In recent years, the US Department of Justice have uncovered patterns of abuse and excessive use of force — particularly against black residents and all over the country. It would be one thing if allegations of police abuse were focused on one city, state, or region, but multiple investigations by the media. Racism and Police Brutality in America is fatal among people of color at the hands of the police are at an all time high more than the general public over the years. Statistics show a total of 31 percent of African american kill people in 2012.
The disparities appear to show about 37.4 percent of the general population in the US and 46.6 percent of armed and unarmed victims, but they made up 62.7 percent of unarmed people killed by police.Studies show, for example, that officers are quicker to shoot black suspects in video game simulations. In the very situation in which [officers] most need their training, he said, “we have some reason to believe that their training will be most likely to fail them.”This is a result of cultural and policy decisions made by the US that have made firearms far more available in America than most of the world.
According to the FBI, 21 police officers were killed from January to June 29, two fewer than in the same period last year. The 2016 year ended with 66 officers killed, not including accidental deaths. Since January 2015, according to the FBI, 128 police officers have been killed in the line of duty.
127 our experts are availableright now
For American police officers, this means they not only will encounter more guns, but they expect to encounter more guns, making them more likely to anticipate and perceive a threat and use deadly force as a result. Constitutionally, “police officers are allowed to shoot under two circumstances,” David Klinger, a University of Missouri St. Louis professor who studies use of force, said. The first circumstance is “to protect their life or the life of another innocent party”or what departments call the “defense-of-life” standard. The second circumstance is to prevent a suspect from escaping, but only if the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect poses a dangerous threat to others.In general, cops are given a lot of legal latitude to use force without fear of punishment. The intention behind these legal standards is to give police officers leeway to make split-second decisions to protect themselves and bystanders.
Although critics argue that these legal standards give law enforcement a license to kill innocent or unarmed people, police officers say they are essential to their safety.Graham v. Connor. This was a civil lawsuit brought by a man who’d survived his encounter with police officers, but who’d been treated roughly, had his face shoved into the hood of a car, and broken his foot — all while he was suffering a diabetic attack. The court didn’t rule on whether the officers’ treatment of him had been justified, but it did say that the officers couldn’t justify their conduct just based on whether their intentions were good. They had to demonstrate that their actions were “objectively reasonable,” given the circumstances and compared with what other police officers might do.
That is the constitutional standard. There are also different criminal standards at the state level, which may have different interpretations of what is reasonable use of force and what isn’t.
Sometimes the investigations fall onto the same police department the officer is from, which creates major conflicts of interest. Other times the only available evidence comes from eyewitnesses, who may not be as trustworthy in the public eye as a police officer.If police are charged, they’re rarely convicted.
The low conviction and incarceration rates have fed into the idea among critics of law enforcement that police can get away with using deadly force even in situations that don’t call for it. This poses concerns for those who want to hold police accountable, but critics also too lenient in using force because cops believe there most likely won’t be legal consequences even if they make a bad call.Over the past few decades, the federal government has helped equip local and state police departments with military-grade equipment to help them fight the war on drugs and war on terror.
Sometimes the investigations fall onto the same police department the officer is from, which creates major conflicts of interest. Other times the only available evidence comes from eyewitnesses, who may not be as trustworthy in the public eye as a police officer.There was 129 police officers died in the line of duty in 2015, down 3 percent from 2014. This continued the long-term trend downward, based on the organization’s statistics going back decades.
The drop in police deaths coincides with a dramatic drop in crime in recent decades: Violent crime rates in the US dropped by roughly 49 percent between 1994 and 2014, according to FBI data. Analysis of the FBI data by dara lind for vox found that the US police kill african americans at disproportionate rates. 31% of police killing victims in 2012, even 13% is the population.
In the U.S., African Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people. For black women, the rate is 1.4 times more likely. That’s according to a new study conducted by Frank Edwards, of Rutgers University’s School of Criminal Justice, Hedwig Lee, of Washington University in St. Louis’s Department of Sociology, and Michael Esposito, of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. The researchers used verified data on police killings from 2013 to 2018 compiled by the website Fatal Encounters, created by Nevada-based journalist D.
Brian Burghart. Under their models, they found that roughly 1-in-1,000 black boys and men will be killed by police in their lifetime. For white boys and men, the rate is 39 out of 100,000. In fact, people of color in general were found more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts.
Several academics have challenged Cesario’s methodology, namely his decision to “sidestep the benchmark” of using population to calculate racial disparity. It has been questioned whether using population is an appropriate benchmark in these kinds of analyses: Critics of this technique believe that population-benchmarking is flawed because it assumes black and white people have an equal likelihood of encountering police.
The use of deadly force by US police has attracted increased attention in recent years, highlighted by the high-profile slayings of a number of unarmed black men. Nineteen unarmed African-American men were killed by US police in 2017, up from 17 in 2016 but down from 36 in 2015, according to the Post. Black males nevertheless continue to be shot at disproportionately high rates, the newspaper said.
Black men, both armed and unarmed, accounted for 22 percent of all people shot and killed by US police last year but make up just six percent of the total US population. Overall, police shot and killed 68 unarmed people in 2017, up from 51 in 2016 but down from 94 in 2015.
In conclusion this article to let people be more aware and more cautious of what is going on in the world when the police do their routinely patrol in their designated areas or counties.
It also helps to spread the word that police officers could be corrupted when they try to bring justice and safety to the people. Also that citizens themselves could put a false accusation on African American men or women and also children.
Because police brutality varies in different ways through social media and history since the U.S Department of Justice uncovered the patterns of abuse and excessive use of force against the African American residents and all over the country. It would one thing if allegations of police abuse were focused on one city, state, or region, but multiple investigations by the media.
With this information being presented you should utilize this while you still can and be careful with police interactions.You should keep the minorities community know abreast and let people heed this warning so they don’t fall victim to police brutality.
References
- US Department of Justice
- The Guardian – The Counted: US Police Killings
- National Center for Biotechnology Information – Racial Disparities in Police Use of Deadly Force Against Unarmed Individuals Indicated by Surveillance Data
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – Risks of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex
- BBC News – George Floyd death: What charges have the officers faced?
