Laws Against Police Brutality

Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray; what do these three people have in common? All three were all black, all three were all murdered at the hands of a police officer, and all three were all unarmed. Officers have a long history of abusing their power, and these are just a few of the victims. People of color, specifically black people, have found this to be especially true. Police are more likely to use excessive and unnecessary force on black people than on their white counterparts.

There are many laws that prevent police officers from using brutality, but they are frequently broken. According to the website FindLaw, there are laws against false arrest, malicious prosecution, excessive force, and failure to Intervene. The law against …show more content…
People of color were killed almost everyday at the hands of police officers in 2015 (Chang). There were one hundred two cases of a police officer shooting an unarmed black person in 2015, and of these one hundred two cases, only ten of them resulting in the officers being charged for a crime. Only one of them involved the officer getting convicted of murder, and this officers was only sentenced to one year in prison. When he was let out of jail, he was allowed to go back to his job and serve time on the weekends (Police Killed More). This has lead to people of color, especially black people, having a strained and untrusting relationship with police officers. Many Americans will agree that police officers tend to use way more force than absolutely necessary and do not treat all races and ethnic groups as equals …show more content…
When asked, many Americans will say that their country does not see race. These Americans say this because the overt racism is not seen as often as it used to be. After the Civil Rights Movement, people have not been as open about their prejudice. Although the racism may be hard to detect, it is still there; it just went from overt to covert. This covert prejudice helps us see that America is still an institutionally segregated society. Institutional racism is when social institutions, for example, the government, routinely gives negative treatment to specific races. This is pretty plain to see when those that are supposed to be defending people’s rights are killing them in cold blood without repercussions