The Human Utilization Of Force

In certain situations, the police may have to act quickly on their instincts. Sometimes, a situation is unpredictable and a decision needs to be made in a split second. The quick decision may to be to take a person down physically with the officer’s own hands, or to use deadly force, unfortunately. Anything can happen and the officer needs to be ready for every scenario. The different levels of force can be anywhere from just a police officer being present, to having to kill someone to prevent him or her from hurting anyone else. It’s a harsh reality, but sometimes the officer needs to make the decision to die or to protect him and do what he needs to do.

Police brutality is seen as a real problem in America today. What people do not seem to realize is that the police carry a massive burden each day. The work that officers do has the potential to be very demanding and sometimes involves dangerous situations. In these situations the officers are in the position where they may be required to use force to gain control. The continuum of force dictates the level that is most appropriate for the situation. Most people do not realize that is not the officers job the meet the force. However, it is their job to overcome the force. Police departments have very strict standard operating procedures about officer use force and how force is applied. With this paper, I will attempt to explain the continuum of force, police discretion, and why the police can do some of the things they do.

The use of force is inevitable in police work. In many situations the lives of officers or civilians can be taken by not using force when necessary or using it improperly. Many factors come into play when an officer decides to use force. This includes is the use of force justified, has the officer been properly trained to use force, and will the department be held liable if the force is used improperly?

The point of view in the story “The Use of Force” is in first person narrative. This conveys inner the inner thoughts of the narrator as the doctor. The doctor is a reliable narrator and an observer. I feel that his personality is brought out in the doctor. So the doctors thoughts and behaviors are a reflection of the authors.

The use of deadly force by police officers is a very important subject in today’s society. Many consider the use of deadly force excessive in most cases. However, there are many aspects to look at when considering this topic, such as: Why was deadly force required? When did the officer feel it necessary to apply deadly force? What will be the implications for the officer after the fact? How does the use of deadly force affect society as a whole?

Police officers are individuals who enforce the law upon their community to ensure that their citizens remain safe. In the past couple of years, officers of the law have been involved in acts of brutality that seem to go beyond the proper measurements of protection for their citizens. Policemen are supposed to protect their citizens from danger and from harm, not impose a threat on them. The fact that officers have a history of abusing their power indicates that their trust amongst the community has been corrupted. Those who have been affected of police brutality feel as though they have been deceived. They no longer feel that police officers will protect them, but rather abuse them, and that is a problem. We have began to live in a community in which an individual feels frightened when seeing a cop, rather than feeling protected. Some individuals may argue that police brutality is not a problem due to the fact that it is not consistent enough to catch the attention of needing a solution. However, that idea means little when the level of brutality has led to the death of several innocent victims in some cases. We must not wait for there to be a pattern of death at the hands of police officials to consider this a problem. One death indicates that preventive measures must be taken to ensure that these officers are no longer put in the position to abuse their power to begin with.

Each year citizens die in encounters with law enforcement officers. It is reported that “Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist” (Rucke, 2013). Although there is no official data base tracking these occurrences it is estimated that between 500 and a 1,000 people are killed by police officers each year. To put this in greater perspective this number equals approximately 5,000 since the 9/11 terror attack which is roughly the same number as U.S. soldiers who have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq (Rucke, 2013). This statistic is justifiably concerning. The cause of police related killings are multifold and cannot be attributed to only one factor. Many deaths may be unavoidable and perhaps, dependent on the situation, necessary. I contend, however, that many of these deaths may very well be preventable.

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

In the essay “ The Paranoid Style of American Policing” by Ta-Nahisi Coates, Coates argues against police brutality in Chicago and the way the government handles policing in the state. At the start of the essay,Coates compares how his father would resolve conflicts without violence to the way police these days solve conflicts with violence,for example killing or beating, most of the time when it is not necessary. Police, Coates explains, are given too much power by the government as they are able to resolve dilemmas brutally without any sort of punishment. With all the events that happen between police and citizens the author states it is very hard for the people in Chicago to trust their policing, which is seen in text when the brother of

Police officers are licensed to shoot, not kill; often when they are put in a dangerous situation where they feel threatened or fear for their

When a firearm is discharged at a person that is using deadly force, one of the highest level of force defined by law. Deadly force is not to be used in a non-deadly manner. Deadly force cannot be used to inflict injury or frighten a person. It is only used to protect your life or life’s of

When debating the issue of police use of force, the issue of what actions constitute too much force must also be addressed. Another concern is the possibility of corruption amount officers. When given such great power, the probability of corruption is high. Officers generally do not start out as corrupt, but years of work on the force can create animosity between officers and suspects and lead them to decide to use force more quickly (McEwen, 1996). Many times, officers patrol the streets alone which creates the opportunity for potential abuse of power (McEwen, 1996). Although police officers need to be permitted to exercise some discretion, they also need limits and guidelines to follow when using their powers of discretion (Manning, 1997). The decision to use force should not be taken lightly in that citizen’s lives are at stake. Police should be allowed discretion in decisions to use force; however, this discretion should be limited. In several cases in Arizona, officers have used deadly means of force. In all cases, the officers

Minneapolis Police Department: MPD actually referenced the Minnesota Statute 609.066 which states deadly force is a force which the person using it reasonably knows it will cause death or great bodily harm. Nevertheless, they also added that the willingness to shoot a firearm by a peace officer to another person, or a vehicle in which another person is thought to be in, is also known as deadly force.

Based on the Doctor’s point of view in “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams, the relationship that develops between the doctor and the child becomes predatory. As the title suggest, the central idea of the story is how the doctor negotiates the force he’s in authority of and the effects of utilizing such force. At first he remains cool and professional, but the more the girl struggles against his actions, he feels animalistic to defeat the child. The doctor becomes conflicted by the motivation of his actions as a doctor when he reflected his actions, “Perhaps I should have desisted and come back in an hour or more,” proposing he would’ve compromise with the little girl more professionally (2). Instead he felt “pleasure to attack her,”

“The Use of Force” is one of William Carlos William’s short stories. There’s a common thing in his short stories – describes the story’s setting and events by using what people are familiar in the ordinary life. For example, “The Use of Force” is mainly about the power of “mandatory” that the doctor uses during the process when he is trying to examine the sick girl for her health condition. After the doctor and both her parents’ persuasion fail, under the power of “mandatory”, the doctor eventually understands the condition of the little girl. In order to protect Mathilda herself and other children, the doctor had to make sure whether she had diphtheria or not, so that he could treat her in time, since two children already die in her school.