Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

Answers Behind Police Brutality

Prissilla Navarro
The University of Texas at El Paso

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

How Police Brutality Affects Us

Ever since 1996, every October 22nd the National Day of protest has been
occurring around the nation, to bring civilians and those with authority together to form one
powerful voice and speak out against police brutality and stop it. Police Brutality has been an
issue for quite a while now, it has been dated to occur from past periods, as early as 1872, in
places like Chicago. So lets discuss major points about police brutality. Is police brutality
making an impact on society? Or are police officers really just doing their job? Or is excessive
force being used? Or why is police brutality mainly towards minority groups? Nevertheless
How can we prevent police brutality from targeting minority groups? How about trying to stop
this brutality, what can we do to avoid police brutality? We will be discussing and learning more
about these questions throughout the following paragraphs and see how police brutality is
affecting us as a community and worldwide nation.
So, is police brutality making an impact on society? Well first of all, police
brutality can cause psychological trauma towards the groups being targeted by police brutality.
For example, the victims family may feel scared or frightened instead of feeling protected by the
police and the authority. All simply because they have seen what the police is capable of doing
to you for no apparent reason, even when you are innocent and are doing nothing. Some sources
even agree that this leads to giving the police a very bad reputation. (Sponton, 2014). According
to this source, (Sponton, 2014), it is said to be that Latino and Black communities are harassed
almost every day. This does not give them the feeling of protection from the police, the way it is

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

supposed to. The police motto is said to be to to protect and serve, but they contradict
themselves by acting the way they do with these minority communities. These Latinos and
Blacks dont feel protected by the police. Nevertheless, they dont feel like the police is there to
serve them, they feel the complete opposite of these two. Things like these cause the police
reputation to be trashed and it causes them to have a bad image in front of these communities.
The only thing they accomplish is the feeling of hatred from them. In the news you can find
covers of members from these communities expressing how much hatred they have towards the
police. You can find articles on how these communities feel like they are scared and are
frightened of been assaulted by the police, when in reality they should feel protected and served
by the police nothing less.
Next, are police officers really just doing their job? A source says that they do
not have to do this. They do not have to be so violent towards the people they are arresting. They
do not have to speak to them with such rude and absurd language, for example, a police officer
does not have to be rude to an older lady when she tries to bail her son out of jail. The abuse
done by the police doesnt have to be physical, just by disrespecting someone verbally or using
curse words it can be abuse. People who are spoken to this way can be affected by it and feel
traumatized. These people may feel abused and harassed just by being cursed by or by not been
given the proper respect (Barnet, 2011). As this source says; do they really have to do this? Is
that really what their job requires them to do? Like, is it a life or death situation, will they be
killed or get their heads cut off if they dont disrespect them or if they dont curse at them? NO!
Police officers wont be killed they wont get their heads cut off for not cursing at them, they
wont be killed or get beaten up or fired if they are respectful to that poor old lady. These police
officers will not lose their raise for being polite and for treating other human being the way

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

theyre supposed to be treated. No one will hurt them, they wont even hurt themselves. So the
fact that they say they are just doing their job, is wrong and just keeps making them look
worse. It makes them look even worse especially if theyre been violent against these people.
So is excessive force being used? Are these police officers using excessive
force when they are making an arrest of when theyre just simply interrogating a suspect? Well
many people agree that these police officers are using excessive force. Many accusations have
been made towards police officers stating that they use excessive force against them even though
they were cooperating with the police officers and doing as told. This author from an article
stated many incidents that occurred were police had been caught or proven to be guilty of using
excessive force against minority groups. The authors of this article John and Leighton mentioned
these incidents on excessive force being used as they said, On Staten Island, N.Y., the July 2014
death of Eric Garner because of the apparent use of a chokehold by an officer sparked outrage.
A month later in Ferguson, Mo., the fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown by Officer Darren
Wilson ignited protests, and a grand jurys decision not to indict Wilson triggered further unrest.
In November, Tamir Rice was shot by police in Cleveland, Ohio. He was 12 years old and
playing with a toy pistol. On April 4, 2015, Walter L. Scott was shot by a police officer after a
routine traffic stop in North Charleston, S.C. The same month, Freddie Gray died while in police
custody in Baltimore, setting off widespread unrest. The policeman in the South Carolina case,
Michael T. Slager, was charged with murder based on a cellphone video. In Baltimore, the driver
of the police van in which Gray died, Caesar Goodson, was charged with second-degree murder,
with lesser charges for five other officers. There have been no indictments in the earlier cases.
This source like many other prove how police officers use excessive force all the times and
unfortunately many times they are not caught while doing so. Police officers use their authority

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

to treat innocent people any way they please. They yell at them, accuse them of things that are
not true and the authority sometimes just drops their cases and defends the police officers. There
are many victims who have spoken out about police brutality and many of them agree that
excessive force was used against them. The thing is that most of these victims come from
minority groups.
To proceed, why is police brutality mainly towards minority groups?
Why is it mostly Native Americans, Latinos, and Blacks the ones saying that they are victims of
police brutality? Why not other groups like Whites? It is proven by different sources that black
and Hispanic people are more likely to be subjected to be accused or look suspicious of been
involved in criminal activity. For police officers Black people, Hispanics or other minority
groups are more likely to commit a crime then a white person. Police brutality is said t be proven
to most likely occur to someone who is form a minority group then to someone who is in a larger
group. For example Blacks are most likely to be investigated then a larger group. For some
Blacks or Hispanics it is likely to be interrogated by at least once by a police officer, or having to
go through a cop stopping them for a small traffic violation. Doing this with the hope that they
will be linked to a major violation, like drug traffic or a similar situation that could be illegal.
The unequal treatment of minorities by law enforcement officials extends beyond racially based
traffic stops and profiling. Minority citizens are also the prime victims of police brutality and
corruption. was said in a book about police brutality and minority groups proving how others
agree on this issue. (Unknown, 2016). This book explains and gives us more insight on how even
if there are not that many blacks or Hispanics in that community, 70% of the drivers or suspects
will belong to those groups. Enforcement of criminal laws based on racial generalizations

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

(Unknown, 2016) comments like those are made based on things we see every day. It seems as if
minority groups are the ones been targeted and the ones with more violence towards them.
The question is; what can we do to try and stop this outrage of police
brutality? What can we do to help other human beings who are just like you and me? What will
America do to help stop this outrage, these injustices? We can do something about it! We have a
voice and each one of us can use it! We can all unite into one voice and speak out against police
brutality. We must stop this bad ways the world has turned into, we need to stand up against this
and show them this is not right. This is wrong, we were not taught to do wrong and be corrupt
with our own kind. We cannot and we must not mistreat our own kind. What is wrong with us
hurting someone who feels and thinks just like we do? This is immoral and it has to stop now!
We cannot treat others that are just like us like they are just trash, or like they are worth nothing,
we cannot be disrespectful towards them. They are our brothers and sisters under GOD. So why
mistreat them the way we do? We should help each other out instead of hurting each other.

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

In conclusion, police officers are here to serve and protect us. So lets go back
to that, lets go back to trusting each other, to respecting each other. If we dont what will happen
to this world? Are we just going to kill each other because we look suspicious? Because we have
different skin color or because they dont look or act the way we do? We need protection from
the mankind. Police officers are our protection on this Earth. So lets all work together to form
that union we all once had, that feeling of mutual protection and respect within each other.

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY

References

"Chapter One: Race and the Police." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016.
Barnet, Phred. "Just Doing Their Job? | Cop Block." Cop Block. N.p., 02 July 2011. Web. 01 Apr.
2016.
Sponton, Josh. "How Does Police Brutality Effect Todays Society?" Prezi.com. N.p., n.d. Web.
01 Apr. 2016.
Wihbey, John, and Leighton Walter Kille. Excessive or reasonable Force by Police? Research
On law Enforcement and Racial Conflict Journalists Resource. Journalists Resource. N.p., 28
Oct. 2015. Web.01 Apr.

Running head: POLICE BRUTALITY