Police Brutality Issues

In the United States, tensions among the public and especially amongst the African American community are rising due to the latest cases of police brutality. The use of brutal and in most cases lethal force by some police officers leading to the unnecessary deaths has seen the US security forces being on the spot concerning their work ethics. Some may want to argue these cases such as the shooting of Michael Brown and Sandra Bland are isolated cases. Others would argue that the work of a police officer is too difficult and that sometimes such an officer needs to use such force to not only enforce the law but also to protect himself or herself while on duty. It is very true that law officers have a very difficult job that sometimes includes …show more content…
A professional police officer is supposed to know how to handle suspects without causing an unnecessary fatality. The need to make sure that the police are accountable for their actions and especially when using their privilege as licensed firearms users has led Raines and Raines (154) to argue that police officers need monitoring as much as the criminals. Unfortunately, in most cases, the police, when they commit a crime, such as by illegally using brutal force, end up being the ones investigating themselves, which then leads to a dilemma because it is hard for one police to implicate his fellow officer. The issue of concern here is that when police do not uphold the rule of law, they are more dangerous than the criminals since they do not necessarily have to …show more content…
However, because of Florida’s “stand your ground” Law George Zimmerman was acquitted. Many people believe these laws are in place to protect our white counterparts if they want to kill innocent African Americans. In all the incidents, the police were dealing with very young people who were not armed. Police officers only need to use brutal force when the suspect they are pursuing is armed and shows signs of retaliating towards the officer. In such a case, the police would be justified to use brutal force as a way to protect them. However, this was not the case on the four cases identified above. The officers must also only use brutal force when they are pursuing a dangerous criminal who needs to be brought to justice by all means. If the suspect is a wanted criminal, the police can use brutal force as a way to apprehend the criminal, even if he or she is not armed at the time of the encounter. For instance, an officer can use such force on a murder suspect who has been hiding from the police for a long time, even if the suspect is not armed, as long as the criminal tries to use other ways such as running away to avoid arrest. This was however not the case in any of the above