Police Brutality Issue

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The issue I have chosen is police brutality. Police brutality has been and still is a big problem in America. But it didn’t just start in the past few years, the term police brutality started in 1872, fast forward to 2017 police brutally have killed 1,147 people and black people were 26% of those killed. There has been a lot of controversy with people expressing that police brutality has a lot to do with the color of someone's skin and what it represents. Some people think that police are more threatened by black people, so they are more likely to be tense when they encounter a person of color. I agree that police officers are scared of black people, more so, I would say white officers tend to be more afraid of the people of color they encounter…show more content…
Police Brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. In the year of 2017 so far there were only ten days in the calendar year were police officers have not killed anyone. Black people are 3 times more likely to be killed by police than white people. 30% of black victims were unarmed compared to 21% of white victims. 99% of police brutality cases have not resulted in any officer being convicted of a crime. African Americans were 25% (258) of those killed despite being only 13% of population. As you look at these statistics there is one big problem, black vs white. Throughout history white people have always wanted to be superior to all races. During enslavement there was a lot of lynching against black people, and in a lot of different ways police brutality imitates lynching. The first documented case of police brutality took place in 1872 when a police officer beat a civilian under arrest at the Harrison Street Police Station. The first major case of police brutality was in 1991, when members of the Los Angeles Police Department beat an African American suspect Rodney King, while a white civilian videotaped…show more content…
Recording and taking pictures has become more easier over the last century. Police brutality hit the news as everyone started recording and taking pictures of every case of police brutality they witnessed. In the case of Freddie Gray, a 25 year old African American who was killed by 6 police officers, when they broke his neck trying to get him into the police vehicle. In the video you can clearly see the police officers being extra aggressive when handling Freddie Gray. The police didn’t need 6 people to put Gray into the vehicle, he wasn’t resisting and he didn’t even have a weapon on him. In another case of Philando Castile, on July 6, 2016 Castile was shot and killed by officer Jeronimo Yanez, Yanez pulled him over in a suburb with his girlfriend and her 4 year old daughter in the car. The shooting was filmed live stream on Facebook by his girlfriend Diamond Reynold. The video hit every news channel and social media app. Officer Yanez was charged with three felonies: one count of second degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. If nobody was filming these incidents, these cases would of had a different outcome because there wouldn’t have been any evidence that police were using excessive
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