Introduction
Police brutality can be defined as the excessive and unwarranted use of illegal force to civilians by police officers. There is no minimum or the maximum rate at which police brutality can be measured because it has gone from battery and assault to torture and murder. There is also mistreatments like verbal abuse, harassment, and intimidations. For many years police brutality has been an issue that the governments and citizens have been battling against each other. Although the pressure has been felt especially in the politicians and police department in the United States, the issue is being faced worldwide. However, ample evidence from the archives is needed to support the policies to end police brutality. Otherwise, the leaders will always miss the mark (Schwartz). Thus, there have been arguments for many years concerning better data to show police force in the United States. This discussion aims on the history of police brutality and its continued impact on society.
Media outlets, academic researchers, and government officials launched a data collection project to understand the frequency at which police brutality occurs and some of the factors that cause it. The results showed that law enforcement officers kill more than 1000 people in the United States in a year through that project. It also found that a black man is 2.5 times likely to be killed by a police officer than a white man in their lifetime. It also showed that black people who have been involved in a fatal shot by the police officer are twice as likely as white people to be unarmed.
Despite the United States having different ethnic groups, races, genders, classes, and ages, it is still subjected to police brutality. The brutality does not only lie on the black people, but also to the white people. That is evident based on the working-class and poor whites' frustrations over the discrimination actions by police in the northern cities in the 19th and 20th century (Schwartz). At the same time, other immigrants which included Jewish from the southern and Eastern Europe complained about police brutality in cities like Chicago and New York. However, based sexuality transgender and homosexuals persons had regularly been harassed by police in New York City in 1969. The harassment was raised by one police officer raiding on a gay bar where a new era was born of militancy in the international gay rights movement. Based on the religion biasness, in 2001, Americans Muslims raised their complaints about being harassed by the police. That was due to questionable legality by different agencies on operations surveilled at mosques for an allegation of uncovered terrorists, a practice that went for almost a decade.
Despite all the groups that have been subjected to the act of police brutality in the United States, African American has been one of the most victims. The main reason why African Americans are the most victims is because of the history of anti-black racism among the members of mostly white police departments. The same reason is believed to have influenced more police brutality reported to other marginalized groups who were historically oppressed. However, other factors led to police brutality in the United States apart from racism. One of the factors is the unique institutional culture if urban police departments, loyalty, and power are shown by many of the authorized officers. Also, many cases of police brutality among the African American increased after World War II due to the victory of democracy in the African Americans' forces at home. At this time, the white police officers considered themselves the white community's protectors since the black had started demanding respect by the judiciaries, local-governments, and the agencies enforcing the law.
One Incidence of Focus
One recent incidence showing police brutality was reported on 25th May 2020 where a 46 years old black man named George Floyd was killed. In the incidence, one policeman named Derek Chauvin pressed George Floyd's neck, who was unarmed for more than eight minutes. The incident has brought about the public debate about the relationship between racism and brutality (Alang). The protests came out demanding the arrest of the officer involved in the incident claiming it will be a systematic change that can help bring an end to the police brutality. The report showed that George Floyd had used a fake bill of 20dollars at a grocery store and physically resisted offers.
The police's body cameras showed Floyd cooperating with police officers at the beginning of arrest and apologizing. Later the officers tried to get Floyd in their car for arrest, and he was handcuffed where the struggle began. At this point, officer Chauvin took the prosecutor from the passenger's side, making him fall lying face down. That is when Floyd appeared to be in a distressed state, begging the officer who had placed his knee on his neck to let him breathe. After six minutes, the prosecutor is reported to have stopped responding and his nose bleeding. One of the witnesses who is a bystander requested the officers to check his pulse on his wrist but could not be found. That is the point where officer Chauvin removed his knee, and the prosecutor was rushed to the nearest Hennepin medical center and announced dead after an hour.
After four days after the prosecutor's death, the police officer was arrested and charged with the second-degree of manslaughter and third-degree of murder. At the same day, he was fired from his job. This incident was followed by one of the largest demonstrations in the Minneapolis, twin cities and St Paul. The protest turned into riots later due to the clashes with the police. The many protestors demonstrated from the site where the confrontation between Floyd and officers happened to where the police precinct where he was based. That is the point where the police officers triggered the riots with the demonstrators. The protestors started throwing stones and bottles to the police car while the police used rubber bullets, smoke, teargas, and flash bombs on them. In Atlanta, the demonstrators set fire on a police car and even broke their headquarters' CNN windows. In his speech about the protests, Tim Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, said for societal injustices to be repaired, order restoration was important. He also said that Floyd's death was supposed to bring peace, justice, and systematic changes rather than more destructions and deaths (Graham). However, Floyd's family said they wanted peace and the black people at large, but until there was a justice of the prosecutor, there was no peace.
Police brutality's incidences, in today’s society have caused, citizens from many of the democratic countries believe that the police force is supposed to direct power in the hands of its directors. For this reason, most democratic countries have organized police on a local basis. Conclusively, police officers are believed to wield over citizens' rights, lives, liberty, and safety. However, police officers are granted the power to arrest citizens, cite, search, detain, stop, and use physical force for those who do not comply with the low. Unfortunately, sometimes they use those power improperly they are said to be abusing the citizens' rights.
Conclusion
Police brutality as an excessive and unwarranted use of illegal force to civilians by police officers has had its history in research and continued impact on society. Research has shown law enforcement officers kill more than 1000 people in the United States in a year through that project. The main cause of police brutality in its history is racial discrimination. According to the research done above, a black man is 2.5 times likely to be killed by a police officer than a white man in their lifetime. However, police brutality does affect not only the black people but also the whites, especially the immigrants like the Jewish. One of the most recent incidents where the police practiced brutality is 2020, where a white police officer killed a black man named George Floyd.
