Police brutality: Enough is Enough
posted by Zsanae Lewis | October 19, 2016 | In OpinionPolice have a duty to protect and serve individuals of the United States of America, but like the majority of people who hold high positions of authority, they sometimes abuse their powers. Unfortunately, police brutality is a common occurrence for the community of African Americans. African Americans are racially profiled as thugs and criminals and, according to Harvard University economist Roland Fryer, are more likely to experience force in their interactions with the police.
Yes, police brutality occurs to people of all races, but African Americans are being killed by police at alarming rates. According to BBC News, African Americans are just 13% of the US population, and yet are 26% of the people killed by the police. Additionally, according to Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research collaborative, in 2015, 37% of unarmed people killed by police were black, making unarmed black man three times more likely to be killed than an unarmed white man. In 2015, police killed at least 102 unarmed black people, which is nearly two people each week.
Also according to Mapping Police Violence, 97% of cases in 2015 did not result in any officer involved being charged with a crime. Only two of the deaths (Matthew Ajibade and Eric Harris) resulted in convictions of officers involved. Only one of two officers convicted for their involvement in Ajibade’s death received jail time. He was sentenced to one year in jail and allowed to serve this time exclusively on weekends.
Police brutality is an issue that demands justice for senseless deaths and officers not being convicted of criminal acts of murder.
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