Brutality or Self-Defense

Kamry Reid

David Hough

English 101-44

1 November 2017

Brutality or Self-defense

Police brutality is a term used when excessive force used by law enforcement. It is and continues to be a huge concern in society and the world today. Excessive force can range from physical force, assault, verbal attacks or slurs, and any kind of threats made from law enforcement officers. This ongoing problem should be resolved immediately. Their job is to serve and protect, or are they really just hiding behind their job? The problem poses illegal exercise of police power.

Police brutality in America today is the leading most serious worldwide problem that shows violations of human rights. Law enforcers throughout the United States use firearms, beat detainees, methods of choking and unreasonable brutal measure of pressure without justification. But only cruel officers make up a small part of the force. Brutality among citizen has become a very dangerous trend. Often enforcers build up negative feelings based on race, sex, or religious views. The racial issue is a main factor in the negative feelings. One of the most recent incidents were police abused their power was 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. The incident was the killing of an unarmed African American teenager named Michael Brown, who was killed by a White police officer named Darren Wilson. This killing started a hung protest revealing problems in the justice system and also bring in body cameras worn by law enforcement officials.

In cases when police use excessive unneeded force, it it often reveal through surveillance officials. Even though this may causes problems with the officers, surveillance may allow disclosing cases to remain hidden. But with surveillance, the camera sees everything and it can't tell a lie. The camera also brings in justice and helps to give people the justice that they deserve.

Body cameras are a type of video and audio recording system that is worn my law endowments and records their every encounter. Body cameras on police officers is one way to lower or stop police brutality. They record the entire encounter with people they meet on a daily basis as they patrol their cities. The cameras are to make police officers think twice about the moves they wanna make such as pulling out a gun on an innocent citizen. The cameras cost over $75 million dollars. But are the cameras really helping? Thanks to Michael Brown, a young African American men shot and killed by a police officer, we now have these camera. If there were body cameras when Michael was killed would officer Wilson be in jail?

One young man named Michael Brown, an 18 year old, was shot and killed by an law enforcement officer named Darren Wilson. Officer Darren Wilson is a 28 year old white man. Officer Wilson shot and killed him because he fit the description of an black male who had recently committed a strong armed robbery and in the area where Michael was. he was supposedly charging at him and he fired his gun 6 times at him. Michael was unarmed. Michael was also surrendering to officer Wilson when he got shot.

Michael and his friend, Dorian Johnson, were on their way to the marketplace and liquor store. After leaving the store they were returning to Johnson’s residence when they were confronted by officer Wilson who told them disrespectfully to return to the sidewalk and out of the road ways. Officer Wilson, still in the car drives a ways and puts it in reverse and tries to run Brown over then tries to choke him from inside the patrol vehicle. Then Brown is shot in the chest by Wilson. At no point in time was Brown disobeying the orders from officer Wilson and he was shot and killed. But why was he killed? He was unarmed, complying and he was still killed? Officer Wilson was supposed to be protecting and serving the community but he took someone’s life who could of had a very bright future ahead of him. Officer Wilson was not charged with the murder of Michael Brown. It was claimed as self-defense. But how was is self-defense if he approached him first? He attacked him first. Darren Wilson gets to enjoy the rest of his life while Michael’s mother has to live the rest of her life without her son.

Before Michael Brown, there was a man named Rodney King. King was the first case ever of brutality by law enforcement. This occurred back in 1990s in Los Angeles. Five policemen beat the unarmed black male who was Rodney King. King was driving down the road drunk in a high speed chase. After stopping he was in an aggressive manner and under the influence of more than alcohol. Before he was cuffed, he was received 56 blows, some kicks and a number of shocks from a taser. The officer claimed they acted in self defense but King was in compliance even though he was angered.

Michael Brown and Rodney King are not the only victims who wore killed by police brutality. Many other innocent men and women, such as Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin, were not able to make it back home to their families because of officers on the force were “scared” or had false judgement because of the color of someone's skin. I feel like the color of someone's skin should not determine if someone should be falsely accused. Trayvon never made it back home to the store. Sandra never got to go back to work the next day. This is why training is so important for a police officer to have. Judgement should be tested when becoming a law enforcer. Along with being able to encounter other ethnicities.

The main thing brutality comes back to is how the officer was trained. Police officers are being trained poorly and unprepared to deal with fatal situations. In an article by Steven Rosenfeld he stated “police don’t know how to de-escalate” and that they “do not make effective use of de-escalation techniques, too often instead escalating encounters and employing force when