The Alva Braziel Case

On September 9, 1995, two officers Nolan and Harvey worked as uniformed officers in special operations for the Chicago Police Department. The expectations for entering this area was to find a crowd of people in the area, including lookouts and customers. Upon arriving to the area, Officer Nolan observed Wardlow standing next to a building holding an opaque bag. Wardlow looked in the direction of the officers and fled. Nolan and Harvey pursued in chase and cornered Wardlow on the street. Nolan exits the car and approaches Wardlow, and conducted a protective pat down search for weapons. In doing so, Officer Nolan found a .38-caliber handgun with five live rounds of ammunition. The officers arrested Wardlow. Wardlow was convicted of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.

Jordan, who was unarmed, was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, with four other unarmed teens, including Jordan’s brother, in the car. Roy Oliver shot at the car with a rifle. A bullet broke through the front passenger’s window and hit Jordan. Shortly after, he was rushed to a hospital, where he died from gunshot injuries. This story is one of many that has happened just in 2017. A total of 6 million african americans were killed by police officers in the year 2016. One possible explanation for the racial disparities is that police tend to patrol high-crime neighborhoods, which are disproportionately black. That means they are going to be generally more likely to initiate a policing action, from traffic stops to more serious arrests, against a black person who lives in these areas. This goes to show how misjudged most of modern day society is. More and more people are judged on their appearance or in this situation, where they live.

One event that caused a huge uproar among the Houston populace occurred back in 2014. Writing for the news website Chron, Cindy George and Katherine Driessen (2015) reports “The officer, a 10-year veteran at that time, said Baker reacted uncooperatively when approached and ran into an alley behind the strip mall. Authorities have said the shooting happened behind the stores” (pg. 2). In the defense of the officer, Jordan Baker may very well have acted suspiciously via running away. However, does that justify the use of a gun against an ordinary unarmed civilian? Baker’s family does not think so and George and Driessen (2015) notes “The complaint asserts that Baker was ‘shot and killed without any lawful justification’ and accuses off-duty officer Juventino Castro of considering Baker a suspect because he was a black man in a hoodie” (pg. 2). There are two issues at play here: the use of unnecessary force and race. When it comes to the former, it is very hard to defend the usage of a gun unless Baker pulls one out himself. For the latter, it is also very hard to defend the officer considering HPD’s track record when dealing with racial minorities. Like many other police departments, HPD is no stranger when it comes to the accusation of racially profiling Houstonians. Baker’s family believes that race is in fact a factor contributing to the usage of gun. Judging by the huge uproar, many others appear to share their suspicion in regards to HPD officers being

The shooting occurred at the Fruitvale train station on January 1st, 2009. At the station, a fight broke out in one of the trains and when the train stopped the fight started again outside of the train at one of the stops. While they were fighting on the train the BART officers were called. The officers came and arrested everyone that was in the fight. A guy named Oscar Grant was in the fight and was also arrested (Meyer). While Grant was being arrested by Officer Mehserle, he resisted the officer’s attempts. Since Grant was resisting he was pushed onto the ground on his stomach to be handcuffed. Johannes Mehserle was having trouble handcuffing Grant so the other BART officers helped him. When Grant was on the ground Mehserle was going to tase him since he would not stop resisting. When Mehserle thought he pulled out his TASER, he instead pulled out his gun. Mehserle accidentally shot Grant with his gun since he thought he pulled out his TASER (Bulwa).

When faced with a threat human instinct is to kill first instead of to be killed. Police are trained to disable a threat and as a last resort, kill. What does it say about America’s law enforcement when an officers’ victim is a person of colour who is unarmed? A recent and well known case of unjust demise by police is 22-year-old Oscar Grant. A young black man gunned down, whilst handcuffed, by a white police officer. Grant was unarmed and posed no threat to the officer. Similarly, 23-year-old Robert Tolan Jr. was given the same fate by an officer who allegedly received inaccurate information about a stolen vehicle. Like Grant, Tolan happened to be a black man shot by a white police officer while unarmed. No

Since the killing of Trayvon Martin the number of incidents involving the shooting of African Americans by white police officers has been on the rise. Jordan Davis, 17, shot and killed in Jacksonville, Fla., on Nov. 23, 2012 by Michael Dunn. Renisha McBride, 19, shot and killed in Dearborn Heights, Mich., on Nov. 2, 2013 by Theodore P. Wafer. Eric Garner, 43, killed in chokehold on Staten Island in New York City on July 17, 2014, by police officer Daniel Pantaleo. John Crawford, 22, shot and killed by police in Beavercreek, Ohio, on Aug. 5, 2014.

In Applebee (708), it states, “The major Sheriff shot first, and he missed; and Gregorio Cortez shot next, he didn’t miss.”In The Manhunt for Christopher Dorner, chapter 5, it states, “A round from Dorner’s assault rifle entered just under his left nostril, crashed through the roof of his mouth, shattered his front teeth, split his tongue and exploded bone as it emerged from his lower right jaw. His face went numb.” Also in chapter 3, it states, “One bullet had pierced his badge, ripped through his ballistic vest, and punctured his heart. He had not drawn his gun.” Both Dorner and Cortez had shot innocent cops doing their

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 officer have recently been criticize for shooting African American and using excessive force on them. Groups like Black lives matter and other organizations have crated organization against police officer, those organization have ask for justice for those people that have been killed by police officers. One of the biggest stories in resent time is Samuel Debose a young African American that was shot and kill by Officer Rey Tensing in Cincinnati. Mr. Debose died instantly and Officer is being charged with murder.

On September 27, 2016 an African American man was shot and killed by El Cajon police. A woman whose is sister of the man who was shot called the police indicating her brother was “not acting himself”. The man whose name Is Alfred Olango was walking into traffic in the 800 block Broadway before police officers found him behind a restaurant around 2:11pm. Olango ignored the instructions from the police officers multiple times, then [quote] “concealed his hand in his pant pocket,” Davis said [end of quote]. Olango would pace back and forth then [quote] “rapidly drew an object from his front pants pockets, placed both hands together on it and extended it rapidly toward one officer, taking what appeared to be a shooting stance,” the chief said [end

It was a very tragic situation, an officer should always know who/what they are shooting at every time they pull the trigger. It is a hard story to read and the radio talk amongst the police is even worse. After the officers had fired their weapons, in the graphic footage from one of the officers body cams, you could hear the two officers talking. An officer can be heard in the footage

On Tuesday July 6, 2016 at approximately 12:15 a.m. 37 year old Alton Sterling was shot and killed by two police officers responding to a disturbance call. The altercation between Mr. Sterling and the two officers occurred at the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The two officers involved in the shooting have been identified as 28 year old Blane Salamoni, and 28 year old Howie Lake II. Both officers used physical force to bring Mr. Sterling to the ground, but it is unclear through the video which officer used their gun to shoot Mr. Sterling or if both officers shot him.

According to a Washington Post database of lethal police shootings 24 unarmed black men have been shot and killed by police so far this year. This means one a black man dies every nine days. Three unarmed black men were shot and killed in the month of April alone. All three shootings were either caught on tape or reported on local TV. The 24 unarmed black men that were killed compose a startling small amount of the 585 people shot and killed by police. According to The Post database. Most of those killed were white or Hispanic, and a good number of all races were armed. However, according to Wesley, black men accounted for 40 percent of the 60 unarmed deaths, even though they make up just 6 percent of the U.S. population.

On April 2001 Timothy Tomas, a teenage African American, was shot to death by a police officer. He had fourteen warrants connected with traffic violations and failure to wear a seatbelt. Officer shot him when he was running away. Additionally, he was the fifth black male who was killed by police during five months, and fifteenth since 1995. This case results in two nights of protest in front of city

Killing people is not good, especially if it has to do with someone’s color. African American males should not have to worry about law enforcement hurting them or picking with them. Black men have always had a rocky relationship with the police there’s always been some tension for the last 100 plus years. Not every black male has an encounter with a police officer that has been fatal, but in 2015 The Guardian did a study that shows black men were nine times more likely to be killed by police officers than other