Although many people believe that police brutality is possibly warranted and justified, it’s often linked to racism, and prejudice. Some consider police brutality to be only towards black people, because four out five people shot by police were black. Causing movements to begin one for black people and police. Showing that there is A common belief against police officers across America is that they harass and discriminate against black people, and but are fair and kind to white people.
A problem with police brutality is that officers face no punishments for killing unarmed and young black people, who have yet been convicted or of proven guilty of a crime. In the cases involving the police shooting of black person, they say it was self defense. Which judges are quick to believing a police officer’s claim of self defense, especially when there is no other evidence besides the word of the officer involved because the person they killed can’t speak. For example a Georgia cop shot and killed a young black boy, and the grand jury declined to indict Euharlee police Cpl. Beth Gatny for involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct in the death of 17-year-old Christopher Roupe. Even though the teen’s family said he was holding a Wii controller when he went to answer the door. The police, however, allege he had a pistol in his hand when he was shot in the chest, which was false. There was discrimination by the police officer in the first place when he assumed that the young black boy had a gun, when he was opening the door to his home without warning was immediately shot in the chest. Then the officer was not trialed for involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct for the murder an of 17 year old black boy Christopher Roupe (Krayewski).
Just knowing about police brutality and prejudice towards black people causes problems for many people including the police. It also greatly affects the youth just knowing or hearing police the shootings affects the young black community (Thurau and Wald). Making them learn at a young age to hate or fear the police. Because the police have killed or arrest their; fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends in there community. Making it very difficult to trust the police as adults when you have a fear that they will just be arrested, beaten or even killed for being black.
Social media and the internet have be bringing awareness to the police brutality towards Black Americans. It is a the reason why these issues have been brought to attention in recent years. Making many acts of police brutality much hard to try to conceal. Also dash cameras have been installed in police cars across america for years which records what happens front of the vehicle. But body cameras also allow for more footage and audio (Wiley). Which all played a huge role in the case of a white police officer in Lorain, Ohio who was fired for stopping his daughter’s 18 year old black boyfriend Makai Coleman for no reason other than him being black. And admitting that he was going to make up the reasons to arrest Makai (Branigin).
Prejudice against black Americans is a very real problem in today's society. Making police brutality a serious and horrible thing that affects many black people in Americans. By making many live with the fear of potential racism and prejudice among the police officers. Which strongly affects the black community, which makes them think that they will be stopped in harassed possibly for simple being black. This could be simply because some police officers are racist, or a common prejudice in the police force. But there is so much that still needs to be done about police brutality, and treatment of black people in America. There is still justice that needs to be given to the families of those wrongly murdered or harassed by police due to police brutality. Also the officers that wrongly took so many lives of young black Americans need to be held accountable for their actions and prejudice.
Work Cited
Branigin, Anne. “White Ohio Cop Fired for Detaining Daughter's Black Boyfriend for No Reason: 'We'll Make Shit Up as We Go'.” The Root, Www.theroot.com, 22 June 2018, www.theroot.com/white-ohio-cop-fired-for-detaining-daughters-black-boyf-1827045783.
Thurau, Lisa H., and Johanna Wald. “Police Killings, Brutality Damaging Mental Health of Black Community.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 15 Sept. 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/spotlight/2018/09/14/police-brutality-damaging-black-communitys-mental-health/1218566002/.
Wiley, Maya. “Police Brutality: Body Cameras Help Citizens and Police.” Time, Time, 9 May 2017,
http://time.com/4771417/jordan-edwards-body-cameras-police/
Krayewski, Ed. “UPDATED: Cop Shoots 17-Year-Old Boy Who Answers Door, Nothing Else Happens GBI Says ‘Case File’ Still Open.” Reason.com, Reason, 17 July 2014,
https://reason.com/blog/2014/07/17/cop-shoots-17-year-old-boy-who-answers-d