The shooting footage of Keith Lamont Scoot forms part of an outgoing debate on race and abuse of power. Recently, the shooting of black people in the U.S by the police is causing a lot of protests. But, what are the reasons that are leading to this crisis? Is it because of race? To take a posture in this situation is difficult because there is not enough information released and the judicial process of these cases are mostly carried out in secret by the police. For example, in the case of Keith Lamont, the police did not release the video of the shooting immediately. I understand that they should handle the situation carefully in order to prevent instability, but I also think they are abusing their power to control what is released and what
On August 19th, Kajieme Powell was shot twelve times and killed. Kajieme Powell, a twenty-five year old black male was suspected of robbing a convenient store and of having a weapon, so the police officer shot. Luckily, a witness caught the whole thing on tape and the disturbing video is now on Youtube. This is the second incident in the past few weeks around the St. Louis surrounding area that a young black male was killed after being suspected of a minor crimes (jaywalking in Michael Brown’s case and shoplifting in Jajieme Powell’s case). Violent protests and national debates still continue, but FBI and investigators are working hard and inquiring to get to the bottom of
In the article Philando Castile shooting: Dashcam video shows rapid event by Jay Croft. Croft explores the issue of police brutality. Specifically, he takes about the fatal shooting of an African American man Philando Castile who was killed by Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez. This caused an uproar in the African American community because once again a man of color was fatally shoot because the officers assumed that he was going to pull out a gun. Moreover, the role of police officers is to protect members of society from threats.
On August 9, 2014, an 18 year old named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. From this event sprang countless protests, all stemming from the fact that Michael Brown was African American and that he was killed by a police officer (Sokhi-Bulley). As the protests progressed, the demonstrations were met by increasing police resistance, bringing a growing sense of rage and conflict against the law enforcement of the town as well as the country. Overall, the community of Ferguson, Missouri, has a major problem of police brutality, likely originating from a sense of deep seeded racism within the force as well as the nation’s society. While this may appear to be a straightforward issue, there are many different angles and opinions on the Ferguson debate coming from a wide variety of sources.
Larry Buchanan’s “What Happened in Ferguson” first appeared in The New York Times. The article addresses the murder of an unarmed African America teen, named Michael Brown shot and killed by white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. It goes on to explain the events leading up to the shooting, witness evidence as well as the aftermath of the traumatic event. Buchanan aims to inform the general public of factors associated with criminal as well as racial profiling. Buchanan begins his article by explain the events leading up to the fatal wounding of Michael Brown.
The deadly shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Wilson, unveiled numerous issues within local law enforcement, that resulted in social controversy aimed at all of law enforcement. According to the BBC news, Brown was unarmed when he was fired upon by Wilson (“Ferguson unrest”, 2015). A projection from this incident has emerged, claiming that African Americans are killed more frequently than other races when confronted by law enforcement. The statistics have revealed that African Americans who are unarmed have been victim to violence with
Regardless of the decisions made by the courts and the evidence available to the public, it is easy to blame the situation at hand on racism. However, according to the statistics relayed on The Juvenile and Criminal-Justice Center website, the stance leaning towards law enforcement bias towards black men, does not hold. These reports state that police killed 123 blacks. On the other hand, these reports also published that the same group of offenders killed 326 whites. That being said, what about the Michael Brown case has elicited such a violent and nation-wide response?
In recent news we have seen massive riots following the killings of African American men by caucasian police officers. These all follow after one of the most prominent not guilty verdicts of the 21st century on the Rodney King beating. With these riots we see the words of Teju Cole begin to take life.
Police racism is a very big problem in America. The killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Walter Scott are other examples of police racism and brutality as well. Reasons behind police racism and brutality are simple. People still have a certain way that they think about people of color.
Theses examples show that officers are not complying with the requirement are being held accountable by losing their jobs. There must be guidelines for when police should turn their cameras on and off. Many current policies encourage the cameras to be turned on only when police are among the public which is
On that note; does ‘Black Lives Matter’ mean that only black lives matter; or is it the concept that Black lives mattering is a precondition for all lives mattering? This paper will discuss in the rationality of the movement. The movement was created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for Trayvon Martin’s death. It underlines the “racism and policing that shatters the illusion of a colour-blind , post racial United States” (Keeanga-Yamahtta, T., 2016).
The number of shootings involving law enforcement officers and unarmed African American men has increased in the United States in recent months to the point where there is social unrest in one particular community: the African-American community. Groups such as Black Lives Matter have been created in the recent past to create tranquility between the police and the people of the Unites States. If media accounts of these incidents are accurate and these recent trends are taken together, the country is on the tipping point of a deadly unprecedented racial divide. It is safe to say that the majority of Americans would agree that the Civil Rights Movement achieved many of its goals, most would also agree that racism and racial profiling
and whether racial profiling by police officers is the cause of the deaths of so many unarmed black men? In order to answer these questions, the facts about what has occurred must be analyzed thoroughly. As I touched on before, the first case that brought this issue to mass media public attention was the Treyvon Martin case, because it led to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then, there have been a countless number of cases with very similar circumstances, unarmed young black males being shot multiple times by police officers.
With cameras and video recording devices more easily accessible, documentation of these incidents has become more frequent. Racial profiling is not a new terminology, yet it is something that occurs daily in the United States, becoming almost a normality. Law enforcement is meant to create a sense of security and safety, yet there seems to be a growing mistrust and anti-cop mentality, especially among minorities. Cases such as the infamous Rodney King scandal, or the most recent murder of Michael Brown, only give communities further reason to be wary of police. With numerous incidents of police misconduct and use of excessive force that results in the death of an innocent victim, you can no longer ignore this
According to “The Washington Post”, Last year 963 African Americans were shot and killed by police. Ever since the 1960s Africans has been fighting for equality; in the Eric Garner case and Michael Brown, it demonstrated how White police officers abuse and misuse their power towards African Americans. Since the increase of police brutality communities has had marches, rallies, and even the Black Lives Matters movements as a response to show that Polices’ abuse of power is unacceptable. The Black Lives Matter movement was created after radical discrimination it is a political movement to inform and protect Black Lives. (Wesley Lowery.
Research Project: Rodney King Police brutality has been a major problem for many years, especially for those of the minority community. Minorities have been endangered to forcefulness by police for too long. Police brutality has been more relevant in recent years due to certain cases that have proved to be of life-threatening violence, such as the beating of Rodney King. The episode that had happened to Rodney King is a terrible one, but one that perfectly reflects what law enforcement is capable of doing. In order to fully understand police brutality and its probable causes, we have to bring up the case of Rodney King.