On
any given day, in any police department in the nation, fifteen percent of
officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent
of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining
seventy percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.
This specific
logic, serves as a theory from a man named K.L. Williams, who has trained
thousands of officers around the country in use of force. The point that I found
interesting was it is not only white officers who abuse their authority. The
effect of institutional racism is such that no matter what color the officer
abusing the citizen is, in the vast majority of those cases of abuse that citizen
will be black or brown. That is what is allowed.
And no matter what
an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in
the running narrative of heroism, risk, and sacrifice that is available to a
uninformed police officer by virtue of simply reporting for duty. Cleveland
police officer Michael Brelo was recently acquitted of all charges against him
in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, both black and
unarmed. Thirteen Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots at them. Brelo,
having reloaded at some point during the shooting, fired 49 of the 137 shots.
He took the final 15 shots at them after all other officers stopped firing (122
shots at that point) and, “fearing for his life,” he jumped onto the hood of
the car and shot fifteen times through the windshield.
Not only was this
excessive, it was tactically asinine if Brelo believed they were armed and
firing. But they weren’t armed, and they weren’t firing. Judge John O’Donnell
acquitted Brelo under the rationale that because he couldn’t determine which
shots actually killed Russell and Williams, no one is guilty. Let’s be clear:
this is part of what the Department of Justice means when it describes a “pattern
of unconstitutional policing and excessive force.”
Racism is woven
into the fabric of our nation. At no time in our history has there been a
national consensus that everyone should be equally valued in all areas of life.
We are rooted in racism in spite of the better efforts of Americans of all
races to change that. Because of this legacy of racism, police abuse in black
and brown communities is generations old. It is nothing new. It has become more
visible to mainstream America largely because of the proliferation of personal
recording devices, cellphone cameras, video recorders – they’re everywhere. We
need police officers. We also need them to be held accountable to the
communities they serve.
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer
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ReplyDeleteThis is obviously a hot issue and has been for awhile. We have discussed this issue on multiple occasions in class and I have come to the realization that police brutality is relevant and important and it shows in this essay. I would agree with the notions suggested, dealing specifically with the fact that police should protect us and also be held accountable. In simple terms, that is what police should do – protect and be held as accountable as a normal citizen.
ReplyDeleteIn "Why We Won't Wait," the author speaks on the many police killings of African Americans during the time that Michael Brown was killed and the grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer that killed Brown. She also speaks on the fear African Americans have of police officers, rightly so. Her solution is to remove police from African American neighborhoods until they can be trained not to kill African Americans unnecessarily. African Americans want law and order but with the current system, they are not getting it. At first, I though that this was an odd solution but the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense. Would there be less killings of African Americans if the police were not patrolling their neighborhoods or pulling them over? It certainly seems so for now.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments above. A fact that I learned in CPR training is that if you give CPR to a person and something goes wrong (even if you are certified) that person or the family of that person can sue you. This news shocked me, especially considering the above essay. If a person can face serious repercussions for giving CPR I believe the same should go for the police. Doctors often face consequences for issues that happen in treatments, and thus must be very careful in every step they take. This is not the same for the police. It seems as if police do not often experience consequences for their actions. This is obviously not true in every case, but is frequently seen.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the incentive to accumulate a large number of low level offenders is so great they tend to be unjust and unwarranted nature, seemingly unconstitutional searches. These stops essentially encourage the officer to racially profile and stereotype members the community with no prior knowledge based purely on appearance, In communities where the law enforcement does not reflect the community in which it serves, as was the case in Ferguson where the population is 67.4% black and the department includes a total of 3 black officers, this strategy is deeply problematic.
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