Police Killing Black People
Marcus Barbour
CJA-610
February 03, 2017
Keith Lima
Police Killing Black People
A quote from Theodore Roosevelt, “Free speech, exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free”. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1918) The First Amendment gives everyone the right to speak freely and protest in a peaceful manner. I hold this quote dear to my heart, because I used to be a big protester back home growing up. There was never any violence but the police did come and made sure that the protest didn’t get out of hand. Lately in the United States there has been a lot cases in which there has been a lot of police shootings of the African American population. There’s especially nine high profile shootings cases since 2014 to the present that has been in the news. When Michael Brown was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, it awakened a movement that began with the previous killing of another black teenager, Trayvon Martin, who was shot in 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. But before that, there was Eric Garner of New York. He was not shot to death but he was choked to death and the grand jury refused to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo. The communities where the shootings have been happening are saying that these are racial crimes against the African American people by the police and the officers committing the shooting are getting of basically free; except for a small hand full of officers have been convicted. This has been a big problem as of late. With the shootings and the killings comes relation by the public. Protest were being held all over the country to protest the shootings and killings to be heard by the government. The public wants the government to take action and provide justice to the communities for the killings and the police to answer for what they have done. Some of the officers received administrative leave and some were actually convicted but there are still cases that have not been tried yet and the public wants justice.
Stop The Killings
When unarmed peaceful civilians are killed by the police, they are being killed by agents of the government that is supposed to represent them. It is this failure of government that must be addressed. There are some ways we the community can stop police brutality and the shootings. One is by doing positive and peaceful protest without any violence. Our voices can be heard in a peaceful manner. Protest for the right to have the police officers be held accountable for the senseless deaths. Law enforcement officials should take heed that the public are not going to just let the deaths happen and not have their voices be expressed.
Another way to stop the police brutality is to have every police officer go through sensitivity training. Of course, every community is different and they have their own needs when it comes police sensitivity, but the most important step here is in making sure that sensitivity training is not merely something that is not only offered but required. In addition to the need to ensure officer-to-officer sensitivity, to accurately represent its constituents, law enforcement officials need understanding, respect, and a willingness to communicate with all segments of the population. When Obama was in office congressional Black Caucus leaders were pressuring Obama to enforce to and require sensitivity training for police officers around the nation, which they say is a necessary response in the wake of protests and rallies that erupted from the police shooting of black Missouri teen Michael Brown.