Ezrre

Ana P. Ezrre

Ms. Figueroa

Senior English 3

30 October 2018

Police brutality: An Ongoing Social Issue

What is police brutality? Police brutality is as seen an act of misconduct coming from an

officer’s behavior. It is either an abuse of power that involves physical force, mentally or

emotionally, an abuse of power can lead up to future mental illness when the victim is trying to

recover from the bad experience. Law enforcement officers that made the commitment to serve

and protect their country and they have abused their right to authority by assaulting and

manipulating citizens. Police brutality is not okay, it should not be seen as an accident that keep

constantly happening over and over, there is family’s, people, even young individuals that have

suffer from a police brutality incident; this does not only affect them physically but also

mentally. When someone is affected mentally it is a long process in order to get over and become

a better person, at the end of the day they’ll always have that scar next to them. It is not fair to

come in somebody’s life and mess them up forever and not care for it, life should not be that

cruel to the people that just were at a place in the wrong time or moment and now they are have

to suffer for that throughout their life.

Police brutality has been an upcoming problem ever since police corruption came in the

business, many individuals see it as authorities doing their job but many others see it as a

problem that needs to be taken care of. Police brutality started as a way of power abuse and has

escalated too many controversial problems where consequences aren’t being set out on the table.

Police brutality has not only controlled many individual life styles but it has mentally affected
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them in a way that they suffer from mental abuse, which can increase to future mental illness.

Citizens that have been attacked by police officers have been left with physical or emotional

scars that can’t seem to get over. The United States should find a solution to police brutality

because it increases dangerously and police officers need to take care of future law enforcement

for it to work in civilized manner.

On November 2012 a fellow Chicago officer was caught opening fire on a 15-year old

teenager that went by the name Dakota Bright, young Dakota was fatally shot in the back of the

head. The following Thursday the officer that went by the name Brandon R Ternand was

informed that he was allowed to remain on force. The decision was made by a 5-to-3 vote

system, the police board of Chicago were the bigger authorities to make that decision. Officer

Ternand was cleared of charges, which were named by officer Ternand used unnecessary force

in the shooting of Dakota. In the officer testimony he claims he had feared for his life after the

teenager had turn around during a foot chase, officer also claims that when Dakota had turned

around, he was reaching down on the left side as if he was reaching out for a gun. This statement

made the officer looked bad since no gun was found near Dakotas personal space, the gun was

found near an alley where Dakota was first spotted. Pansy Edwards, Dakotas mom said that the

decision making was wrong and unjustified. “Even with all the evidence, they still let that man

go back to work, and they cleared of any wrongdoing”. Ms. Edwards says. The teenager family

was extremely hurt, they saw the whole trial as an unfair decision. Ms. Edwards made a

disclaimer saying “The sad part is, he doesn’t have a voice” She said. “He doesn’t get no justice;

he does not get to grow up and have a family and be anyone”. These were the last words coming

from Dakotas family once the trial was put to an end. When reading the article, it is clear that the

trial was unfair, most of the time officers that are involved in police brutality don’t receive any
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consequences. Police see it as just doing their job but when there's not good enough justification

on why a certain type of force is being used that’s when there should be consequences for the

authorities which in this case there wasn’t any.

Moving forward, during early November of 2014 a law professor of the University of

Chicago that went by the name Craig Futterman got a random call from someone that work with

law enforcement, the caller told Mr. Futterman about an officer shooting to death seventeen-

year-old boy that was known by the name Laquan McDonald. The officer Jason Van dyke

claimed that it was all self-defense, he states that young Laquan was out of control so he didn’t

have no other choice but to shoot him; the officer shot him once in the chest. The source of

videos made the scene look as an execution. For months the C.P.D were not in favor to release

the video of the scene. Later on, the department of freelance journalist sued C.P.D to make the

footage public, a judge was in favor that the footage to be release. On November 24th, officer

was dyke for first degree murder, couple months after the video was released. C.P.D informs that

it was not the first-time cop Futterman was received a tip about police abuse. Many say that he

would hate to admit to his problems because usually cops have a code of silence were, they do

not like to speak up on their wrongs. “The code of silence has protected some particularly

reprehensible behavior in the C.P.D” the article states. It shouldn’t take a major incident to occur

in order for a cop to obtain a consequence for the wrong decision they make when it can all be

avoided when good rule and procedures are being placed. As the text states many cops are

keeping their mouth shut in orders to keep their hands clean or avoid consequences, this is

absolutely not acceptable. Multiple warnings are being said and cops are still deciding to not take
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it seriously, when that’s the scenario consequences should be placed right at that moment not

when situations get out of hand instead of handling business the right and professional way.

On another hand, In the 1980s the Supreme Court decided- Tennessee v. Garner and

Graham v. Connor that constitutionally- “Police officers are allowed to shoot under

circumstances”. Meaning that when reasonable deadly force is used by cops it is not a problem.

David Klinger a professor from the University of St. Louis states that certain force is used “to

protect their life or the life of another innocent party”. Departments of authorities call it the

“defense-of-life standard”. This decision was made when a pair of police officers shot a 15-year

old boy as he fled from a burglary. Court stated that cops couldn’t be shooting every felon that

tried to escape but other claimed that “...the job of a cop is to protect people from violence, and if

you’ve got a violent person who's fleeing, you can shoot them to stop their flight”. After that

cops justified their brutality actions with the simple statement of “it's my job” or “I'm just doing

my job”. Legal standards claim that this as defense of a life and used of force on a fleeing felony.

Authorities demonstrate their actions as “objectively reasonable” by given scenario or

circumstances of what officers might do. Using deadly force is not a problem when there's a

threat being presented in the scenario as authority’s state. Cops are given legal latitude to use

force when they believe it's necessary, this time of power is given to officers to protect

themselves and their standards. Many individuals agree with the system that authorities have

going on, they don’t see a problem with the way authorities abuse their powers. Locals believe

that when there's not a way to solve a problem in a civil manner then cops have no other choice

but to use for during the situations, no matter how the situation turns out they agree that if the

force was used in a reasonable way then using deadly force is acceptable.
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Society doesn't deserve to live in a world where there's fear, society shouldn’t suffer from

mental illness due to a bad scenario with an officer that could been handle in a more professional

way to avoid a bigger problem. There’s more than one solutions to conduct a difficult situation,

if officers are around to serve and protect citizens should feel comfortable around them; they

should feel like there's someone they can call when they feel like they're in danger. When society

becomes afraid or they feel like they won't get any help when they need it that’s when many

starts distancing themselves and a bad outcome can lead to that. Many people believe that cops

are brutal and rude, people have lost respects to cops 100%. Many agree with the fact that cops

take advantage of their job.” I remember when I was younger, I went to school for criminal

justice, I looked up to cops. But after all the damage they did to innocent people getting shot etc.

Them being racist and just shooting to shoot. I will never respect a cop again.” says Ariana

Ochoa during a public interview about law enforcement.

Some solutions in the near future can be random drug test, anyone that’s part of the

police force should be drug test in order to prevent any type of drug abuse that can mentally

affect them and have them react in a brutal way to others. People understand and agree with

some cops being good but they also see that most of the people surrounding them have had a bad

encountered with a police officer. Other also have made the claim that cops just believe that they

are going to receive respect because of what they do for a living, they also state that they need to

understand that respect is earned and not given and if they are not fully respecting the people

around them because they are doing their “job” then it is okay for other to give them the same

treatment without receiving a consequence.

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Increase the amount of women police in every state, take women police percentage from

12% to at least 50%. Female officer keep-it more professional, less brutal and they're job is just

as effective as a male cop doing the problem solving. If law enforcement finds way to come with

back up plans in case a certain situation occurs than they are more than able to come up with

back up plans incuse something occurs that they are able to hurt the innocent people around

them. If law enforcement is cautious with in themselves they should also take care of the people

around them, they are only given one life and it would not be fair for a police officer to take that

away and not receive a consequences because they can easily make the claim that they were just

doing their job.

Last but not least officers need to keep it more realistic, police must be banned from sing

violence based on their imagination of a threat. Many cps justifies their action brutal action as

them being in an unsafe situation when in reality most of the time felonies respect their

authorities. Times where authorities abuse their problem and try to scare felonies is when the

person feels afraid of the cops and has the need to find a way to protect themselves in order to

get out an uncomfortable situation. People deserve to feel good and uncomfortable about their

surroundings, they should also feel save for their community. People put so much trust in law

enforcement for them to abuse it because they believe they have enough power for them to do it,

that is no okay and it should be 100% not acceptable.

In conclusion police brutality shouldn’t be tolerated, as time goes on abuse of power

increases and creates problems that can be avoided in different way, the world deserves better.

Respect goes both way, all it takes is mature individuals to be place in the job for it. As the

population grows more incident tempt to occur, more lives are lost, and more individuals become

problematic. With situations like this the government needs to look for the right solution, police
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brutality shows that the government is not fully taking proper care of certain situation and decide

to be brutal about it instead of finding the right solution to take care of it. Stop police brutality, it

is not an act of resolution it is an act of abuse of power.

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Works Cited

Hauser, Christine. “Chicago officer is cleared in fatal shooting of 15-year old in the back of the

head”. Chicago: The New York Times

Margaret, Talbot. “Bad cops, Good cops.” Police brutality (1997-2014) The New York Times.

Lopez, German. “Police shootings and brutality in the U.S 9 things you should

know” (Sept.11, 2018) Vex news.