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Thomas Lawe
Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1103
9 November 2016
But He was Only a Kid: Why Police Use Lethal Force

Commented [1]: Incredibly strong title

On September 20th, 2016, Keith Lamont Scott was shot dead by Officer Brentley Vinson
of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. His family claims that he was innocent of any crime, he

Commented [2]: Nice start with an example

was shot dead for being black and waiting to pick up his daughter. The police account of the
shooting reports that Scott had a gun, refused to comply with officers, and was an imminent
threat to the life of the officers attempting to arrest him for possession of marijuana and an
illegally obtained gun. The district attorney has yet to bring the case before a grand jury for
indictment, but for several days afterwards there were major protests and riots in the city.
Whatever the result of the investigation, Keith Lamont Scott is not the first person to die at the
hands of police in the last year, or even the hundredth. Between 458 and over a thousand people
are killed by US Police forces annually. It is difficult to know for sure the exact number because
the Department of Justice does not require police departments to report all officer involved
shootings. Some of the others killed by police are familiar to the public: Michael Brown, Eric
Garner, Tamir Rice, or any of the dozens of others in the news recently. Others died out of the
public eye, like Rekia Boyd, Aki Gurley, Antonio Zambrano-Montes, and literally hundreds of
others (Deadly). Every week it seems that one someone dies at the hands of police, justified or
not, and their deaths bring civil unrest and a host of questions. Why do police resort to lethal
force so frequently? Is it training? Is it more common with minorities? Who is responsible for

Commented [3]: Good use of statistics

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these deaths? From CNN to the White House to Amnesty International, people are searching for
the answers to these questions and a way to end the bloodshed. Psychologists and sociologists
have been working for literal decades to examine the reasons for the differences in police
treatment of minorities. The frequent lethality of American police forces to stem from 3 major
areas: poor accountability, some degree of racial bias, and high stress decision making coupled
with less than stellar training.
What happens when an officer kills someone while on the job? Due to the nature of
police forces in the US, there is no universal procedure for determining whether the use of lethal
force was justified. In fact, in nine states and Washington D.C. there are no legal statutes
relating to police use of lethal force. In other states, the statutes are so vague and weak that they
might as well be nonexistent (Deadly). However, there are common procedures in most police
departments that are not legally required or enforced following a shooting by an officer. Most
are similar to the procedure for dealing with an officer-involved shooting in North Carolina.
First, the officer in question is relieved of his weapon, which is put in evidence. The officer is
then sequestered in the police station and is supposed to speak to no one except his/her attorney.
The investigation of the shooting is treated as any other homicide would: evidence is collected,
witnesses interviewed, the officer makes a statement. As far as most courts are concerned, the
word of a sworn officer of the law is worth more than the word of a non-law enforcement
witness. The collected information is given the District Attorney, who decides whether to bring
the case before a Grand Jury. It should be noted, however, that the District Attorney is a person
who is deeply involved in police business; anything that reflects poorly on police officers reflects
poorly on the district attorney. If the Grand Jury indicts then a trial begins (NC). This is
undoubtedly a flawed procedure; at no point does the investigation involve any organization

Commented [4]: Very strong introduction

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outside the police, at no point do higher authorities take over the investigation from the police, at
no point is the department held accountable to anyone other than the DA, who frequently has a
long and cordial history with the local police department. An officer of the law killing a person,
innocent or guilty, without trial is a major event and should be treated as such, but the
Department of Justices does not even collet information on when officer involved shootings
occur. In fact, the lackadaisical approach to law enforcement accountability in the United States
fails to comply with international standards set by the United Nations (Deadly). So, what
happens when a police officer kills someone while on the job? All too frequently a great sound
and fury, signifying nothing. How many people always do the right thing when no one is
watching? How many would hit another in anger, if they were sure their justified version of
events would be believed? What makes a police officer different than anyone else? Without
oversight and supervision, people make mistakes or take advantage of the system. From
something as harmless as looting an entire candy bowl on Halloween instead of taking two
pieces to escalating an attempted arrest to a violent altercation, people will do what they want
when there are few consequences.
Any situation where one person kills or may kill another reaches any definition of high
stress situation. What happens when a person is in a high stress situation and must make a life
and death decision? Adrenaline floods the brain, suppressing more complex thought in favor of
shorter reaction times, pattern recognition, and the flight or fight response (Gladwell, 5). That is
all well and good for an animal fighting for survival in the forest, but for a civilized human being
charged with upholding the foundation of civilization that response causes nothing but trouble.
In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell argues that a sufficiently trained expert can make decisions
in an instant that are as good or better than carefully thought out ones (Gladwell, 2). What that

Commented [5]: I don't believe you need the citation

here since you mentioned his name and credentials in
the sentence already

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level of training for an expert is, Gladwell does not make clear, but police do not have it. Its not
all that surprising really, given that in the state of North Carolina a person spends more time
training to be a licensed barber than a law enforcement officer (Deadly, Yan). In the state of
Massachusetts a refrigerator technician must undergo 1,000 hours of training to be trusted to fix
an appliance, but police officers are given a gun and badge after 900 hours of training. In
Louisiana, a police officer must undergo only 360 hours of training before hitting the streets; in
the same place a manicurist must be trained for at least 500 hours before getting a license to
work (Yan). Clearly there is a problem with the system when a person is trusted with a gun and
the right to use it before they are trusted to work on the public with nail files and polish.
Gladwell agrees in Blink, where one of the few examples of snap judgements gone wrong is the
1999 killing of Amadou Diallo. Four NYC Police officers demanded Diallo stop and put his
hands in the air, believing him to be a serial rapist or the rapists lookout. Diallo did not stop or
show his hands, instead pulling out his wallet. One officer, Sean Carroll, saw Diallo reach for
something small and square, shouted GUN and began shooting at Diallo. The four officers
fired 42 shots, 19 of which hit Diallo. Diallo was innocent of any crime (Gladwell, 105).
Perhaps if the officers in question had been better trained, then the shooting would not have
happened. Perhaps if Diallo had complied instantly, the officers in question would not have felt
the need to fire on him. Either way, this situation only highlights the way people behave
irrationally in a high stress situation.
"They shot my daddy 'cause he's black[]." These words were spoken by Lyric Scott,
daughter of Keith Lamont Scott, seconds after hearing of her fathers death. It isnt an
uncommon sentiment, its a part of the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Enough
people believed that statement to be true to participate in protests that became riots in the

Commented [6]: These facts are very good points and

supplemental to your argument, but you may not need
to include them all

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Charlotte area following Lamonts death (Shoichet). How much truth is there in this sentiment?
Quite a lot, argues Kimberly Kahn in her paper How Suspect Race Affects Police Use Of Force
In An Interaction Over Time for the journal Law and Human Behavior. Kahn examined police
reports on use of force, and found that when officers knew nothing about a suspect other than
their race, they were more likely to escalate into use of force for minorities especially African
Americas and Latinos than if the suspect was white. At the same time, Kahn found that white
suspects are more likely to escalate a situation to require force without an officer using force first
(Kahn). This is a clear indication of racial bias in police officers. Not all officers, and not
everywhere, but enough to make a statistical difference. If officers had not attempted to smash
the passenger window of Scotts car with a baton during the arrest, he might have reacted
differently. Would officers have done the same thing for a white man smoking a joint of
marijuana and who may have had a gun (Shoichet)? Whether the racial bias of police forces is
conscious or not, approved or not, and institutional or not, it is statistically present. If police are
more likely to jump to force sooner, then more people are going to resist violently. If more
people resist police violently, then more people are going to be hurt or killed in their attempt.
One way to curb the violence on both sides of police involved shootings is to put a damper on
the racial bias of police. Did Officer Brentley Vinson of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police kill
Keith Lamont Scott because he was black? Probably not, Vinson is African American as well.
Did Vinson and his fellow officers treat Scotts attempted arrest differently because he was
black? Likely they did, and that probably caused Scott to act in the way that the officers felt
they needed to use lethal force for the safety of themselves and others.
Police officers work long hours for long work weeks. They are public servants, meant to
enforce the laws and serve the greater good. They are also people, just like anyone else. They

Commented [7]: Where are more statistics? This

paragraph could be enhanced and supported more by
adding more sources

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are fallible. When they make a mistake, people can die. Sometimes they do everything correctly
and people die anyway. Sometimes, they must kill someone in the line of duty. Sometimes they
dont or shouldnt, but they still kill someone. Poor accountability and poorly defined
regulations make justified use of lethal force a hazy idea in the best of times. High stress
decision making and insufficient training can lead to police officers making the wrong call in the
heat of the moment, and using lethal force without proper justification. Racial bias in police
forces make people wary of police, seeing that police are more likely to use nonlethal forcebut
force nonethelessagainst minorities. Some of these people are going to use force right back at
the police, which can quickly escalate to police using lethal force against a dangerous suspect.

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Works Cited
DEADLY FORCE: POLICE USE OF LETHAL FORCE IN THE UNITED STATES. Lethal
Force: Amnesty International USA. New York: Amnesty International Publications, 2015. Web.
4 November 2016
Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown,
2005. Print.
Kahn, Kimberly Barsamian, et al. "How Suspect Race Affects Police Use Of Force In An
Interaction Over Time." Law And Human Behavior (2016): PsycARTICLES. Web. 22 Oct. 2016.
"NC Law Details When Law Enforcement Can Use Deadly Force ..."CBS North Carolina. CBS,
1 Mar. 2016. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.
Shoichet, Catherine. "Keith Lamont Scott: What We Know about Man Shot by Charlotte Police."
Keith Lamont Scott: What We Know. CNN, 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Yan, Holly. "States Require More Training Time to Become a Barber than a Police Officer."
CNN. Cable News Network, 28 Sept. 2016. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.