POLICE BRUTALITY

Police Brutality

Police Brutality

Introduction

Police brutality in the United States is almost an everyday part of life. In most major cities across the country, officers abuse their authority in the most flagrant ways. New York and Los Angeles are the most notorious cities for police brutality (Johnson, 2004). In February of 1999, New York police burst into an apartment building in pursuit of Amandou Diallo. The police officers shot forty-one bullets at the unarmed African and hit him nineteen times. Reverend Al Sharpton started a protest movement against the killing. In a jury trial of their peers the police officers who shot and killed an unarmed man were acquited of all charges.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani responded to the verdict by stating "Probaly until the day I die, I will always give officers the benefit of the doubt." Two days after the verdict, Malcolm Ferguson, also unarmed was gunned down in the same Bronx neighbourhood where Diallo was shot. Prior to these shootings Mayor Giuliani instituted a "zero tolerance" policy. The theory of the policy was to enforce all laws no matter how insignificant they may seem. This policy led to a huge increase in arrests for small crimes like public drinking, loud music, and biking on sidewalks. New York city managed to bring down the murder rate from 2,200 in 1992 to 600 in 1998, but some officers got the idea that is was acceptable to rough people up in the course of their investigations.

Brutality and Tolerance

New York officers began to search people at will with little or no justification. The street crime unit's records show that officers searched 45,000 people and arrested 9,500 in the past two years. This is an astounding figure but probably not an accurate figure. According to the state attorney general, Elliot Spitzer, police under-report their searches, and the actual number is probably five or ten times that amount. Many of the people brutalized by police were not criminal suspects but people who had simply questioned the authority of the officers or had minor disagreements with them. The zero tolerance policy gave the New York police officers a false sense of security making them believe they could perform their job duties how they saw fit often disregarding policy and guidelines.

Police brutality is defined as an officer that uses more force than policy allows. Police officers are often seen as a thin blue line of protection between criminals and law-abiding citizens. When police officers use excessive force they cross the established line and become criminals themselves. Police brutality damages the image of law enforcement as well as the criminal justice system. (Police Brutality Must End, 2000) It leads to loss of trust in the policemen, which then creates a gap between them and the people of the community. According to the early policing principles imported from the 19th century England, it is a lack of centralized control which forms a corruption in America when opportunities of bribery were widespread. Police reforms from the 1930s to the 1950s sought ...