Police Brutality Essay Essay

Introduction: Studies has shown that police are more likely to abuse blacks rather than whites and this is caused by racial profiling. But through the history of police brutality, police brutality was first used after a police officer was described beating a civilian in 1633. Police brutality is the abuse of force and it is usually through physical. But there are other ways to abuse which are verbally and sometimes psychologically and this is done by a federal or state authorities which are the police officers. The history of police brutality has been a cycle and the phrases are actually violence, corruption and improve on what is wrong. These has been a cycle for many years through police brutality. Police brutality exists in many countries and not only in the US. African American are always targeted as â€Å"bad† people and this also proves that there are inequality within the black community and the world. There are also certain misconducted forms of brutality but some of these are reall y common in our society which are racial profiling, corruption, false arrest and inserting fear into civilians. There are many other cases that were actually targeted mainly on blacks and this causes unfair justice. Police’s agenda is to basically fight and protect civilians as well as being the peace keepers and never being the one that harm any civilians without proper approval or warrant to an arrest or to an even greater extend which is physically, verbally or psychologically harming the opposed civilian on the mistake he/she has done. Police are the ones that set an image towards the society so that people can actually follow them and think they are doing the right thing, however it is a really disturbing matter knowing that police does racial profiling especially compared to whites and blacks. And therefore, this research paper is about police will most likely be more crucial to blacks compare to whites and this is known as racial profiling. Police brutality and racism in the US Police brutality and racism has played a big role in degrading the safeness of US as well as degrading the reputation of the authorities through these problems, there are significantly huge amount of statistics reports on police brutality. Even though these cases are brought up to court, out of  5986 reports only 33% went through conviction and 64% received prison sentences. American police officers have used lethal weapons to kill more than terrorist did since the Vietnam War. And at least once a year, there is always a person beaten by a Police Officer. And this is always shown as abusive of authority. Although committing a crime is illegal, police have no rights to abuse their rights through physical or verbal actions. Although physical abuse brings physical pain and such but verbal abuse has actually proved that it would be more harmful to that victim. As in one of the cases, a police officer actually insulted the victim till the victim killed himself out of anger. Words can actually mean a lot towards a human being and police officers think that they won’t be charged with any offense through insulting verbally instead of physical abuse can actually cause problem towards these police officers. According to a research, every year about 261 police officers are involved with police brutality and only about 27 percent of these victims are involved in law suits. In many cases, majority of these victims are actually African Americans that were abused by the law that are supposed to protect them. And the research also shows that there is a result of 382 deaths out of 5986 reports. Other than the statistics, there is also a few groups of people which are elderly, drug addicts, female and weak people. Police would take advantage of this to brutalize them while inserting fear in them through threatening for an example, police officers might threaten them about their family members and if they were to report anything the police officer would arrest or treat their family members the same way they were being treated and this would definitely insert fear into the victims. That is why some cases were reported as fake issues because victims themselves do not want to admit the truth being worried of being physically or verbally abused again. Overall, if a police officer was found abusing a victim, their rights as a police would probably be revoked and only prison sentence up to 14 months averagely and this is unfair to all the other crime offenders as well as the victims because 14 months is a really short time which these victims might be abused once again when these police officers are discharged from their duty and/or the prison. Racial profiling in the US among police officers There are a lot of known cases of police brutality especially on blacks on racial profiling. But according to an article in 2012, a black person is killed by a security officer every 28 hours. As it was also stated in this article, that African-Americans are about 13.1% of the nation population but it has nearly covered 40% of the prison’s population. Also, blacks sometimes do sell drugs and is the same as white but they have a higher percentage of getting arrested for drugs than whites and this is racial profiling. Black offenders also definitely receive a longer sentence compare to white offenders. Other than that, most of the blacks killed were unarmed, which according to the report, 44% of blacks was killed even though there was no sign of weapon. 27% deaths are claimed that the suspect had a gun but there was no prove to this. 2% had small weapons such as knifes, big scissors and cutters or any other similar weapons, and only about 20% had guns or deadly weapons. Most off icers that killed blacks claim that they were afraid and they were trying to protect themselves so they have been force to open fire. These police officers open fire if they feel like they are being threaten, for an example, the suspect running away from the cops, driving towards to cops or getting something from their waist. Police officers do not conclude if the suspect does have a weapon or not and yet just use deadly force to solve the issue. In one of the known cases of an African American getting shot by a police officer, the suspect name is Oscar Grant 22 year old, and was shot by Johannes Mehserle a police officer. The police officer claimed that Grant had a gun even though Grant was subdued by other officers which is not justified because Oscar Grant was already being subdued by other officers and yet Johannes Mehserle still fired his weapon at Oscar Grant. A few other examples of African American being assaulted without justified reasons are Rodney King, Sean Bell, and many other more. Rodney King was drunk on that night on March 2, 1991. He was speeding on the freeway and that was when the police officers attempted to pull him over, but Rodney King resisted. Once they manage to get Rodney King out of the vehicle, a group of officers tried to subdue Rodney King and used taser as well. Rodney King was kicked at the head and also was beaten with nightsticks. But lucky enough, King’s injuries wasn’t really serious but it left him with a couple of bruises and also a facial fractured bone. Sean Bell was killed by a police undercover team which fired 50 times at the car Bell and his friends  were riding in, it happened outside a strip club because he was having his bachelor’s party on that night. A police officer actually overheard that the friend talking about getting his gun, so in order to prevent the shooting from happening, the police officers opened fired at the car. And that was when Sean Bell passed away immediately on the scene. The detectives were not charged guilty of manslaughter on that night. And these are some of the cases African American’s are actually facing and this is why US should enforce a heavier rule on racial profiling. Actions of police brutality on selected victims through racial profiling The actions that were used on blacks were more crucial compare to whites such as verbal persuasion, unarmed physical force, force using non-lethal weapons, force using impact weapons and deadly force. There was a case which verbal persuasion actually lead the victim to committing suicide out of anger that has stated and it was cause by a police, these African Americans were often called nicknames like â€Å"nigger†, â€Å"negro† and many other nicknames. This can cause an impact on how they feel, it will never be shown through physical but always inside them. That is why verbal persuasion is really negative towards a victim. Unarmed physical force can cause external damage but actually, also internal because you would feel the depression on African American are seen as a minority and they know that their race will be discriminated against. As seen in some cases, African American was treated more crucially than whites, in one of the case, the black refused to go into the officer’s lunchroom and the next thing he knows is his head smashing through a plate glass window. If it was a white, it is really obvious that the police would allow him to stay outside the lunchroom and wait for other procedures. Non-lethal weapons that were used on blacks are more crucial, blacks were Taser multiple times which causes a great pain to them and in one of the cases recently, the victim was Taser to death. Force using impact weapons has also been an issue towards African American, in Walmart US, an African American went to pick up a bb rifle and he was just waving the gun around, after that the police came and ask him to disarm the gun as not knowing that was just a bb rifle. Regardless, the disagreement from the police, the police shouldn’t have fired a fatal shot on the victim and why  is the victim shot holding a bb gu n in a bb gun store. Conclusion In conclusion, the research has shown that police are more likely to be crucial towards blacks rather than whites and this is caused by racial profiling. As from the research above, we can conclude that police has been crucial towards African American. But we should also improve the systems that US is using which is actually people’s mind set. A simple thing can become a great problem, especially in racism police should not be bias about a crime which is done by a certain race but putting all the races together as one. Police’s job description is to fight justice and bring peace to civils and not being the one breaking the law. It will never be a good image towards civils. Solutions can be implemented through federal authorities, by ensuring that abuses such as torture, excessive amount of force will not happen and these officers that had broken the law should be accounted for and be brought to justice. Like some of the cases, the jury would say that the police is at his/her rights and only have a prison sentence up to 14 months average. This encourages police to not be afraid because it would only be a short time for sentence and be daring to do what is right. This would also influence the new police candidates that assaulting would not get them into a really big problem. The federal authorities should also implement solutions such as recording the actions a police officer used through a camera or being supervised by the team leader. Street cameras are really important for this matter which they can always refer back to the scene and watch how the victim was treated by police officers and this would definitely make US a better place instead of discriminating the minorities which is the African American but these solution applies to all the races but specifically for African American in order for them to be able to live equally like all the other races without any misjudgment or discrimination through racial profiling. References 99 Percent Of Police Brutality Complaints Go Uninvestigated In Central New Jersey: Report. 2014. 99 Percent Of Police Brutality Complaints Go Uninvestigated In Central New Jersey: Report. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/07/police-brutality-new-jersey-report_n_4555166.html. 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