On July 13, 2013, Black Lives Matter activist
moment started. This movement that has been spreading all over the US. The
movement consist of people from fighting to put an end to, police brutality on
African Americans. As Gary Rodgers stated, “Police brutality is the use of
excessive force, physical or verbal, and physical intimidation by a police
officer” (Rodgers 2015). Police brutality against Africans Americans have been going
on for decades and decades. Being that it is 2017, many would think that
everyone would be more diverse and accepting of all ethnicities. This issue has become a big controversy due to
the use of technology. In 1991, 47-year-old Rodney King, an African American man
was videotaped being beaten, nearly to death, by five white police officers. This
gruesome act caused the nation’s largest urban explosion in Los Angeles,
California. African Americans across the world were hurt by the situation that
occurred, families and many urban communities wanted justice. It is absurd how
white police officers abuse their authority. Instead of enforcing the law and
going by police protocol, they are doing things their own way with little to no
consequences. That was uncalled for King did nothing to deserve that abuse.
The
only time an issue is recognized or talked about is when something already has
occurred. There is a major distrust
between African Americans and police officers. African Americans are often
attacked by police due to stereotypes. A couple of stereotypes would be racial
profiling, driving while black and policies like “Stop and Frisk”. As Thomas
Behan (1968) stated, “Stop and Frisk is a law that allows the police the right
to stop someone and pat them down if there is probable cause that they are
armed. Looking at the study that, New York Civil Liberties Union (2016), in
2015 there was a total of about 18,500 stop and frisk encounters and 55% of the
encounters were involving blacks. About 80% of the 18,500 that were stopped
were innocent. Since this law was put into action, 90% of all African American
Americans stopped were innocent.”
Like
any other law that is pro African Americans many people would try to challenge
it or riot against it. According to Moore,
“A similar law in New York was being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court on
two grounds: first whether a policeman have the right to stop and search
anybody in a public setting on the basis of suspicion; and second whether any
weapon could be constituted as a crime that could be used as evidence at
trial.” (Moore. 2010). There are multiple individuals that have been victimized
due to stop and frisk. Situations like this occurs repetitively, where there
was an undercover cop that was pretending to be a civilian and he was that beaten
and shot by an officer without allowing to identify themselves. Another similar
situation occurred, “In Nashville, undercover cop, Reggie Miller was pulled
over for a traffic violation and forced to the ground. The five officers that
pulled him did not give Miller the opportunity to defend himself before they
began to dehumanize him. Once the story was processed and leaked officer was
dismissed from the police force but were later reinstated” (Davis 2015). Police
officers do tend to be extremely violent not only on duty but off as well. My
former store manager recently divorced her husband who was a police state
trooper for domestic violence. Many officers will mix their personal life and
there work life together, which will cause the officer to abuse the civilians
once they pull someone over.
Eric Garner was an
African American man that lived in New York City, he was killed by a white
police officer in August 2013. Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes on a
street corner without a permit when he was stopped by an officer, Officer
Daniel Pantaleo. Officer Pantaleo and another officer choked Eric Garner, while
Garner screamed that he could not breathe. Moments later, Eric Garner was
pronounced dead. In the article about Gardner’s death it stated,
“What is clear, however, is that
this did not need to happen. Officer Pantaleo, whether criminally or not,
responded aggressively to a citizen who was not a threat, and whose crime was
minor. Law enforcement must be granted latitude to enforce the law, but it is
not clear why Garner's offense necessitated arrest, and why that arrest was so
urgent that it required aggressive force” (Editors 2014). According to the article
about Eric Garden’s death (2014), the grand jury declined to indict the police
officers. The death of Gardner really helps the Black Live Matter movement. Majority
took part of the movement, believing that Garner's death is only the latest
example of institutional racism in America's criminal-justice system.
Many people tend
to mock the social movement. Alicia Garza mentioned that, “Black Lives Matter
is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are
systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of
Black folks’ contributions to the society, our humanity, and our resilience in
the face of deadly oppression. We were humbled when cultural workers, artists,
designers, and techies offered their labor and love to expand #BlackLivesMatter
beyond a social media hashtag.” (Garza. 2016)
African American
men are not the only ones being harassed, beaten and killed by white officers,
black women are also. 28-year-old Sandra Bland and 18-year-old Kindra Chapman
are two black women that have died while in police custody. Bland was arrested
for not putting her signal to switch lanes and Chapman was arrested for being
accused of robbing a person for a cell phone. Bland was beaten by officers and
wrestled to the ground while the scene was being recorded on Bland’s Dash Board
cam. The officers tried to cover of her death by processing her and taking a
mug shot of her, many would say it is a conspiracy that before she took her mug
shot she was already dead. Both deaths were a suspicion to people all around
the world. Many people believed that either women committed suicide which
caused officials to further investigate. Many would say it is not hard to
minimize or limit the amount of police brutality, but it is extremely hard
limit the percentage along as the individuals in the White House allows it.
Ever since. Trump was moved into office the amount of racism and brutality on
minorities increased. This is a popular social issue that has been going for a
long time. In my opinion, there has been an evolution that evolved.
Overall, African
Americans have gone through very harsh times due to racism, including slavery,
segregation and now Police Brutality. The police are supposed to protect the
public not harm them, no matter their skin color, but that isn’t the case. Due
to Police brutality, African Americans have been able to come together, once
again and unite. Even though this is something positive, the reason isn’t. Over
time, people such as Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and Rodney King were violated
and received no justice, and it is not right. It is not right to be beaten, or
verbally abused because you are black. That is the message that the Black Lives
Matter movement are displaying and are hoping to receive justice.
Reference
Black Officer Is Beaten In a Nashville
Incident. (1992, December 16). Retrieved December 12,
2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/16/us/black-officer-is-beaten-in-a-nashville-incident.html
Behan, T. R. (1986). ABA
journal daily report: the lawyers magazine. Chicago, IL: ABA
Dunn, C. (2014). Stop-and-frisk during
the Bloomberg administration (2002-2013): NYCLU
briefing. NY, NY: New
York Civil Liberties Union.
Garza, A. (2016, July 12). A Herstory of the
#BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza.
Retrieved
December 12, 2017, from
http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/
Editors, T. (2014, December 04). The
Unnecessary Death of Eric Garner. Retrieved December
Moore, L. N. (2010). Black Rage in New
Orleans: Police Brutality and African American
Activism from
World War II to Hurricane Katrina. Louisiana State University Press.
He's black. He's a
cop. He's also been stopped and frisked 30 times (2015) Chie Davis
MONTGOMERY,
ALA., BUS BOYCOTT - studythepast. (n.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2017, from http://www.bing.com/cr?IG=BB63E093B9A645D2A465E3A7B3EB54B5&CID=1AAF7F6AD4B062672B007431D51F6391&rd=1&h=EUOXUi-qIJDgw5b_psvF0FEzkw5NXDvHsTOHhirCwHM&v=1&r=http%3a%2f%2fwww.studythepast.com%2fcivilrights%2fcases%2fmontgomery_bus_boycott.pdf&p=DevEx,5065.1
Rodgers, G. (2015, December 23). What's
Considered Police Brutality? Retrieved December 12,
Stop and Frisk: A Clarity (1968)
Thomas R. Behan
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