Keith Lamont Scoot: Race And Abuse Of Power

Rae 'Neisha Richard 1 February 2018 English 145 Mr. Van Dyck Police Brutality Police Brutality is an American problem more than policing problem. Giving the reality that African Americans have always been viewed as “other” throughout American history, is it really surprising that police officers are more likely to fear and kill African Americans than White Americans? Why is police brutality a factor and what is people doing to stop it? In order to stop Police Brutality they need more training, because it’s beginning to be a serious problem in communities. Because of racism, economy change, and police needing more training.

According to the article Racism and Police Brutality in America, “Whites believe that Blacks are disproportionately inclined to engage in criminal behavior and are the deserving on harsh treatment by the criminal justice system” (Chaney 484). The justice system has unfortunately followed this idea. The African American race has been a minority in the legal system in the past; however, it has been much worse as of 2015. Some individuals assume it is acceptable to refrain from acknowledging this fact. Racism is an issue in the midst of police brutality, and it should be resolved.

Throughout African American history , the police force has been accountable for numerous detrimental deaths in the African American community due to racial discrimination. In 1960s, African American protesters were targeted by the police force because of the their desire to be be deemed as equal. Likewise, in today’s society African Americans are still experiencing active racial discrimination and injustices from the police force. African Americans have expressed their level of frustration with the inhumane actions of the police force. Police brutality of African American protesters has been rebirthed into 21st century by ongoing racial injustices through Henry Louis Gates Jr. and victims of the detrimental equality marches , evidence is presented.

This is what started the Blue Lives Matter movement, a movement for police officers to be protected. Due to a spike in police deaths the government imposed harsher laws against assaulting, harming, or killing a police officers. The BLM community is concerned because they feel like they are taking a step backwards in the relationships between the community and its people with the local police officers. Lots of people are saying that the movement is unjust because they believe that “All Lives Matter,” but the movement is just simply pointing out that African Americans are being wrongfully targeted and killed. The movement is trying to prove that all of our lives should be equal not one life is better than the

Phrases that he uses in order to give anger are for example; “There are many problems”, “one interrogates”, “this time of heightened concern”, “Do we really want?”, and many more of phrases and questions with the same tone. The pathos used is not very persuasive because of the lack of evidence, and the lack of back ground information. For the most part, Coates uses pathos as his supporting evidence. We can see this in the beginning of the article when he makes the audience question recent police actions as just. He continues by mentioning the names of suspects whom were killed by the police with a little bit of background information to make the audience feel anger towards the situations.

Harassment at the hands of police, Los Angeles riots and the beating of Rodney King by law enforcers pushed the N. W. A. to make music. Music was the only escape from police brutality, crack dealing, 'Reaganomics ' and gangbanging. They were pushed to make music from their experiences in their neighborhood. Dre and Eazy-E, members of N.W.A., were once harassed by police for shooting paintball guns. Ice Cube, another member of N.W.A, explains how there was mistrust between police officers and people in his neighborhood.

While his detectives are normally searching for justice and what is right, they do not regularly obey the rules and laws as they should be. It seems that Howard shows us more on detectives of the police procedural. It is almost as if he is telling us that police officers

In the last decade, publicized events of police violence have exploded. The force of people that were meant to serve and protect have become one of the most criticized facets of society. With more and more visibility of misconduct on the news, people have taken up ideological arms against these biased actions. After the 2012 murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and acquitment of vigilante George Zimmerman for the crime, #BlackLivesMatter became a call to action to stop the dehumanized violence perpetrated against blacks. In response to this movement, #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter has been cried out.

I mentioned a few reasons on how the use of force has made police officers look bad. It is making officers look bad because recordings from the public only show the beatings and shootings, but do not capture the beginning of the confrontation. It will be bet for officers and the goof being of the community I officers use body-worn cameras because it will capture every second that happens between confrontations. The use of force is granted to the officers if they feel like the suspect is dangerous or is not complying with the officer. It was a right given to them by a case back in 1985, in which a person was killed by deadly force.

Police and media have been in the news lately and mostly for the wrong reasons. The media can highlight police officers in a good light or a bad light, However, most people only get to see the one percent of police officers that shed a bad light over all police officers. One example would be the Michael Slager case where he shot Walter Scott, and was found guilty of violating Walter Scotts civil rights while unlawfully using his gun. Cases like these make the public believe all police officers are and should not be trusted. The media rarely shows the good acts of police officers.