Police Brutality and Racism

Many of the stories that are portrayed by the media of police brutality are of minorities. It leads people to think that the police brutality happens often and only to minorities. We all know the story of Rodney King and when the officers were acquitted for their acts that caused the big LA riots. Another case a 22 year old unarmed immigrant from Guinea, Armadou Diallo was shot 41 times by New York police officers. The only thing he had on him was his wallet which the police thought was a weapon. Two of the four officers emptied their weapons on him which was not necessary. The police role is to protect the people and do it in a manner that is fair to everyone.

According to an article from Socialism Today, “Police brutality is an everyday occurrence in cities especially where large communities of colour are concerned. Black, Latino and Asian youth are harassed, assaulted and killed on a daily basis.” In New York the immigrants and young teens are an easy target to assume that they are involved in illegal activity and it gives the chance to the officers who feel that they can terrorize anyone that they want to without anything happening to them. This is not to say that In New York all the officers are into using excessive force, but it is more likely for them to target the minorities according to the article. http://www.socialismtoday.org/38/nypd38.html.

What is shown on the television leads me to believe that when brutality happens it is against mostly minorities. There are those other cases when it is a homeless person or a young teenager. The most infamous stories of police brutality are of minorities. In order to try and get away from the racism some say that more minority officer’s need to be hired. To have a more diverse police department can show that no one is being left out and they are trying to make a stronger department. This is just a little taste of how the public views police brutality and the type of people that are targeted.

The police are being watched.

It is rare to see police brutality on a 15 year old girl, but it happened. The video is shocking because of how much force the officer used. It was obviously excessive force. It should not take that much to detain a 15 year old. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7917295.stm. This is the type of brutality the media shows when they get their hands on it, and the public views the officer that did this as a monster. It is good that he is being charged with a crime in this instance, it may help another officer avoid an event like this to happen to them.

The police should know that anything they do will be seen, police cars have their video cameras and almost everyone has a cell phone and they are able to record anything they want at anytime. It should deter the officers to use excessive force, but it does not. What will deter an officer from committing a crime on the job? We can only hope that officers that see another officer charged with a crime for his/her actions will deter them from doing the same thing. The fact that the police are in the public’s eyes and on the media’s radar should also help to deter this kind of violence.

Is police subculture to blame?

All careers, no matter what they are, have a type of culture that the employees are a part of or learn to be apart of. It is no different for the police. People who become police officers are made different by the culture of the job. The police culture is a way of understanding or thinking about things. In the police culture, every officer deals with the different situations the way they know how. To the public they are being insensitive but it is just how the officer handles it. The police culture is learned through socialization, this is a process where they gather the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes of policing.

When the police are out on patrol they protect one another. In an article written by Christopher Cooper, Entrenched Subculture Is at Root of Police Brutality and Bias Cases, he explains that the police are taught that if a citizen runs from them they are to be beat severely. If a citizen was to hurt them they are to hurt that citizen even more before they bring them to the station. They are also taught if a citizen kills a cop the citizen shouldn't make it back to the station alive.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/072100-105.htm. A lot of times we see this in the media, there have been a few times in the last couple years when the police were on man hunts for citizens who have shot and killed officers. No matter what agency they were from all of the police agency’s get together to search for the killer. This shows that they are there to protect each other.

Knowing this kind of information and understanding it helps to see what the officers are thinking. It doesn’t justify their actions when they beat a citizen who is already detained. The police are there to protect each other and from this article they will do just about anything to do so.