Gracie Lyne

Elizabeth Kent
Evil Empire Unit 1
February 2, 2016
Police Brutality
Ms. Kent, I know that I want to go in the way of police brutality not being an issue, and
even more specifically police brutality not being a race issue. Police brutality, two words used all
too often in current times. The term police brutality was first used in the American Press as early
as 1872 when the Chicago Tribune reported on a civilian being beaten at the Harrison Street
Police Station. Since then the topic of police brutality has exploded. In the 18th century most
police brutality was paired with labor strikes. Some labor strikes growing to hundreds of furious
people crowded outside their place of employment could probably use some brute police force to
control the situation. But currently in the 21st century it seems it does not take much of anything
to cause police brutality. A simple traffic stop for a broken headlight or minor traffic violation
and there is a large possibility it could break out into a fight. The article I read about modern day
police brutality made a statement that said To witness the final moments of someones life is
not supposed to be a regular experience, yet it feels like every week, were presented with a new
video of a different unarmed black manor childkilled by police. I personally fully disagree
with this statement. No matter the color of your skin when that cop approaches you his only
thoughts are about protecting himself. I feel as though no cop approaches a car window in a
routine traffic stop thinking how am I going to kill this person? In fact his only thoughts are
probably about safety in the situation. When people think about police brutality there is so much

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negative connotation that comes along with it, rightfully so. However, these police that are
blamed for these awful acts are not always the bad guys. It seems like every time you get on
social media there is some post shared millions of times shaming a police officer or a video of an
officer beating an innocent person. Can I just say that if the person that has fallen victim to
police brutality was innocent there would be no brutality. The officer obviously felt threatened in
some way whether it be the mannerism of the person or the persons past records. What people
fail to realize is that every police officer has a family to return to and he must protect himself. Of
course I hate to see someone lose their life but I feel no matter what the case there had to be
some level of misdemeanor that caused the officer to feel threatened and act on that. When you
look at the statistics of police brutality cops are only involved in 1% of killings but the rate for
citizens is 90%. Along with the topic of police brutality comes racism. Most Americans would
probably say police brutality is always hand and hand with African Americans. Surveys in recent
years suggest that minority groups such as African Americans have little to no confidence in law
enforcement and large portions of them believe police are likely to use excessive force on them
just because they are black. I personally do not believe that police brutality is an issue. Police are
here to protect us at citizens and whatever they have to do to complete that task is only
necessary. I feel that police brutality is created into something that its not. The use of media
creates a big mess out of a small issue compared to other things we Americans face. The media
takes a small story and blows it out of proportion to make us believe what they want us too. The
media has the power to show us exactly what they want us to see and dismiss everything they do
not want us to see. For instance, they make it seem like police brutality is an issue only in
African Americans by not showing the stories of police brutality in Caucasians. I feel that police
brutality is in no way a race issue. The real issue is the sparse amount of rules placed on police

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officers. I feel as though cops can get away with almost anything just because of their job title. A
cop that kills someone in self-defense more times than not pleads innocent in court and if they
are found guilty are given very light sentences. The police force does many positive things for
America and I fully stand behind them and everything they do, but to pull someone over for a
broken tail light and it end in the death of a citizen I feel that is an issue. To solve the problem of
police brutality I think first and foremost the Police force needs and deserve more respect from
the citizens of their area. I think the police force could gain this respect by having more rules
placed on them. I think another key issue is police treating citizens with equality not just between
races but between police and citizens. If police approach the matter as they are equal to citizens
and do not act like they are higher than or better than citizens maybe we would be more
accepting to their actions. I think the most current event is Beyonc at the Super Bowl. She
writes songs all about police brutality and not trusting the police yet she demanded a police
escort to the Super Bowl. Our world is so hypocritical and I feel its where most of our problems
come from. Beyonc is very open to the fact that she does not trust the police but yet she wants
to use their services for her escort to the Super Bowl. Of course the example I just used has
nothing to do with police brutality but she is a world icon and all of her followers feed off of her.
When she makes it evident she does not respect or trust police then none of her followers will
and this creates tension. Police officers are a symbol of authority and people do not like that.
They do not want to feel like someone has higher power over them, if they do not want someone
to have power over them they should be the police officer. But they would not like that either
because then the roles would change and they would be the ones on the other end of the police
brutality stick.