Main Aspects of Police Brutality - Coursework Example

Cece Chen Nieman Writing 39C Police Brutality Police brutality is the use of excessive force by the police when on duty. The excessive force may be in the form of pepper spray and guns. An example of an incident of excessive force which was most shocking and took place in Los Angeles was when a police in March of this year shot dead a homeless African- American man on the streets in circumstances that were completely unclear. The whole incident was caught on video and posted online by people passed by the scene. This is one of the incidences that have been harming black males who live in or near Los Angeles neighborhoods are living in fear of the police brutality and especially using guns (Bernstein 187). The police did not carry out a risk analysis of the situation to know which people were involved but simply assumed that everyone was a risk and hence sprayed everyone. In this case just like in the other cases of police brutality, some police officers sometimes do not follow the correct method to handle suspects. They use shortcut methods to handle situations. The statistics of the graph above shows that 23.3% of police brutality incidents are caused by excessive force, which is the highest figure. Also, statistics by the Bureau of Justice indicate that over 4,800 people died between 2003 and 2009 in the hands of police brutality. The most shocking thing that research by (Akkoc, 2015) shows is that over 57% of the people were people who were affected the misconduct of the police were people of color meaning non-whites. This is a very shocking number of people dying under the hands of police who are supposed to offer the unconditional protection. The other irony in the issue of police brutality causes harm and this is caused by their move at discriminating the black community. The graph indicates the use of excessive force by police officers in different states all over the US. It is evident from the graph that Los Angeles is one of the most notorious cities in America where police brutality through using excessive force is rampant. Further research by Branson-Potts, (2015) indicates that the brutality is excessive on the blacks more than the white men. There are two primary causes in this city that have resulted to this increased police brutality and there are legislatures and social context such as the high number of white police officers in the Los Angeles Police Department than the black officers and which will be discussed in detail below. The police in majority of these cases where they apply brutality especially the shootings cite self-defense for themselves which is accounted for in the “Stand your ground” legislature under California while the other police officers indicate that the dead individuals were suspects and they had attempted to resist arrest and the officer had no alternative rather than to apply force on them to comply. There are other police officers that were trying to stop the individual from physically harming other people and especially in fight or brawl cases and they end up using force to make them stop harming the other party. All these are legal justifications used by the police in court and they are either let to go free or simply pay damages but no other serious legal action is taken on these officers. What fails to be justified in not only Los Angeles but in most of the cities in the US is why the police mostly target the blacks both females and males in their brutality. There lacks legal justification why there are a larger number of black men. The only legislature against this kind of act is the Legislative employee whistleblower Protection Act which allows the police to use only minimum force but does not specify the race of the person the force should be used against. As mentioned in the statistics above, the number of black men is over half of all the cases of police brutality even if the neighborhoods are full of white people. What the law has done is to provide the legal measures such as the law mentioned above which makes the police officers’ use of deadly force against individuals who seemingly resist arrest or as a way to protect their own individuals from harm as illegal. According to Akkoc, (2015) there are some police officers in turn who use the laws to their own advantage to get rid of black suspects whom they do not want them to live anymore due to racialism. Glenza (2014) explains how the police officers make up excuses of self-defense whereas in the real case, no weapons are found on the suspects shot dead by the police. There are also other cases when the police shoot the suspect on the back and claimed that they were defending themselves from attack of suspect, while the scene shows that suspect were running away when they got shot. According to statistics, by 2011, the ratio of black to white police officers in the Los Angeles Police Department was 12:38, which is more than twice the number. Majority of the police heads and supervisors are white which grant them not only the authority to dismiss cases of racial nature and especially in relation to police brutality but they use their immunity to protect themselves from prosecution in such cases as the one mentioned in the examples above. It is this racism that has contributed to the police using more brutal force on the blacks compared to the whites. The police officers according to claims Ashkenas and Park, (2015) tend to consider all the black as suspicious of one criminal activity or another and hence their quickness in using excessive force against the blacks and then trying to mask the incidence with self-defense Statistics of crimes in the whole of US indicated by research carried out by Branson-Potts, (2015). is high on the blacks’ side compared to that of white. This is the reason that majority of the cases brought in by family members of the people killed or highly injured by excessive use of police force are black community. There are also statistics indicating that blacks compared to the white are most at risk to resist attempt as well as assault police officers. With these statistics in mind, misconceptions as well as stereotypes are likely to be at the mind of people and especially police officers. They therefore tend to apply unnecessary force on the blacks based on these statistics and allegations. With more white police officers and superiors protecting the city of Los Angeles, they tend to be unfair on all the blacks who have minimal protection from the minimal black police officers by favoring more white people and being lenient on them when they are suspects something they do not extend to the blacks. . They tend to apply all the brutal force on any black individual in the street knowing that the incidence will be hid from the public by the superiors as well. This mentality of the police force in the city of Los Angeles as well as in other cities in the US is what is contributing to most brutal cases by the police applying to the black individuals (Bernstein 67). The issue of police brutality is not only a problem in Los Angeles alone but in most of U.S. and other countries in the world as well. The issue is a menace in countries such as China, Russia, Canada, Egypt and other African nations as well among other nations. There are some countries, which have been addressing this issue through coming up with legislature against it, but others are yet to come up with such legislations and implement them as well. This social problem based on mentality that only the blacks commit crimes in most of the cases compared to the whites which is not necessarily true as most of the statistics are based on hard core crimes of homicide and drugs rather than petty crimes and white collar crimes is not bound to end anytime soon. Moreover, the only law that the public can use to win cases against the police brutality and especially in Los Angeles where police deadly weapon is justified by law is through eye witness’s testimonies or video recordings evidence to prove that the murdered or harmed individual was innocent and the police only used brutal force. Work Cited Akkoc, Raziye. “A timeline of police attacks in the USA.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, n.d. March 3rd, 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. Ashkenas, Jeremy, and Haeyoun Park. "The Race Gap in America’s Police Departments." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. Bernstein, Shana. Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. Branson-Potts, Hailey. "Police Abuse, Black-on-black Violence Focus of Rally in South L.A." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 21 Feb. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. Glenza, Jessica. Los Angeles police release autopsy report in shooting of Ezell Ford. The Guardian, December 30th, 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. Read More