charges. However, thankfully the family does walk away with a hefty amount of money but, at the expense of their love one’s life. Racism within law enforcement takes so many innocent lives each year on account of just because of race alone regardless if a crime was committed or not. However, society as well is a major component revolved around

In the past several years there has been a negative outlook on how the police force are completing the tasks they are given. In some cases police are using excessive brute force to subdue their “perpetrator.” Glover stated “The targeting of people of color by law and law enforcement is an American tradition.” (P.11). With everything going around today with police officers and how they treat the people of color in our society I can see how that can be said. That statement can be applied to cases such as like the one with Eric Garner, an African American male, who was put in a chokehold to be subdued but ultimately ended with his untimely death all “on the suspicion of selling a loose cigarette”(Thompson,2015). Another case where this can

As stated by Connie Ruiz, a nutrition professor at Lamar University, people do not know the right portion of their meals and often they thought that the foods restaurant offered is the right one when they are actually not (Ruiz, n.d). The meal prep service however, helps in guiding people to eat the right portion based on their own needs (Ruiz, n.d).