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Lexi S.P

Mrs. Warren

English 6th period

4 April 2018

Police Brutality/ Excessive Use of Force

This year so far 264 people have been killed by the police and

counting(​https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/​).Some may say that 264 people is not a lot in the

grand scheme of things, but is it enough when your brother, sister, father, mother, or cousin is

killed? According to ​the Counted​ and the ​Washington Post​, 1146, 1093, 987, and so far 264

people have been killed by the police in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 respectively. The

overwhelming number of people killed at the hands of the police strike fear in everyone,

provoking mistrust of law enforcement. But I think excessive use of force by police can only be

eliminated by trust.

Distrust of the police comes from them relying on stereotypes, and the victims of these

stereotypes are unfairly targeted. A common stereotype is that African Americans and Hispanics

commit more crime but this isn’t actuality. Police definitely take into account someone’s race,

religion, and or ethnicity and​ ​The Huffington Post​ proves this by stating that “In 2014, more

than 800,000 blacks were in prison, alongside more than 438,000 Hispanics; together they

constituted over 58 percent of all prisoners.”. Reports also show police being discriminatory

towards the LGBTQ community, “(21%) of LGBT people who interacted with police reported

hostile attitudes from officers and 14% reported verbal assault by the police”
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(​https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu​). Not only are minority groups being discriminated

against, but have suffered with their lives. “Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police

than white people” (​https://www.huffingtonpost.com​).“African-Americans are heavily

over-represented among the dead, at about one in four” (​https://www.huffingtonpost.com​). The

stereotypes made by society are too prevalent in the Judicial system and need to be eliminated.

The media’s negative perceptions of the police contributes to the lack of trust of

police. “Frequent exposure to media reports of police abuse or corruption is a strong predictor of

perceptions of misconduct and supports the belief that it is common.” (​https://www.nij.gov​).

Resulting in the belief that police are racist human beings. A video of an African American man

named Rodney King being beaten with batons on the ground by several Police officers. As well

as an African American man named Michael Brown who was falsely suspected of robbing a

convenience store but shot at 12 times and killed, only supported these speculations. These

events led to multiple protests and movements by organizations like Black Lives Matter.

Incidences such as these are horrible and should never happen so the police need to prove they

can be trusted.

Applying better training, stricter rules, and more organized data will result in more

convictions, re-establishing trust in the judicial system. The US police kill “far more than other

developed countries like the UK, Japan, and Germany, where police officers might go an entire

year without killing more than a dozen people or even anyone at all.”(​https://www.vox.com​).As

explained by ​Huffington Post​, the “ United States​ ​averages 19 weeks[of training], [while] police

in other countries receive training that can last more than two years.” This lack of training

contributes to so many people dying by accident. In the US, police in training are taught to be
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assertive because not shooting can be fatal, when they should focus on restraining without a

lethal resolution (​https://www.huffingtonpost.com​). By law every bullet, killing, and injury that

occur should be recorded, without police officers having the option to turn off cameras.These

reforms will create a more reliable data base, resulting in more convictions. People don’t trust

the judicial system when sentencing isn’t applied to those who deserve it. Case in point,“99% of

cases in 2015 have not resulted in any officer(s) involved being

convicted.”(​https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/​).

The good in all of this is that the police departments are seeing this pattern and trying to

address the issue. The FBI has admitted to having insufficient data.They want to make a change

as explained by the ​National Institute of Justice​ reassuring that, “Many law enforcement

agencies have allowed researchers to study efforts to improve the lawfulness and legitimacy of

their policing activities.” They do so because they want to fix the relationship the people they

serve so they can do their job effectively. The overarching narrative is that police are horrible

racist human beings, but not all of them are. By grouping them all together in one category and

labeling them all bad makes us no better than the nazi’s who discriminated against all jews or the

Ku Klux Klan lynching every African American in their path. Police officers are still human like

you and me, they make mistakes, but this doesn't make it acceptable. The judicial system still

needs to be met with reforms and we still need to push for them. Lives shouldn’t be taken as

often as they are, especially by those who should be saving them.

Of course police are killed in the line of duty as well but as stated by ​Huffington Post

there are 13 jobs more dangerous than being a police officer and their deaths yearly have been

cut in half since 1970s. Police are met with hundreds of unarmed people yet “fewer than 1 in 3
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black people killed in America in 2014 were suspected of a violent crime or allegedly armed

[,]69% [of people] killed were nonviolent/unarmed and [only] 31% were allegedly armed and

violent”(​https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/​). These numbers are terrifying, police are supposed

to “Protect and Serve”. Who were they protecting and/ or serving when they killed 22 year old

African American man named Oscar Grant who was restrained face down, when a police officer

pulled his gun rather than his taser, shooting and killing Oscar?

The amount of death caused by police is not being dealt with. Stereotypes, negative

media, and lack of training all lead to the corruption of harmony in this country. I would hate for

our downfall to be composed of our own doing, every power falls eventually. Is lack of trust

between the government and the people going to the end us?

Works cited

“Police Have Killed 264 People in 2018.” ​Mapping Police Violence​,

mappingpoliceviolence.org/.

“Racial Profiling.” ​National Institute of Justice​,

www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/pages/racial-profiling.aspx.\

Kahn, Andrew, and Chris Kirk. “Eight Charts That Show How the Justice System Is Stacked
Against Black Americans.” ​Slate Magazine​, 9 Aug. 2015,
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/08/racial_disparities_in_the_criminal_jus
tice_system_eight_charts_illustrating.html​.

Karabel, Jerome. “Police Killings Surpass the Worst Years of Lynching, Capital Punishment,
and a Movement Responds.” ​The Huffington Post​, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017,
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www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/police-killings-lynchings-capital-punishment_b_84627
78.html​.

“Police Use of Force.” ​National Institute of Justice​,

www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/officer-safety/use-of-force/pages/welcome.aspx​.

Swaine, Jon, et al. “The Counted: People Killed by Police in the United States – Interactive.” ​The
Guardian​, Guardian News and Media,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-databa
se​.

“Police Shootings 2017 Database.” ​The Washington Post​, WP Company,

www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/​.

Lopez. “American Police Shoot and Kill Far More People than Their Peers in Other Countries.”
Vox​, 17 Dec. 2015,
www.vox.com/cards/police-brutality-shootings-us/us-police-shootings-statistics​.

Swaine, Jon, and Ciara McCarthy. “Young Black Men Again Faced Highest Rate of US Police
Killings in 2016.” ​The Guardian​, Guardian News and Media, 8 Jan. 2017,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/08/the-counted-police-killings-2016-young-black-men​.

“New Study Documents Ongoing and Pervasive Discrimination by Law Enforcement in the
LGBT Community.” ​Williams Institute​, 2 Mar. 2015,
williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/press-releases/new-study-documents-ongoing-and-pervasive
-discrimination-law-enforcement-lgbt-community/.

ELEMENT OF ARGUMENT WRITING (COMMON CORE RUBRIC) SKILL

(Reference rubric on Google Classroom for skill level information) LEVEL

Claim: The text introduces a clear, arguable claim that can be supported by reasons and evidence. 3.5

Development: The text provides sufficient data and evidence to back up the claim as well as a 4
conclusion that supports the argument.

Audience: The text anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns about the claim. The text 4
addresses the specific audience’s needs.
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Cohesion: The text uses words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, creates 3
cohesion, and clarifies the relationships between the claim and reasons, between reasons and evidence,
and between claims and counterclaims.

Style and Conventions: The text presents a formal, objective tone that demonstrates standard English 3
conventions of usage and mechanics along with discipline specific requirements (i.e. MLA, APAl
, etc.).

More​ African Americans prove​ to live ​in poverty with lack of role models, a good

education, leading them into a drug and crime filled life. Seeing more African Americans in jail

feed the bias resulting with police arresting more. The horrible cycle continues, but need to be

broken.

The police have insufficient data about the number of people killed by police, as admitted

by the

FBI(​https://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/pages/racial-profiling.aspx​).This

lack of organization and ignorance supports why people do not trust the authorities. Vox(8) also

says that the government​ is ​“militarizing” the judicial system, giving them more weapons. More

guns equal more gun violence.

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The National Institute of Justice​ acknowledges,​ “Despite training to avoid

discrimination, officers may still rely on cultural stereotypes and act on their perceptions of a

person's characteristics.”