Police Brutality

By: Valeria Amarillas, Jonathan Aquino, Karen Hernandez, Max Smutnak

Police brutality puts a bad light on America’s justice system. Over the past few years police brutality has been sweeping the nation and it needs to stop. Police have been racially profiling African-Americans, Latinx, and in some cases caucasians. 

Police brutality has gone too far, with more than 1000 cases of police brutality every year being reported. More than 200 were African-Americans, 300 caucuasians and more than 100 were Hispanics, were fatally shot to death by police. Not surprising, the number has gone up from 2014 by 300 per year on average. 

On average, police officers shoot about 3 people a day. Recent statistics show that 96 out of 100,000 African-American males are in danger of being killed by police, that is twice the risk than white males. An article done by Scientific American is due to gun control, showing 120 guns per 100 people in the U.S. Where in Canada it is 34 guns per 100 people and in Switzerland it’s 27 guns per 100 people. The data in this article also shows 996 fatal shootings because of gun control and 0 shootings in Switzerland. 

Police brutality creates a horrible overall idea about the police force, their responsibility is supposed to save and protect people. Instead, they abuse their power and racially profile people. Preying off of those who fear for their lives and when coming face to face with an officer or someone with a higher power, who has control over their fate. 

This problem has been occuring more and more often. Research shows that it is targeting many people of different cultural descent and races. Police brutality is the abuse of power and excessive force. In one case, there were deputies who assaulted a black 15 year old and pepper-sprayed the teen in the face, banging his forehead against concrete, and  punching him on the side of his head. This is a true event that occured by a teen who, because of his race, was racially profiled and abused by the officers who are meant to protect us. It demonstrates the amount of excessive force used by the deputies.  

In conclusion, police abuse has been a problem in society for too long. Many innocent people had been victims of this brutality and a lot died because of this the misconduct done by officers. For this reason, people stopped trusting the police because of the brutal beating done by them. This cannot and should not be tolerated. It is a problem that needs to be abolished in our nation. We cannot even be safe if police are behaving like criminals of violence. This must stop for the safety of all of America.

Cheney-Rice, Zak. “Broward County Deputies Assaulted a Black Teen. ‘Accountability’ Is Not Enough.” Intelligencer, Intelligencer, 24 Apr. 2019, nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/broward-county-deputy-beats-black-teen.html.

Peeples, Lynne. “What the Data Say about Police Shootings.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 5 Sept. 2019, www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-the-data-say-about-police-shootings/.

“Which Cities Have the Biggest Problems With Police Brutality?” Security.org, www.security.org/resources/police-brutality-statistics/.

Wilcox, Gillian. “Police Brutality Against Black Kansas City Man Caught on Video.” American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, 12 Oct. 2018, www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/police-brutality-against-black-kansas-city-man-caught.