In 1991 a commission released findings concerning brutality in the LAPD. This sparked the investigation of more than a million documents of similar cases. Most major US cities have had reports of police brutality. In San Fran., seven protesters at a 1988 United Farm Workers demonstration were beaten; they eventually won a $24 million lawsuit.
Most police brutality encounters are affected by many racial, ethnic, or economic divisions in our society. For example, 40% of LA's population is nonwhite but 61% of the LAPD are white officers.
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Police brutality is a freaky concept, that the people who are supposed to be keeping us safe, have the power to hurt us and exersize that power...something's messed up.
ReplyDeleteThose race statistics can be a touchy subject. People are often eager to point out (understandably so) that these percentage differences may be mere coincidences and don't contribute to police brutality, but sadly, it often seems there is legitmate support to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Austin that people often bring out percentages, especially in this issue, where there shouldn't be. I think police brutality can be brought to race more times than not, whether or not it is actually relevent. We think of people in uniform as being impartial to things they should be impartial to. It is hard to differentiate between the law and actual prejudices.
ReplyDeletejust because a group commits more crimes doesn't mean that we can be more brutal to them that's ridculous
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that brutality is right in any way....your taking this out of context. I'm saying that there is going to be brutality...cops over react...it happens it's always going to happen. But you can't claim that race is a motivating factor for all of the brutality committed against minorities.
ReplyDeleterace isn't always the factor. it is just one of many, however, it is one of the most popular factors
ReplyDeleteI think that as of right now, this argument is pointless. I can see we all agree that there's something wrong with police brutality to some degree. However, we are speaking of police brutality only in the general sense- none of us have made mention on what to do about it. This is just a pointless exercise in understanding the idea of police brutality.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to bring something new to the table. I say it's not the police FORCE who is committing these crimes. Rather, each time police brutality is committed, it is an individual taking his or her own action. And what are we going to do with that individual, who, no matter what, has committed a crime- be he racist or just "caught up in the moment?"
Also, I've said it before, but I'd like to make mention of it in this thread if I could as long as we're speaking in the general terms.
ReplyDeleteI, in all honesty, think racism is not truly the heart of the matter. While race can certainly be made a factor in crime rates, I still believe it's more of an economic issue. I see it as the differences in wealth. America is the biggest and wealthiest industrialized country, but it also has the biggest gap between the rich and the poor... and America's poor consists largely of minorities. It seems it's not so much the color of their skin, but the balance on their savings account. Call me a Marxist, but LA is a battlefield for a class war.
I agree with Jonny. And I think that what to do with the officers that commit the brutality is a very tough question. I think that any officer that is accused (and convicted) of police brutality should be kicked off the force. Which I'm pretty sure is the norm for almost all departments right now.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, I don't agree wiht Jonny's second post at all. But I'm not going to get into that.
ReplyDelete