Kala Burwick

Professor Sipin
English Comp 211C
April 28, 2015
Is it Necessary Force or Police Brutality?
Many citizens define police brutality broadly to include a range of abusive police
practices, such as the use of profanity, racial slurs, and unnecessary searches, not entailing the
use of physical force (Holmes). In America today, we as a society, are very defensive. Being a
part of a minority group that has been through so much is really hard. African Americans have
dealt with slavery in the past, but it seems that history is just repeating itself. In todays society,
we are dealing with being racially profiled which is one of the main reasons bad things, such as
people dying and communities are going up in flames, are happening. Women are also being
included in profiling. People of color are being highly mistreated, which is completely unfair and
becoming out of control. As of this moment, we do not live in a safe environment. Police
brutality is a very big problem in todays society. There are specific ways that police are
supposed to act towards different situations and I am concerned that they do not care about the
training that they received. There are also ways to prevent the deaths of African Americans by
authority. We, as a society, need to cut down on who we are given guns to. We need to work
together as a society to get rid of police brutality and lower the chances of deaths dealing with
people of color. We also, as a society, need to work on how we react to the deaths of African
Americans due to authority.

During the time of slavery, it was expected for the person with authority to beat whoever
they wanted and there were no repercussions. People that grew up had the idea that white people
were superior, as they do still to this day. White people will always think that because they
were superior during the slavery time, that is no longer the case and all people are equal. The
first real, known case of police brutality was dealing with Rodney King. Rodney King was
pulled out of car and brutally beaten four Los Angeles police officers. Because someone was
recording everything that happened, the four officers were arrested. Three months later, the
charges on the officers were dropped. Charges seem to get dropped when people start to feel like
the officers were right. When that happens, riots and protests happen which only destroy the
community and people.
This topic is important today more than ever because of the type of brutality we are
dealing, the people it is against, and the way everything is carried out in the end. People always
say that minority groups need to respect authority, but in all honesty, everybody needs to respect
one another. In the past two years, there have been many issues dealing with police brutality
resulting in death. The issues that I am referring to are the killing of Michael Brown and Eric
Garner in 2014. The brutal beating of Martese Johnson in March of this year is also a very
important issue. Also, the killing of Walter Scott this year was a piece of the outbreak. Recently,
there was a very brutal killing of a Baltimore man by the name of Freddie Gray. These killings
and beatings were all results of police brutality. Each police officer that was involved in some
type of issue that resulted in the death of an African American, or a person of color, in some way
abused their right. Mike Brown was shot while getting on the ground when being told. Eric
Garner was choked to death because the police claimed he was selling untaxed cigarettes.
Martese Johnson is a regular UVA student that was severely beaten by police because he was

using a fake ID to get into a club. Another victim was Walter Scott, who was shot while running,
by a cop who did not want to chase after him. Freddie Johnson was brutally beaten by police that
resulted in his death. This proves that police brutality is becoming out of control, and we fellow
Americans need to put a stop to it.
This topic is important to the criminal justice system because today that is all that people
talk about. Every day on the news, people hear about someone else getting killed by a police
officer. Police use of deadly force in a public order context is somewhat different from that used
in direct confrontation with alleged criminals (Belur). Police officers are supposed to be here to
protect everybody, but the way it seems they are hurting everybody because they think it is the
right thing to do. They are only thinking and protecting themselves. The criminal justice system
need s to get involved to better the situation or police brutality will become a greater issue than it
already is.
The biggest question is Is police brutality based on race? They always seem to answer
no, when in all actuality it is. Police officers fail to realize that people of color realize when they
are being racially profiled. Some police were asked what makes them suspect someone is doing
something, one officer answered by saying there is a certain look that most perpetrators have
and that tends to be those who follow the trends of urban Hip Hop culture. That would consist of
cornrows, saggin jeans, earrings, fitted caps, etc. (Staff) People of color dress like what the
officer described, that is the main reason why they are attacked. It is not fair that people of other
races will not get in trouble people for anything they do. To officer, white people look normal
because they do not wear the same outfits that African Americans wear.

In Eric Graners case they said that he was resisting arrest. You cannot resist arrest,
that's a crime." But it's not a crime that most police officers often file reports about (Lind). Out
of all known police brutality cases, this one has a very high emotional appeal. This man has 6
young kids that he left behind. Also, the way that he died was not pleasant. Not saying that all
deaths are pleasant but most people do not die begging for air. Sam walker explains, "There's a
widespread pattern in American policing where resisting arrest charges are used to sort of cover and that phrase is used - the officer's use of force (Lind). Most resisting arrest charges are
cover ups. Most of the time you would not hear of someone resisting arrest.
Can the cops be controlled? Its never been easy: according to one old sociological
chestnut, the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence is what defines modern government,
and this monopoly is jealously protected against the second-guessing of puny civilians
(Madar). The FBI has about 470 justified homicides. Knowing that cops cannot be controlled
is bad. Modern law enforcement is more about protecting the police than the citizens. Citizens
are more afraid of the police than the people doing the crimes.
Statistics show that 18 percent of African American suspects were killed by police, while 8.7
percent were white (McKay). In Ferguson, 67 percent of African Americans in Ferguson account
for 93 percent of arrests made from 2012-2014 (Berman and Lowery). Knowing things like this
is something that would make me not want to trust the police. When you are young, youre
taught that cops are the good guys and they help. Today, as we grow the cops are look more like
bad guys. The process of writing this paper and being a criminal justice major only open my eyes
up to most things people do not see.

When something so devastating happens, it affects the family, the community, people of
the same race, and most of the time, the whole world. The effects that police brutality has on
families are more crucial than the effects that it has on community. Each of the most recent cases,
their families stepped up and had a lot to say. Eric Garners wife and daughter both spoke up
about the death of Garner. They felt as if Mr. Erics death was different type of brutality and the
officers did not have to take it that far. They also thought that it was a very brutal death when
others usually are shot by the police officers. Usually when stuff like this happens, it affects the
race right after the family. When something bad happens involving the African American, they
always relate it back to slavery days. When they feel strongly about a situation, they start riots
such as the one for Mike Brown. Other riots, such as the one for Freddie Gray, can be more
violent because of the way he died. All the riots depend on how the person was treated and how
the community takes it. For Martese Jonson, they had peaceful protest that got the point across.
Right now in Baltimore, citizens have started a violent protest where they destroyed the whole
city and they agreed to kill some cops. The way that some people react to news like this is very
unnecessary, but police brutality is always very unnecessary. Gun violence has many types of
effects of people, one being psychological. Gun violence can take a toll over the family of the
victim or the family of the suspect. As I previously stated, Trayvon Martins family and Michael
Browns family both went through a traumatic time and were both psychologically affected.
These families have become more and more heart broken and torn apart then anything. The
psychological effects they have brought on to themselves are destroying their health. They think
about what happened every day. On the other hand, the suspects family has to deal with what
might happen to them. This brings psychological strains on them as well.

Some police officers will say that it is necessary force. What is so necessary about it?
Police officers will shoot a person because they do not feel like running. They will also place
objects by people so they will give them a reason to shot. When they tell someone to put their
hands up and get on the ground, they shot because he was going in his pocket. All of these
reason were very unnecessary and not the truth. There is no such thing as necessary force
anymore. Everything has turned into police brutality
The topic of gun violence is also very important to the study of criminology because as a
growing economy, the violence is becoming worse especially with police officers. If a solution is
studied more, then gun violence and police brutality will eventually decrease. If it is not studied,
then it will only get worse. We as an economy, have the ability to make the laws and training for
officers stricter. If the stricter laws are not followed, then harsher punishment will have to be
enforced for not only citizens, but also police officers. Everyone said that something needs to be
done to make this a better country to live in. We cannot make a change if we do not try. More is
happening in this society then people have told.
Today, gun violence dealing with police is a really big problem. A big problem is that
cops feel as if since they have a gun now they can do whatever they want with it. Even though
they have the proper training, they do not care much to follow the rules. The legal is a legal way
to buy a gun, that some may follow. First, you have to learn the regulation for ownership in the
country. Next, you have to learn the local regulations. Then, you provide the licensed person
whom which you are purchasing the gun with valid information. Finally, you can purchase your
gun. These steps do not seem all that difficult, but for those who do not like to do things the legal
way or cannot afford to do it the legal way end up getting them off of the street, or off of the
internet.

For those who cannot afford guns, get them off of the streets such as gang bangers, drug
dealer, etc. Those who do not get guns the legal way are all looked at as if they are going to do
something wrong. Some of them might do something wrong, while others just wanted it for
protection.
I have heard people say that they have tried to cut down who are allowed to get guns.
People also need to look out for what officers use guns. After an officer abuses the right to have
their gun, they should either be fired or not able to have a gun at all for the remainder of their
time one the force. In all reality, that just made people want to go out and by more guns for
protection. People should help prevent a lot of gun purchases by setting a stricter policy. There
should be mental screenings for citizens and cops. I would recommend limits being placed for
citizens and cops on the purchase of types of guns, bullets clips and ammunition. I would also
recommend that army rifles be outlawed, knowing that most of them are used to kill not scare.
I am really pressing the stricter policy and mental screenings. A stricter policy would
reduce the purchase of guns because some know that they would not be able to handle the
pressure of the new policy. Giving screenings would benefit each retailer. The mental screenings
would allow the retailer to know what type of person they are selling their merchandise to. If a
person fails a screening in one store and goes to another and tries to buy a gun, their name will
already be in the system for failing the screening. That would help reduced the purchase of guns.

Bibliography
Belur, Jyoti. Permission to Shoot? : Police Use of Deadly Force in Democracies. New
York, NY: Springer New York, 2010. Ebook Library. Web. 29 Apr. 2015
I used this references because it helped me understand better what people think
about police brutality and how also how they feel.
Berman, Mark and Wesley Lowery. The 12 key highlights from the DOJs scathing
Ferguson report. n.d. March 2015.
Holmes, Malcolm D., and Brad W. Smith. Race And Police Brutality : Roots Of An
Urban Dilemma. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. eBook Collection
(EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Lind, Dara. 5% of New York cops turn in 40% of "resisting arrest" cases. 6 December
2014. March 2015.
Madar, Chase. Why Its Impossible to Indict a Cop. 24 November 2014. March 2015.
McKay, Tom. One Troubling Statistic Shows Just How Racist America's Police
Brutality Problem Is. 18 August 2014. March 2015.
I used this reference because it also helped with statistics .
This reference helped me with statistics and realized how much violence police are
involved in.
Staff, NewOne. News One for Black America. 13 August 2010. Article. March 2015.
This reference gave me a type of insight on how officers see things