Police Brutality and Bad Policing in Our Community

Police brutality is one of several forms of police misconduct which involves undue violence by police members. Widespread police brutality exists in many part of country and territory states, even those that prosecute it have to bear in mind that, most police men and women around the country are operating under the authority of the state and federal institutions. Once a person becomes a police officer they automatically become states employees which separates them and sets them apart from the citizens of the country.

On the other hand, they must defend themself first in order to be able to protect others from danger. Although illegal, for a police officer to abuse their power, however, where do we draw the line? Is it personal ego or do we as people give them too much authority?

Highly publicized incidents of police misconduct have adverse effects not only on the victims of abuse but also on public’s perceptions of the police departments implicated in the incident.

Yet the magnitude and longevity of such effects have rarely been investigated. This article examines the impact of several celebrated incidents of perceived police misconduct in Los Angeles and New York City over a fairly lengthy time span, including the most recent scandal involving the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the killings of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond in New York City. The analysis tracks public attitudes toward the police before and after each incident, and examines similarities and differences in the opinions of Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics.

Get quality help now

WriterBelle

Verified

Proficient in: Abuse

4.7 (657)

“ Really polite, and a great writer! Task done as described and better, responded to all my questions promptly too! ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

The often dramatic increase in unfavorable attitudes toward the police in the wake of highly publicized events suggests that such incidents have a pronounced effect on public opinion. Policy implications are discussed, drawing on citizens’ attitudes toward measures that might prevent or reduce the frequency of future incidents of misconduct”

Police are a group of people whose job is to enforce laws, help with emergencies, solve crimes and protect property. Police are trained in first aid and rescue, because police officers are often one of the first people to get to a place where people are sick or injured, such as a car accident, or a fire. Police are our friends in some cases they save lives. What change must occur then for their image to be seen as good as their helpful hard work does?

Police brutality is the abuse of authority by the unwarranted infliction of excessive force by personnel involved in law enforcement while performing their official duties. The term is also applied to abuses by corrections personnel in municipal, state and federal penal facilities including military prisons where they treat other men and women like animals. This is not the type of police we need in our local communities. We can be better i know we can do better as well.before one can become police officer they will need minimum 2 years in college causes and 3 to 4 psychology classes, completed before they can apply for police academy.

It takes approximately 6 months or 960 hours to complete police academy training. The Los Angeles Police Department Training Academy typically takes 22 weeks, or 880 hours, to complete. All in all, it may take as long as 1- 2 years to become a police officer, including both pre-employment and training processes. Is this enough time to train our young men and women to serve and protect, most of our community police officers average age is topically between the age of 19 to 25 years old. Are they ready for the type of power and authority they are given after the academy? In response to widespread allegations of racial and ethnic discrimination in traffic stops, a practice that has been labeled racial profiling, law enforcement agencies are now collecting data on traffic stops that include the race or ethnicity of drivers. Interpreting these data info to determine whether a pattern of race discrimination exists poses enormous difficulties. Specifically, it is not clear what baseline (often referred to as “the denominator”) should be used

to assess the racial and ethnic distribution of people stopped. Using the first traffic stop data reports from the San Jose Police Department as a case study, this paper examines baselines that are commonly used or discussed as appropriate. The paper argues that resident population data and/or official crime data are not adequate as baselines. As an alternative, the paper proposes an approach based on police early warning systems.

How can police better in the our communities? Police officer education requirements range from a high school diploma to a college degree. The minimum requirement is usually a high school diploma, although an increasing number of police departments require applicants to complete at least one or two years of college coursework or have an associate’s degree. Which I think it should be standed associates degree with upper division sociology and psychology classes to help newly hired police officers to be able to handle difficult people, it help them keep their emotion in check and use their brain to make tough decision at the spot without causing more havoc or abuse their power and authority.

In order to have a better policing in local state county and in our communities, our police officer should require to attend two to three community meetings every month, ten hours community patro with bicycle. That will help our local police men and women to get to know their community members, it will help build better relationship with whom they serve and protect. I also believe that will restore relationship between police and the community they serve.

An article in The Paranoid style of American Policing siad. “The police are supposed to serve and protect us and yet they take the lives,” Cooksey said.“Where do we get our help?” she asked. LeGrier had struggled with mental illness. When LeGrier attempted to break down his father’s door, his father called the police, who apparently arrived to find the 19-year-old wielding a bat. Interpreting this as a lethal threat, one of the officers shot and killed LeGrier and somehow managed to shoot and kill one of his neighbors, Bettie Jones. Cooksey did not merely have a problem with how the police acted, but with the fact that the police were even called in the first place. “He should have called me,” Cooksey said of LeGrier’s father. This totally avoidable if the plans and the solution is in place in our community.

However, we continue to see these tragic events involving police officers and minorities very often. Tamir Rice for example, was a twelve-year old black boy with a physical stature of an adult. Tamir was playing in the park with his toy pellet gun, scaring the people nearby. The people then perceived to call the police because of their concern. The dispatcher did not notify the officers in route it was a twelve-year old boy. The officers arrived and got a couple feet from Tamir, Tamir started walking toward the officers and their vehicle and reaching for his waist. The officers probably not noticing his age, but instead his big body and his hands going for his toy gun in his waist, shot and killed Tamir at point blank range. They thought it was a real gun. In the officer’s minds, an adult sized black person reaching for their waist to get their weapon is scary and dangerous and reacted to it, because they felt that fear. All of Tamir’s characteristics did not help him out in the situation, especially his appearance, but most important, his skin color (Bennet).

In “Tamir Rice and the Color of Fear,” Brit Bennet informs us on the Tamir Rice case and tragedy. Also provides her own examples when she believes her and overall blackness gives fear to white people, and expresses her disgusted feeling and opinion of the justice system’s handling of Tamir Rice’s case. In her article, she claims how black people, black bodies are inherently scary (Bennet). Bennet states, “A toy gun in a black child’s hand becomes a real gun, the same way a wallet or a cell phone or car keys in the hands of a black adult transforms into a real gun. Black bodies morph into weapons” (Bennet, 2). Bennett also criticizes the use and how reasonable fear was used by the officers to justify their actions for shooting Tamir.

The concept of reasonable fear, is that the officers were scared, or felt their life was being threatened or in danger. Then having to act with deadly force to stop the person and protect themselves. Bennet however states, that there is nothing reasonable about reasonable fear, or objective reasonable fear. The reason being, because that “black bodies are inherently scary” (Bennet, 2). So if the officers felt their lives were in danger, when the grand jury put themselves in the position of the officers, they determined it was actually reasonable fear. Thus the officers in this case were not indicted for the killing of Tamir Rice. Also Bennet goes into how empathic the grand juries are to officers when it is a black suspect in the event, like this one with Tamir Rice. In “Are We Born Races,” by Susan T. Fiske, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, gives actual evidence and data from studies conducted by other universities about this topic of racial stereotyping and prejudices. Even though the police force and its officers are held at a higher standard, they are human, and have these stereotypes and prejudices like us. ANd if acted upon, can lead to tragic consequences.

In “A Better Standard for the Use of Deadly Force” by Olevia Boykin, Christopher Desir, and Jed Rubenfeld, they share some shocking data about police killings and brutality. Boykin says, “American police killed 74 unarmed black people in 2015” (Boykin). Then she also states, “Unarmed black men were seven times more likely than unarmed white men to die by police gunfire” (Boykin). This is just so sad, and heartbreaking. So most people, that are unarmed and not white, walking throughout their neighborhoods should be more afraid than police officers. Because the police with their reasonable fear justification excuse, are going around shooting unarmed black people. We must not dehumanize and discriminate the out-group and we must put ourselves in the others person’s perspective. Or even just take a couple seconds to take another look and remove our prejudices filling our brain about that person based on their physical appearance. So empathy will always be given to the officers toward a black suspect, because their reasonable fear is considered reasonable by other white people. I will end hear, as i have now gotten into racial topics about police brutality, because that is where the brutality is mostly seen, our officers must be treated fairly and with respect yes, but they must treat us fairly as well.

Works Cited Page

1. Boykin, Olevia, Christopher Desir, and Jed Rubenfeld. ”A Better Standard for the Use of Deadly Force” NYTimes.com. NYTIMES, 1 Jan. 2016. Web. 1 Jan. 2016.
2. Bennet, Brit. ”Tamir Rice and The Color of Fear” NYTIMES31 Dec. 2015. Print.
3. Fiske, Susan T. ‘Are We Born Racist’Boston: Bacon. Print.