Militarized Police Departments

The nature of the police force within the United States of America is one of extremes. Either they show an overzealous and overly aggressive approach to their duty, or they show complacency and acceptance to those who exemplify latter. In the article Why Militarized Police Departments Don’t Work: Confronting Angry Citizens in the Garb of Jack-Booted Thugs Does Plenty of Damage, Accomplishes Nothing published in Newsweek Global, the author states “what this country has just witnessed in Ferguson was, like in Chicago, an example of police gone wild—poorly led, poorly trained, unprofessional, displaying a complete lack of understanding of their jobs. It was an abomination that stains the reputation and credibility of talented, well-trained law …show more content…
For instance, the case of Michael Brown has stirred up many riots and protests against the policing in this country. Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, was shot and killed on August ninth of 2014 by a white police officer named Darren Wilson. Yet another event is that of “Malissa Williams and Timothy Russel who were killed when a car chase with 12 cops ended with an officer shooting into their windshield. The two African Americans were unarmed, and the chase began when Russel’s car backfiring by the police station was mistaken for gunfire” (Dianis). These events are only two of many that have sparked riots and protests for social and political change. The people of this nation want to see that the police are protecting them from crime and terrorism, not from each other. It is also stated by Dianis that many police forces act under the procedure of “broken windows policing” which is essentially an idea that criminalizes small offenses in order to prevent any crimes that have the potential to become more serious. The problem with these policies of policing are that they promote negative relationships between law enforcement officers and their …show more content…
Media plays a large role in the views that many have toward a variety of topics. News broadcasts represent—and more often than not, misrepresent—the law enforcement community in a less than positive light. Always focusing on the tragedies and negatives of society—which are the biggest stories, leading to a larger viewer population, which in turn provides higher ratings that correlate with an increase in money—the news rarely reveals the positive sides to the policing of many