Are the Police Actually Brutal?

Jack Meeks
May 3rd 2016
CJ 1010

The most popular opinion among younger Americans today is that every single police
officer is a bad guy that is out to get you. Teenagers think the cops just cannot wait to ruin their
party, young adults believe traffic officers get a sadistic joy out of writing them a speeding ticket,
but perhaps the scariest of them all is that the entire country now thinks police officers are angry
people that are waiting for you to give them an excuse to whack you over the head with a club,
throw a few punches, or even shoot you. This way of thinking is understandable. Turn on any
news program and you will see story after story of a controversial interaction between the police
and the people that most likely ends in the very unfortunate demise of an innocent citizen. Are
they so innocent? Did the Police have a good reason? Why do these stories get so much
attention? This paper will investigate the thought process behind law enforcement and analyze
cases of police brutality from an objective point of view in an effort to answer a few questions
about the events that news and media leave out. We will approach the attitudes and behaviors of
all the parties involved. We will go through the events blow-by-blow and analyze each action and
its consequences. Finally, we will discuss some possible solutions to the problems of (alleged)
police brutality in America.
To begin, do police officers have a general bad attitude toward the public as everyone
believes? That idea goes against the very reason why we even have a police force. To protect
and serve, right? If you were to ask any average American citizen, odds are they would tell you
that even though they have nothing to hide, they instantly get a little bit nervous when they see a
police officer patrolling along. As it turns out, the publics fear of the police might be more
warranted than you think. In John Hills Exploring the Police: A Book of Readings, every
chapter is a different story told from the first person perspective of many different jobs in law
enforcement. Chapter three is written by Chuck Milland, and its titled Why Cops Hate You.

What a great first impression for the chapters content. The very title suggests that all cops
generally hate you! The majority of us have had some sort of job where you are in constant
contact with the general public. We all know how miserable that can be, and how ridiculous
some customers are. Well this chapter explains that police officers deal with the absolute worst
of the worst parts of the general public. Unfortunately, Chuck Millands attitude about the
general public is very negative and aggressive. The very first line of the fourth paragraph in
Millands chapter is First of all, civilians are so goddamn stupid. They leave things lying
around, just begging thieves to steal them. They park cars in high crime areas and leave portable
TVs, cameras, wallets, purses, coats, luggage, grocery bags, and briefcases in plain view on the
seat(Hill, Milland 23). Fair enough. We have all dealt with idiots in public who are completely
self-unaware. However, Milland escalates it a few levels.
To explain that some civilians have a rules-dont-apply-to-me attitude, he describes a
theoretical situation where the cops have closed off a city block because of a sniper in a building.
He tells that a civilian will just Weasel around the barricade or slither under the restraining
ropes and blithely continue on his way right into the field of fire. . . All of these cops, including
the one risking his ass, devoutly hope the sniper will get off one miraculous shot and drill the
idiot right between the horns(Hill, Milland 24). This is quite disturbing. Even though this is a
theoretical scene, it is awfully dark to wish death on an innocent passerby.
There is one more thing from this chapter that we should be worried about. Milland
addresses the necessary use of force. He explains yet another theoretical situation where they
are chasing a bad guy and have him cornered. If hes not armed, and the cops arent creative
enough to find a weapon for him, theyll beat him into raw meat and hope he spends the next few
weeks in traction (Hill, Milland, 27). When he says if cops arent creative enough to find a

weapon for him , that shows they are purposefully looking for anything to give them an
excuse to open fire. This throws the whole idea of innocent until proven guilty out the
window.
With all that aside, everything Chuck Milland described in chapter 3 of John Hills book
of readings are theoretical situations. None of these stories are real life events that ever
happened. Let us hope that Chuck Milland does not represent the thinking of all of Law
enforcement, but lets also not disregard it. It could be useful information later when analyzing
real life police encounters.
With the topic of police brutality comes the topic of racism. With the sudden rise of
organizations like Black Lives Matter, it is obvious to see that African-Americans feel
especially targeted by police violence. They are not wrong. Cody T. Ross published a paper in a
publication in PLOS ONE called A Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police
Shootings at the County-Level in the United States, 2011-2014. Ross states that in Miami-Dade,
for example, unarmed black individuals are estimated to be more than 22 times as likely to be
shot by police than unarmed white individuals (Ross 2/34). Throughout Rosss paper, he
analyzes the different statistics of victims of police shootings. The statistics are organized in
terms of ethnicity, and whether they were armed or unarmed. He came to a few different
conclusions and compared them to each other. According to the Ross, you are much more likely
to be shot by police if you are armed. However, you are much more likely to be shot by police if
you are Black or Hispanic (as opposed to being White). The median probability across counties
of being {black, armed, and shot by the police} is 2.79times the probability {black, unarmed,
and shot by the police...(Ross, 4/34). Ross also observed stats between being Hispanic, and
white, unarmed vs armed. Across all three races observed, you will be about 3 times more likely

to be shot by police if you are armed with a weapon. However, when you compare the races, as
opposed to comparing unarmed vs armed, Ross came to a surprising conclusion. The median
probability across counties of being {black, unarmed, and shot by the police} is 2.94 times the
probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} (Ross, 4/34). The idea that ethnic
minorities make up the majority of deaths by police brings us to a few different trains of thought.
We have to remember that just because someone was shot by a cop, that does not mean they were
not justified in doing so, or that it represents a police brutality statistic. Directly associating an
unarmed death by police with police brutality is bad researching practice. However, this does
tell us a few things about society and/or the police. Either ethnic minorities put themselves into
these decisions more often than the majority white population, or the police are generally
racist/biased against them, and use excessive force.
Police brutality can be synonymously defined with the use of excessive force. However,
the exact definition of excessive force is left ambiguous and objective. Because of this, police
behaving well within their duties can often be misinterpreted as brutal. The United States Civil
Rights commission published a report in the 1980s, and Geoffrey P. Albert and William C.
Smith discuss it in their publication How Reasonable is the Reasonable man?: Police and
Excessive Force. Albert and Smith say The commission report discussed the need for scrutiny
of the police and the need to reform. Unfortunately, no one attempted to define excessive force
or explain situations that went beyond the necessary force needed to achieve the police mission
(Alpert and Smith 482). We have to remember that the police have a certain objective. The use
force is often necessary for the police to do their jobs. Because the general attitude towards
police in general, it is very understandable that the polices actions can come under an excessive
amount of criticism and scrutiny. But perhaps it is because of this negative attitude towards law

enforcement that excessive force is over exaggerated. We could also give the public the benefit
of the doubt. it may also be that police officers band together, close ranks, and protect their
fellow officers against accusations of excessive force (Alpert and smith 483-484). If the public
is outraged by a case of alleged excessive force, it may not get the attention the public thinks it
needs, or the final decision on whether it may be excessive or not is ultimately not satisfying to
the public. One theory discussed by Alpert and Smith is that it is easier for the police to defend
themselves from public accusations and ridicule. It is easy to believe that a government
institution can be easily supported by the government in cases of scandal.
A few years ago, in Saratoga Springs, Utah, a young man by the name of Darrien Hunt
was shot in the back was shot in the back by a police officer. The Utah County attorney ruled the
shooting justified. The whole story is covered by Utahs local Fox News channel, Fox13. The
story erupted in controversy and the news reported it as an innocent man who did nothing wrong
getting gunned down in the street. Play by play, here is how it happened as given by eye
witnesses, surveillance footage, and official police reports. Darrien Hunt was walking outside a
gas station in the parking lot. In his hand, he held a samurai sword cased in its sheath cover. A
police officer approaches Darrien from behind, with intent to stop him and question him about
the weapon he was holding. Darrien then ran from the officer. This is when Darrien was shot
several times. He did not survive. The public was outraged. Alpert & Smith shine some light on
the rules the police must follow when using deadly force with an escaping suspect. First, if a
suspect is running away from the officer and has not posed an imminent threat to the officer or a
citizen, then reasonable force may not include the shooting of the suspect (Alpert & Smith 490).
The shooting was ruled justified because the police officers had reasonable concern that he
intended to cause harm to others with his sword after running from the police.

As you can see, everything can always be seen from a different point of view. There is
evidence that racism can be a factor in many displays of excessive force or brutality. However,
there can always be a different side of the story. In the case of Darrien hunt, if he talked to the
officers instead of running, they could have had a harmless interaction. Darrien was doing
nothing illegal until he decided to run from an officer while wielding a dangerous weapon. If we
have a solid understanding of the law and look past the biased reporting of the news, we can
have a better understanding of the events that take place, and perhaps give officers a fair chance.

Works Cited
Hill, John. Exploring the Police: A Book of Readings. Pearson Custom Publishing, 2008.
Print.
Ross, Cody T. A Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police Shootings At
The County-Level in The United States, 2011-2014, PLoS ONE(2015): 1-34. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 2 May 2016.\
Alpert, Geoffrey P., and William C. Smith. How Reasonable is the Reasonable Man?:
Police And Excessive Force. Journal Of Criminal Law & criminology 85.2 (1994): 481-501.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 May 2016.