When the United States was formed, it was much less mixed than it is today in terms of ethnicity and culture. Around the early 1800’s, significant amounts of foreigners began to immigrate into the country. This influx carried on for a while and still occurs today just with much smaller numbers. With this large mix of people, prejudice and hate crimes were not uncommon. By the mid-nineteenth century, the deterioration of cities had led to different laws that regulated public behavior as well as created new public institutions including the police force. However, this divide created a separation between the law enforcers and citizens as well. In effect, we are ultimately left with racial, cultural, and ethnic profiling.
Flash forward to the mid 1900s, where cities like Chicago have been suffering from official indifference and cover up dealing with police brutality. In 1969 Black Panther leaders were killed during a police raid. A public outcry that resulted from this led to a Federal Civil Rights investigation. Even though evidence showed that the police fired more than 90 shots to one by the Panthers, they were not indicted but instead both parties were equally blamed. This verdict in turn led to further outrage, particularly from the African American community.
Chicago is by no means an isolated example of how hard it is to receive indictment after an incidence of police brutality. In other major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Oakland, there have been several accounts of aggressive policing but even in spite of public anger the police officers were hardly ever charged for their misconducts. Most of the cases involve white police officers and African American suspects. For instance in Oakland, California during the 1990 a unit of white police officers named the “Rough Riders” abused and planted narcotics on African American men. After being put on a lengthy trial, the officers were acquitted of hung on their charges and never re-tried.
As Flint Taylor, a founding partner of the People’s Law Office of Chicago, states: “These few cases represent just the tip of the iceberg when it involves prejudice or racist police violence that has not resulted in equal justice under the law.” In 1994, after much public outcry towards the violent treatment shown by police officers, the United States Congress finally recognized that police violence has increased throughout many parts of the country. Congress passed 42 U.S. Code & 14141- Cause of action. This code gave more power to the Justice Department with filing suits against police departments that engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct. This Pattern and Practice Unit of the Justice Department was given the power (and since then they have used this power for the greater good of society) to obtain wide-ranging court orders, consent decrees and independent monitors in order to implement reforms on those practices.
Although this Cause of Action was implemented over twenty years ago, police brutality still heavily exists today. Some experts contend that police today are trained to “shoot to kill” and officers repute this claim by saying that a lack of cooperation from the suspect leads them to use force. One Officer in the Washington Post told readers that “If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you … Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?” Others are calling for a new law that should require police officers and other law enforcement agents to wear personal cameras in order to “avoid police misconduct and maintain a higher level of accountability”. Studies where officers have been asked to wear cameras have actually shown that the method is quite effective. A field experiment on the body worn cameras on police in California resulted in plummeted amounts of police brutality when cops were recorded.
After any incident of police brutality there is an immediate and a strong public outcry, including protests, sit ins, and anger rages that can cause destruction. However sometimes even despite this type of outrage, the law enforcement officers never truly receive the justice they deserve. As history of the struggle against racist police violence shows that public agitation needs to continue across the nation in order for action to be taken and consequences to be given. A demand for justice to be served must show a strong presence.
Police brutality is always a scary thing, for there isn’t a greater indication of disarray in the Justice System than criminal action by those meant to serve for the safety of the people. This level of distrust between citizens and police forces is difficult to mend, and although there has been promise shown by developments like body cameras, there are still cases that make it to nightly news of cops supposedly turning off their cameras during confrontations with people. It’s hard to judge an officer’s justification for their actions in a moment of sudden conflict, but doing things like turning off their surveillance does not exactly build trust.
I like how you began your post with some historical context. I think it is always important to have a good understanding of what was, in order to understand what is. You also did a really good job of including lots of links to outside sources. I think the section about how mandating that police officers wear cameras dramatically reduced the instances of police brutality. In the future, it might be interesting to explore police brutality through the eyes of police officers.