Topic: police-brutality

Beginning as early as the 1800s, many civilians of color have been victimized by those who hold a badge or a license with law enforcement. Violence against African Americans began during the enslavement, dating back to the early 1600s through the late 1800s. Those enslaved had to experience their life within someone else’s hand, and in the year of 2018, us African Americans, not to the extent of those enslaved are still somewhat experiencing life within the hands of a white man. During those years of enslavement, slaves were not allowed to perform basic human rights such as voting or the right to freedom of speech or even attend school to enhance their knowledge. In today’s society, we are experiencing our basic rights stripped from us when encountering law enforcement officials such as our right to privacy. In many cases, police officers are enforcing unlawful searches without proper cause or warrants. If the victim does not act accordingly, police officers automatically think they are not cooperating and react forcefully. Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, beating, sexual abuse, and imprisonment in response to disobedience of masters. Due to the background of racial tension, many police officers have adopted the approach of willingly discriminating against black people when pursuing criminal offenders, however, does not compare to the cruelty the ancestors of this generation had to experience with their masters (Owen, 2016). With the torture of over 100 African Americans to receive confessions in 1971, beating of Rodney King in 1991, scandal involving the police department’s Rampart Division in 1999, shooting and killing of Amadou Diallo in 2000, to the shooting and killing of Michael Pleasance in 2003 (Weitzer, 2002), the victims involved all have a similar background. The color of their skin, their presumed look of guilt, and the unjustified action taken against them resulting in death. In the Journal of Criminal Justice written by Ronald Weitzer, Department of Sociology, George Washington University, he goes on to explain that the causes for brutality are “·racist attitudes, assertive police strategies, mentality of trained “shoot to kill”, and lenient treatment”. With many cases of excessive force from individuals who have sworn to “Protect and Serve” in their oath according to the state of Virginia, stating “I (state your name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all duties incumbent upon me as (state your name) according to the best of my ability, (so help me God).” (Title 49. Oaths, Affirmations and Bonds), however, shown in statistics presented in the Chicago Tribune in 2016, four out of five killings by police were of a young black male (Richards et al. 2016). Mentioned in an article titled It’s a Mad World: The History of Police Brutality written by Abigail Cosgrove, a writer for Penn State, when interviewing an officer, he stated “If you don’t want to get shot, tazed, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton, or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?” In a CNN article written by Jay Croft, on July 6, 2016, the tragic death of a young man by the name of Philando Castile took place in result of a simple traffic stop. As shown in a videotape taken by Castile’s girlfriend, throughout the stop, Castile complied with officer Yanez. Castile made it known to the officer that he in fact had a firearm on him, not to mention, owned legally, but was only trying to reach for his wallet to show ID. As Castile was reaching, Yanez shot him multiple times in response to “fear”. The incident of Philando Castile contradicted the statement the officer interviewed by Cosgrove, because even with compliance, a young man lost his life right in front of his girlfriend and her child. Anthony Bui of the David Greffen School of Medicine at the University of California wrote “Police violence disproportionately impacts young people, and the young people affected are disproportionately people of color” and recent statistical analyses showed that black men aged fifteen through thirty-four are between nine and sixteen times more likely to be killed by police than other people (Khazan, 2018). With the history and background of white privilege, a lot of studies can indicate the general bias among police officers that people who are a minority and have grown up in low income areas are more likely to be criminals and affected negatively by law enforcements compared to white people.