David Ross
Welcome colleagues!!! For my civic engage project, I have chosen to focus on the excruciating acts of police brutality. As an black African American, this topic is important to me because I have witnessed and dealt with discrimination by police officers. Although, I don't place all police authorities under this category, I do believe this issue have occurred to many times and should be solved. These unlawful incidents have occurred throughout the United States, but black African Americans are in fact more vulnerable to these crimes by police authorities.
For this project, I will bring this issue to the eyes of my community, asking all ethnicity, ages, and genders to gain an better understanding on where my community stands against police brutality.
What is police brutality?
Article, "History of Police Brutality" defines it as, "the use of excessive physical assault or verbal assault during police procedures, such as apprehending or interrogating a suspect. Deadly force is not always excessive force. However, when deadly force exceeds the force that is necessary to create a safe environment, it is considered police brutality."
According to mapping police violence article, police officers killed 1,166 people in 2018. In 2017, they killed 1,147 people and 25% of these people were Black African Americans.
Why are Black African Americans most vulnerable to these police brutalities?
According to article, "Black Lives Matter" Author Jennifer Jee states, "Racism, defined earlier, is a system based on race that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, and advantages others."
It is important to take a step back as a community to think about this term racism. Jennifer does a great job identifying the key word in my opinion, which is disadvantages. The statistics are clearly in front of us that black African American are in a disadvantage any many ways. In relation to police brutality, law enforcers are contributors to these disadvantages among African Americans.
Causes of Police Brutality:
- Lack of law enforcement background checks
- Mental conditions
- "Shoot to kill" Policy
- Racism
Effects of Police Brutality:
- Increase in Retaliation
- Increase in Incarceration
- Fear
- Post Traumatic- Stress Disorder
Our Community
"Police brutality is real! It's an unfortunate reality that disproportionately affects the way minorities navigate through life. People of color have to be cautious about situations that can be as minor as a wrong turn signal but can be escalated into a fatal tragedy." - Omar Edwards
"Police brutality in the U.S. has always been tied to racism within law enforcement for decades, not actual crime being done. It mainly targets poor minority communities and there’s nothing to prove that it doesn’t. It’ll continue to happen unless we dismantle the system and rid it from racist police officers, which could be done if there were extensive background checks and evaluations of officers more frequently. There isn't enough consequences for officers who continue to kill and murder folks of color and that gives other officers the right to continue this type of discrimination in the name of law." - Taraneh Tabatabai
References
Jee-Lyn García, J., & Sharif, M. Z. (2015, August). Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on Racism and Public Health. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504294/
Mapping Police Violence. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
The History of Police Brutality, and What it Means for You. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/the-history-of-police-brutality-and-what-it-means-for-you-40344
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