Police Brutality Research Paper

Police officers are known to be the protectors of civilians but what if the ones who are meant to be protecting is actually the ones who is causing the harm. “Police brutality is generally defined as the unlawful use of physical force by officers in the performance of their lawful duties, but the line between acceptable force and brutality can be unclear.” (Chambliss) Police brutality has taken place in the U.S. for decades. Police brutality started from the acts of mass brutality towards the poor labor workers. Police brutality has been in effect since the police forces were formed. During the time of 1877-1924, police officers would brutally beat striking laborers, including large scale acts of police brutality. This has been spanning from …show more content…
Trayvon Martin was killed on February 26, 2012 after a neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman had an altercation with Trayvon. When media coverage began on the murder some news coverage such as “Fox News” called Trayvon a thug due to his smoking and holding of gun, but the question is if this is considered a thug why wasn’t Dylann Roof a man who killed nine blacks in church called a thug instead is known as mentally unstable. Compare to Dylann someone who has stated that he killed those people because of their skin yet Trayvon who may have been a problematic child still had least support. Police brutality can hurt anyone race however it is most prominent to African American and what is even worse is that the media coverage is mostly one sided in favor to the murders than the …show more content…
There was nearly a 47 percent difference from what the FBI thought was the original count for the unreported police killings. The investigation on the count of people who are killed unknowingly by police is still happening today, but has resulted to being nearly impossible to determine. The unreported police killings has caused society to question whether the system can be trusted or not. The system has been hiding things and has not been taking the appropriate actions towards police who has been violating the law and it angers the society very much.
In cases like the Michael Brown killing, the city of Ferguson protested and became very destructive because one of their own was killed. They were chaotic because the boy who was killed was innocent and the officer who did the killing did not get indicted. This caused the city to turn their back on the police force because they felt as if they could not trust the system anymore for not taking proper actions towards the officer in

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