Police Brutality Essay Example

Dean, Christopher Whitfield, Melvin Watkins, Tom Pheap, Elijah McClain. Do you know these names? Well, these are just a few of the names of the people that were killed by police in the US in 2019. Police should have cruel punishments and should own up if they do something unlawful and harmful. Due to police brutality, POC has to worry about their friends and family not coming home, wondering if they’re in danger, and having unnecessary force used against them. 

As a result, people of color have to deal with losses all the time due to the police. But what is police brutality? Well, thanks to thelawdictionary.org we know that Police brutality is the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. “Police brutality” is actually an umbrella term that encompasses five different forms of the offense: excessive use of force, wrongful search and seizure, racial discrimination, false arrest or wrongful imprisonment, and sexual harassment and abuse. Now that we know what police brutality means let’s learn about some of the people that have lost their lives due to police brutality. Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, David Mcatee, Rayshard Brook, Daniel Prude, Atatiana Jefferson for example these innocent lives were taken at the hands of the police. According to Alijazeera.com Breonna Taylor was asleep in her apartment when 3 plainclothes officers were executing a search warrant for a drug case. They believed it was a break-in and shot unarmed Breonna Taylor 8 times. They had the wrong address. George Floyd, George Floyd was a 46-year-old man who was arrested after allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill. Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on George’s neck for 8 minutes. George pleaded that he couldn’t breathe but none of the officers stopped stop help and just watched, he died after 8 minutes of suffocation. The next person we have is David Mcatee, On June 1, 2020, David McAtee, a 53-year-old, was fatally shot by the Kentucky Army National Guard in Louisville during protests over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. David McAtee was not protesting and was serving food to both protesters and the police force. I would lastly like to talk about Daniel Prude who was having a mental health episode and instead of police officers helping him they forced his head onto the ground to “restrain him”. Prude said that they were “trying to kill him” as he was restrained for over 3 minutes, he shortly died due to asphyxia. These aren’t even a quarter of the names of POC that we have lost, there are thousands and more people whose names haven’t been heard and people who haven’t gotten justice.

The next thing I would like to discuss is how normalized police brutality is. Police brutality is so normalized to the point where people aren’t worrying that POC don’t even feel safe sleeping in their own houses. Ucpress.edu says that “Each year, on-duty police officers across the United States shoot and kill approximately 1,000 people and most of these shootings result in no criminal charges being brought against an officer,” this can worry a lot of people especially if they’re someone of color because they know if something were to happen they wouldn’t get the justice they deserve. According to pnas.org “Black women and men as well as American Indian and Alaska Native women and men are significantly more likely than white women and men to be killed by police. Latino men are also more likely to be killed by police than are white men. There are many reasons but one I would like to think is racist stereotypes that form these opinions that POC are “dangerous” just because of their skin color, something they have no control over. The racial stereotypes of early American history still have a significant role in shaping attitudes toward POC. Take aunt Jemima for example, Aunt Jemima” was a minstrel show character developed during the mid-1850s by a white male in blackface. the R. T. Davis Milling Company. Davis advertised for and hired a black woman to embody the purposefully designed role of America’s “Mammy,” “Aunt Jemima.” “Mammy” (Never achieving the status of “Mother,”) or the nationally elevated “Aunt Jemima,” was at best a “mother’s helper.” Mothers helpers were trusted to take care of children, cook, and clean. Another reason why POC are in danger is mainly due to white people making assumptions and misunderstanding situations. Take Tamir Rice, for example, he was shot and killed outside of a recreation center by then-Cleveland police Officer Timothy Loehmann, who authorities said mistook a black, toy airsoft pistol for a real firearm. 

And yet, due to lack of proper training, police use unnecessary force against POC and don’t know how to properly restrain someone. A study found by Policingquity.org shows that the overall mean use-of-force rate for all black residents was 273 per 100,000, which is 3.6 times higher than the rate for white residents (76 per 100,000) and 2.5 times higher than the overall rate of 108 per 100,000 for all residents. officers use force like a relatively mild physical force, through baton strikes, canine bites, pepper spray, Tasers, and gunshots. There are organized groups of white men known as “slave patrols” and lay at the roots of the nation's law enforcement excesses, historians say, helping launch centuries of violent and racist behavior toward black Americans, as well as a tradition of protests and uprisings against police brutality. Police brutality has become so normalized and isn’t seen as an issue that disgusts me. Take the BLM protests for example; The overall levels of violence and property destruction were low, and most of the violence that did take place was directed against the BLM protesters. The protests were completely peaceful for the most part and people were only carrying signs and silently protesting. The people involved were tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and even shot with rubber bullets for doing nothing. But then you look at the Capitol breach, where  hbr.org says that the Capitol Police were severely underprepared. They were not wearing riot gear: a marked contrast to law enforcement’s military gear when responding to Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C., last July. The barriers they set up around the Capitol didn’t stop the insurrectionists from entering. On the video footage, some police seemed to open the gates to the Capitol complex, letting attackers in as well as they were taking pictures with rioters. It overall took four hours to secure the Capitol. I am disgusted and disappointed with how each of these events was treated and I still wonder why police were more violent during the BLM protests than the Capitol breach. 

In conclusion, it should be enforced that police officers are held to cruel punishments for endangering the community as well as using unnecessary force to “restrain” individuals especially POC. If we don’t we will lose more lives, and police will continue getting away with using extremely unnecessary force and having more POC feel endangered. Again Micahael Dean, Christopher Whitfield, Melvin Watkins, Tom Pheap, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, David Mcatee, Rayshard Brook, Daniel Prude, Atatiana Jefferson, Say. Their. Names.