Literature Review Unfortunately, police brutality has been a part of the United States for many years. Most police brutality began in the late 1800s, early 1900s. This is still a problem today in the United States. The main part of this paper is to present research findings on this particular social problem.
Police brutality on African-American’s is violent and harmful. In our society today many police are unfairly treating African American people.There is a lot of evidence and statistics here that can help me prove what I 'm saying is the truth. Police brutality on African Americans is a terrible social injustice that must end.
Police Brutality and Race Police brutality is not a new problem in the United States. It has occurred throughout history and has affected all genders, ethnicities, and races. Recently, however, police brutality towards African Americans has become a controversial topic in the news media, and has prompted heated discussions and angry public outcry about race relations and civil rights throughout all sections of the country. Ever since the Michael Brown shooting in 2014, which was caught on camera and viewed widely on national television and on social media, the police have been under scrutiny by both the news media and the general population to stop their use of physical force and unnecessary violence when apprehending and confronting criminals.
In the spring of 1991,” In Los Angeles, California, four Los Angeles police officers that had been caught beating an unarmed African-American motorist in an amateur video an acquitted of any wrongdoing in the arrest.” [“1992 Riot in Los Angeles”]
Police Brutality in America and the 1990s The legal system in the United States has been broken since it’s inception, disproportionately attacking, and punishing anyone who is not white. As the country grew, improving, growing prosperous, the broken system continued its work. One result of this broken system is police brutality, and overstepping of police power. In fact, according to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, of the black people questioned, 70% said they felt they were unfairly treated when dealing with police.
Law enforcement has gone through many controversial ligations involving racial profiling, such as one of the most notorious incidents of the 21st century, being the shooting of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. This case was
"Why are you following me" Zimmerman asks Trayvon " What are you doing around here" Based on the reports there were two different stories. Next thing that happened Trayvon and Zimmerman were tassling on the ground. Zimmerman than shots Trayvon which a neighbor witness. Zimmerman says it was in self defense. An officer arrived at the scene in less than a few minutes where he seen Zimmerman standing by Trayvon 's body.
Police brutality remains a common yet controversial topic around the world. Police brutality is “the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians” (thelawdictionary.org). It’s a topic that segregates communities and makes each other their enemy. Specifically, a white officer has been the enemy of the black community. Unfortunately, the tension between police and blacks grew over the past few decades. As a result, there is a drastic increase of violent outburst between both sides. For the last years, it was reported that 51.5 percent of black were killed by police officers (ibtimes.com). On the other hand, there have been 51,548 assaults against law enforcement and it resulted in 14,453 injuries in 2015 alone (nleomf.org). In the United States, recently, police brutality has been a popular subject all over the news and social media.
Police Brutality is an ongoing problem and existent concern in the United States and should be resolved immediately. Law enforcement must function as an element that consists of organized and civilized officers. The presence of police brutality is becoming more of an issue as society grows. The problem posed by the illegal exercise of police power is an ongoing reality for individuals of a disfavored race, class, or sexual orientation. Police brutality must be stopped so that police do not forget who they are serving not themselves, but the public. This means that even the criminals, who are a part of the public, have certain rights, particularly, civil rights. Police brutality causes a major concern in America. These racial prejudices are
This year alone, in Chicago almost 80 percent of the people killed have been black. In Baltimore the figure is 216 black people versus 11 white, in Philadelphia 200 black people versus 44 white. Although it’s troublesome that most are killed by other black people, it is disturbing to think that the innocent blacks are killed by armed officers, especially the white officers. The “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement is taking actions to campaign against violence toward black people. Founder Alicia Garza said BLM is recognizing that “Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity.
Justice Department announces that no federal civil rights charges will be brought against George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in February 2012”. Equally important, one contributing factor that has become evident is race. A big factor in the Trayvon Martin case was claimed to be racism; a diversity of people claimed Zimmerman as racist; I strongly feel if Trayvon Martin was white the situation, and results would have been different. In addition, the most notable racial profiling occurs mostly towards African Americans, specifically young black males. In other words, Justice is not being served for people of color, such a tragedy, African Americans have developed their own powerful movement of national protests and distributed all over social media hashtags such as
His attacker George Zimmerman- a neighborhood watch member- reportedly shot and killed Martin merely yards from his home. Similar to Trayvon Martin, Mike brown was an unarmed teenager who was brutally killed by police. “The fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager Saturday by a police officer in a St. Louis suburb came after a struggle for the officer’s gun…” ( Mike Brown NY Times Article). Hundreds of community members gathered to peacefully rally for a better investigation of his death, and in response police brought K-9 enforcements and weapons, if that isn 't a despicable representation of police force, I don 't know what
Police Brutality In today's society, it is not uncommon for police officer misconduct, including brutality, to gain everyone's attention. When one officer shoots and kills a suspect, that officer is investigated in order to ensure there was no intentions to harm anyone but to try and keep the peace. Intentional harm to citizens is considered police brutality and can escalate into something more serious such as riots and protests. The kind of misconduct that some police take when arresting a suspect cannot be taken lightly to prevent any sort of riots or protests such as those after Rodney King as 50 people were killed and hundreds more were injured (Katel).
In America today there has been a rising issue with the misconduct of law enforcement against African Americans. The reasons why police brutality has become an issue is because police officers are violating citizen’s rights, killing innocent lives, and abusing their power of authority. How many more lives are to be taken in order for people to realize the injustice of the law enforcement.
What is Police Brutality? Police Brutality is the use of any force exceeding what is necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. It's history is undeniably long.(“Police Brutality”) Why do they mostly target blacks? I think they target blacks because they still view us as the minority of the country and they overuse their power. Not only do they overuse their power, they overuse their power to unarmed black men and get caught in the act most of them don't even go to trial or get any punishment. I strongly disagree with the police officer’s actions and I think it should be changed. “There aren’t more police shootings just more coverage” (McLaughli).