Olivia Azuara             

Olivia Azuara

Honors Humanities - Mr. Max

October 15, 2014

Police Brutality

     The amount of cruel behavior shown from police officers has now become very frequent causing quite a strong debate. Not only are police officers coming off as ferocious, but have not been using the right amount of force causing the involvement of many killings with unarmed innocent citizens, and don’t face big consequences. One of the very big incidents recently was the Michael Brown shooting causing a large dispute. Assigning more training before becoming an officer, and indicting police to the same consequences a non federal citizen would have can limit the amount of these shootings.

     Michael Brown, an 18 year old African American male, was walking in the middle of the street of a neighbourhood with his 22 year old friend Dorian Johnson when officer Darren Wilson disrespectfully yelled at the two males, “Get the fuck off the street!” Officer Wilson then drove off and then stopped again. He began to back up his car and drove right towards Dorian and Michael almost hitting the pair.  When Wilson drove back towards Michael and Dorian, a conflict between Michael and officer Wilson arose. As officer Wilson tried to get out of his car, Michael pushed the door back closed. Because different stories have been told from different witnesses they are not so sure what exactly happened, but it all led up to officer Wilson bringing out his gun and pointing it at Michael. From investigations its been known that the gun went off in the cop car and when it did, both Michael and Dorian began to run away. Thats when wilson fired a second time and struck Michael. Officer Wilson then shot Michael 6 more times killing him (Eliott). This shooting has finally brought many people together to protest and fight towards limiting the amount of killings that have been happening involving police officers and unarmed citizens,  specifically African Americans. Ashley Yates, a lead protester, explains how people are tired of hearing these similar stories of black lives gunned down, which is why she founded the organization Millennial Activists United. People are ready to step up and fight for change to stop this from ever happening again. As stated, it hasn’t just happened in Ferguson, but it is a nationwide issue that has happened more than once, and the Millennial Activists United organization has set a goal to put an end to police brutality (Ferguson October: Youth Organizers).

      Police officers need more training to know how to handle situations better. They should know where to shoot someone in order to kill them, or to just hurt them enough to fall to the ground. Officers have so many other options than to instantly turn to a gun, and depending on how extreme the situation is, they should know which to use as well as the amount of force. They can easily call back up, use their taser, baton, or even fight the unarmed citizens. An example of this is when NYPD officers slammed a 44 year old, 5 month pregnant woman named Sandra Amezquita to the ground belly first, and then beat her with their baton on the stomach. According to the police, Sandra tried to intervene in the arrest of her son who had an illegal knife clipped onto his belt, but in reality she was just trying to calm him down during the arrest (Hanson). There was absolutely no reason for the police officers to act the way they did, especially not to a pregnant woman, let alone any woman. They could have approached her and specifically asked her to step away other than automatically pushing her to the ground; and beating her on the stomach with their baton is far from unacceptable. There is no excuse for the amount of force they used, what can a 44 year old woman that is 5 months pregnant do? Its understandable when they are under pressure and panic once in a while during a very dangerous situation, but when its frequently happening and in a not so dangerous situation, they should be trained well enough to act in a calm and smart manner. With the amount of shootings thats happened, police seem to forget that they aren’t allowed to point guns at unarmed citizens, and as the shooting with Michael Brown and so many others, if the officers followed the rules indicated, many incidents could have been prevented.

     Police departments also need to do a better job on holding officers accountable for their actions. If they did, police wouldn’t think they can easily get away with situations like these that are in fact crimes. Police have quite a large amount of power, but if you let them do what they want with it, it can result to negative results such as the killings we have already faced. Although there has been suspensions from police officer positions, it’s not as much as a consequence as if they face charges. They need to know this is an issue and not just a temporary consequence. They need to be put through something that will teach them right from wrong  to have a learning experience from it. Police officers shouldn’t get special treatment, if they acted against the law, they should be indicted for it just like any other non federal citizen.

      Police have great amount of power, but if too much of it gets to their head thinking they can get away with crimes they acted on, they are wrong. Citizens are tired of the repeated stories of lives being taken away from innocent people, and with the most recent shooting involving Michael Brown, people are finally fighting for a change. Police should be held to the same consequences as any other person and should be trained better in order to limit the amount of killings happening involving police and innocent, unarmed people. After the better training and the equal rights between police and non federal citizens maybe then we will be able to stop police brutality and all the shooting that have happened recently.

 

Description: Since we were researching deeply into the Michael Brown shooting and into police brutality in humnaities class our teacher decided to make his honor students make an argumentative essay relating to it. I focused on police brutality and researched deeply into the many different situations that have happened other than the Michael Brown shooting and thought of solutions on how we can try to put this to a stop.