Unjustifiable Shooting of Blacks by Police Officers - Coursework Example

Unjustifiable Shooting of Blacks by Police Officers Criminal law Introduction History has shown that the criminal justice system has failed to be accountable when it comes to punishing law enforcement officers who shoot unarmed people of colour. Not only do the courts rarely prosecute police officers for murder by grand juries, they also fail to return indictments. This is because they usually deem most fatal police shootings as justifiable. In this paper, I will discuss the most historic of cases where an officer shot or killed an unarmed person of colour and justice was failed to be served. I will also discuss parts of the law that ought to change in order for the justice system to really be just in my opinion. However, my aim also includes finding out what it is that makes this type of cases to occur and what lawmakers could change in statutory law to alleviate this issue. It lays to no dispute that African Americans are represented disproportionately among victims of police use of deadly force. The law acts as a shield against injustices and protects the peoples’ rights. The courts therefore are a body to protect these laws and act as an avenue to balance the scales of justice. However, in the following cases we will observe that justice was not served for the persons who were on the receiving end of the cruelty or carelessness of police officers. The most evident case so far has been the Trayvon Martin case, which led to a public outcry when the courts failed to indict the security officer George Zimmerman citing the Stand Your Ground laws. This is just one example among many to indicate how the justice system has failed the families of people deceased because of such laws. First case in point is the Trayvon Martin case where the then attorney general observed that changes needed to be made to the standard of proof, which allowed George Zimmerman to walk. According to Mccann (2011), his defence argued that the prosecution needed to prove that George intended to shoot Trayvon Martin because of his race. This follows the mens rea principle where they needed to prove that the gunman intended to harm Trayvon Martin and he was in a state of mind to do so. Perhaps the saddest of cases occurred in February 1999 when an unarmed African immigrant was shot at forty one times according to Lee (2004), nineteen of those penetrated his body. The interesting bit about this particular case was the fact that Amadou Diallo, the man who was shot, thought that as a group of officers was robbing him and when he reached for his wallet to hand it to them they fired at him like the firing squad. First of all the showed at his place of residence and claimed to be looking for a rape suspect and that Amadou fit the description because he was dark skinned and the black object from his pants resembled a gun. A grand jury consisting mainly of white people acquitted the four white officers of all three charges. In my opinion the charges were too lenient in the first place. Tennenbaum, (1994) talks of another case that closely relate to the above case was the death of forty-three-year-old Eric Garner on July 17th 2014. A film surfaced on the internet of NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo holding the man in a chokehold, which the police department prohibits its use, to restrain him. However, a grand jury found no basis for indicting Officer Pantaleo citing insufficient evidence to proceed to a trial with. It also cited that the officer in order to be indicted, the prosecution would have to have proven beyond reasonable doubt that the officer knew the takedown would cause a substantial risk to Eric. When appearing before the grand jury, Officer Pantaleo testified that he did not intend any bodily harm on Eric Garner. He added that the tactic was a takedown move and did not think the boy was in mortal danger. However, in the film, Eric is heard saying that he could not breathe eleven times. Similarly, in Ferguson Missouri, eighteen-year old Michael Brown was another African American boy who died at the hands of a white police officer. In Michael Brown’s case, Officer Darren Wilson shot the boy in a daytime altercation yet the boy was unarmed. However, there are several disputes over the circumstances under which the officer shot the boy. Civil unrest and protests erupted in Ferguson partly due to the belief that Brown was surrendering and due to the long-standing racial tension between the black community and the law enforcement. A grand jury failed to indict Officer Wilson citing lack of sufficient evidence for bringing criminal charges against him. In November 2014, a twelve-year-old boy, Tamir Rice was shot dead. Officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner Frank Garmback were at the scene after receiving a dispatch that the boy sat in a tree waving his fake gun at people. Upon arrival, Loehmann fired twice at the boy who allegedly was reaching for a gun in his waistband. One bullet hit his torso which later killed him. Here the officers did not wait to find out what was the specific intent principle behind the boy waiving what they were previously told was a toy gun. Grand juries still refuse to indict the two officers citing that there were still impending investigation. In my opinion had the boy been a white American, the officer would not have been so quick to fire. Lee (2004) states that people especially law enforcer tend to view African American as being more dangerous. Another case would be the case of twenty-eight year old Akai Gurley who was shot by an NYPD officer in the stairwell of a housing project. Akai was an African American and was unarmed and in that stairwell, Officer Peter Liang fatally shot him. Although the Brooklyn district attorney indicted him with a six-count indictment, Police Commissioner William Thompson had earlier on downplayed the shooting as an accident. In this event, it is clear that the NYPD failed to accept responsibility like in most cases that involve shooting an African American who posed no threat. Possible theories for why there is a trend of unjustifiable shootings Lee (2004) in her psychological study observed that people of non-colour, the White, Asian, Hispanic, tend to view the black community as dangerous. This racial stereotype, she further explains operates at a subconscious level and influences the officer’s decision to use force. They perceive more danger and threat when dealing people of colour that when dealing with white people. The colour blind excessive use of force on the police officers part serves to alter their view as to what is threatening and what is not. Goldkamp (1976), gives another explanation for why this is the trend. He says that from the general view of everyone involved, the subject falls within two brackets: Belief Perspective I and Belief Perspective II. In the first belief, he views that the police become trigger-happy when dealing with racial minorities. They intentionally single them out and use deadly force on them. However when dealing with white Americans, police officers are more likely to view the situation as less threatening. Belief Perspective II focuses on the recipient of police’s deadly force. He states that race has no effect on an officer’s decision to use force. He claims that it happens because the black minorities have shown in the past to more likely to commit felonies such as murder, armed robbery, carry and use firearms and are more likely to behave in a manner that raises suspicion. In this case, it is not the officer’s force if he uses excessive force, because the perceived threat exists. Solutions to the racial stereotype issue Addressing the racial stereotype issue could be a problem because of any number of reasons. One of them is that policing is literally a judgemental activity where they get to decide if a particular person or situation or a place is a threat. They rely solely on outward appearances to make a quick assessment as to whether a suspect poses threat and proceed to take even quicker action to deal with the situation. This is because after all they putting their lives at risk protecting the public. Secondly, breaking the racial stereotype issue is marred by problems because there exists a popular belief that force serves the purpose good police work. The public often agrees that a good police officer is one who applies force in dealing with uncooperative suspects so that they can serve as an example to their like-minded counterparts. (Dressler, Strong, & Moritz, 2005), indicate that this is even present in the Criminal Law general deterrence use, where punishment is offered as a means of communicating that crime does not pay. This belief is flawed because it creates a great animosity between the people on the receiving end of that force and law enforcers. This kind of animosity was manifested in the violent upheavals that erupted following Officer Wilson’s free walk from indictment following Michael Brown’s death. Lastly due to the historical injustices that have taken place when it comes to police shootings and the African Americans, there exists a deep mistrust between these two sides. It has even influenced the way they deal or for this matter not deal with the police. For instance, in most African American neighbourhoods, statistics show that crimes committed are higher than in white neighbourhoods. From this one can conclude that African American have a higher tendency to commit crimes due to either poverty, lack of employment or any number of reasons. However, it is also true that African Americans do not involve in community policing where witnesses to a crime forward to the police. It is also true that police officers do not pay mind the crimes happening in these neighbourhoods usually and this has only recently started to change. Recommendations and Conclusions Therefore, the task lays upon the legislators, the law enforcers and the entire public to come up with solutions to encounter this issue. For instance the three common Laws in determining a crime, the guilty mind of a criminal, the guilty actions of a criminal and the attendant circumstances where the victim is forced into something against their will. (Dressler, Strong, & Moritz, 2005) This common law stem in the above cases were accorded to the police officers which enabled many of them to walk away without facing charges or to be acquitted thereafter. On the other side, the victims of the shooting were not accorded the common law and in the end the wound up dead because of this. In conclusion, it is evident from the cases above and many more not mentioned here that the African American male community has been on the receiving end of police indiscriminate killing for a very long time. It is also evident that the police officers rarely face criminal liability for these shootings. An officer’s word is often believed that he faced imminent threat that led them to pull the trigger. Time has come that the law need reviewing when dealing with not only these cases, but also all cases. However much as this was a paper discussing the racial minorities the African Americans, the poor and the mentally ill also fall in this category References Dressler, J., Strong, F. R., & Moritz, M. E. (2005). Criminal Law. Ohio,: Thomson Reuters Business. Goldkamp, J. S. (1976). Minorities as Victims of Police Shootings: Interpretations of Racial Disproportionality and Police Use of Deadly Force. JUSTICE SYSTEM, 169, 171-177. Lee, C. (2004). But I Thought He Had a Gun - Race and Police Use of Deadly Force. GW Law Scholarly Commons, 1-52. Mccann, B. (2011). On Whose Ground? Racialized Violence and the Prerogative of “Self-Defense” in the Trayvon Martin Case. . Western Journal of Communication, 1-20. Tennenbaum, A. N. (1994, July). The Influence of the Garner Decision on Police Use of Deadly Force. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 85(1), 241-260. Read More