A Look at the Police Brutality in Society

Police Brutality Police Brutality seems to be becoming a much more larger problem then it use to be. It seems to be at least once a month we hear about another case of police brutality. Some of the most famous ones are the Rodney King beating, the beating of the two illegal aliens in Riverside, and the killing of Gustavo Soto Mesa by deputy Tom Langly. One of the main motivation's behind these beatings seem to race. Right before the Rodney King beating, Officer Powell and Officer Wind were heard making a racial slere. Even the CHP officers were shocked at the ammount of force used by the LAPD on Rodney King. Later, Officer Koon, Powell, Wind, and Briseno were all indicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and unnecessarily beating a suspect under the color of authority. Another case involved an Afican American man by the name of Aaron Williams.

He was suspected of a $50 pet store burglary. He later died while in Police custody. According to witnesses, a team of police officers led by Marc Andayc kicked Williams in the head repeatedly and emptied three canisters of pepper spray onto his face. Despite his difficulty breathing, they hog-tied, gagged him, and left him unattended in the back of the police van. This event was barely covered by the media, what reports were made about it were extreamly biased. The media made Williams out to be nothing more then a pathetic parollee and they failed to mention the events surrounding his death. In the first set of hearings, the public commision ruled that no "excessive force" was used, but it later cases led by the Ella Baker Center for human rights, they finaly won. In all of these cases, the motivation seems to be of race. And in each case it shows us that we can NOT allow racist people into the police force. A cops duty is to protect us, not beat us. We shouldn't have to

be afraid of cops, but nowadays that is no longer the case. Not much is being done to stop police brutality, and the cops are rarely punished for what they do unless the media gets ahold of the story. Even then the police try to cover it up or just flat out deny it. What needs to change is that the top level cops need to stop protecting the officers that do this. Only then will police brutality start to fade away. When police learn that they can no longer get away with doing this sort of thing, then and only then can it begin to stop. "To end police abuse, there has to be a clear message from the top, "If you beat someone, you will goto jail." Glonia Romero One reason for the continuation of police brutality is the lack of through background checks for officers. In the Aaron Williams case, one of the lead officers on the scene had a previous record of 35 complaints against him in Oakland, but San Franciso still hired him. It's because of flawed background checks that some officers are given the chance to beat someone.

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Aaron Williams may still be alive if San Franciso had done a better background check. Another reason for the continuation of police brutality was shown in the case of Officer Michael Parent, who was convicted of kidnaping and raping a women in his squad car and was sentenced to four years in prison. The thing is that this could of easily been prevented of the police department took action against him on one of his other four incidents of sexual assault, several of which happened during his probational period. Another case involved Officer Wayne Sharp who shot Edmund Powell, and killed him. Officer Sharp stated that Mr.Powell was swinging a nail studed piece of wood at him, yet several witnesses claimed that Mr.Powell was already laying on the ground when Officer Sharp shot him. Even after this Officer Sharp was still left on the force, even after he had previous incidents involving a questionable shooting of another black man. Officer Sharp was later put on desk duty when it was found he was involved with a local Neo-Nazi group.

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