Critical thinking and self-evaluation of argument defense

¶ … Police Brutality

"There is no question that police brutality, when it occurs, is one of the most egregious violations of public trust that a public servant can commit."

This statement is an example of circular reasoning. It posits a premise in which the truth of the conclusions is assumed. Police brutality may not be one of the most egregious violations of public trust that a public servant can commit, or it might be, just as I have claimed, but nothing in the paper supports that statement. Providing evidence that people consider police brutality is this type of serious violation of public trust, such as a poll supporting that statement would bolster the argument, as would reasons that these violations are so damaging. As it stands, this statement is simply an unsupported statement.

"There are many arrest and non-arrest scenarios where officers need to use force to protect self or others; and the degree of force required may be greater than what a disinterested observer would assume."

To support this argument, I cited reasons that officers would need to use force in order to effectuate a rest, including the willingness of criminals to use violence, danger to third parties or property, or the risk of destruction of evidence. Therefore, that line of the argument appears to be well-supported. However, I did not provide adequate support for the idea that the degree of force required may be greater than a disinterested observer would assume. I could have used evidence of the pain-tolerance and strength-enhancing aspects of many controlled substances and mental illnesses to support the idea that observers are not necessarily witnessing how much force a suspect is actually using. Even using this, the argument is subject to criticism as an appeal to fear as the implied undercurrent is that if police fail to use such force, society is in danger (Nizkor Project, 2011). However, because that is actually a premise underlying the entire paper, if well-substantiated by facts, that potential fallacy disappears.

"When one considers that minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes, one would expect to find a disproportionate number of minorities among those alleging police brutality."

This is the argument used to defeat claims of racial bias in police brutality. However, the argument fails to speak to the overlying claim that there is racial bias in law enforcement. That police brutality incidents do not appear to be more racially biased than normal police-suspect interactions does not make them free from racial bias. This type of logical error can be referred to as ignoring a common cause. Perhaps minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes because of the same racism that motivates disproportionate numbers of police brutality acts against minorities.

"Therefore, while acknowledging that police brutality, when it occurs, is a serious problem, the reality is that most allegations of police brutality involve officers using a permissible level of force in genuine scenarios."

There is simply not enough evidence that most allegations of police brutality involves officers using permissible levels of force. While I have pointed out that the evidence that has been offered by Stephen Lendman in support of claims of increasing police brutality fail to do so, which is true, I have also engaged in the fallacy of shifting the burden. To prove my argument that those episodes involve incidents of permissible levels of force, I have to go further and bolster the arguments that they were permissible uses of force, and I fail to do so.