Police Brutality Over the Last

Police Brutality

Over the last several decades, the issue of police brutality has been consistently been brought to the forefront. Part of the reason for this is the conflict that will often occur between protecting the basic civil rights of the individual and giving the arresting officer enough authority, to protect themselves as well as the general public. This is challenging, because in many cases law enforcement will often face increased amounts of legal opinions and laws that will limit, the number of options that they have available to them. A good example of this can be seen with the U.S. Supreme Court Case Tennessee vs. Garner. Where, the court ruled that the police may not use deadly force in apprehending a suspect except when the following conditions exist, (with the court saying) "Unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect posses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officers or others." (Cole, 2007, pp. 222 -- 224) This is significant, because it challenged a long standing policy of giving the officer their discretion, when using deadly force during the arrest of a suspect. As various abuses, would become obvious (such as the use of deadly force in chasing an eight-year-old boy). (Cole, 2007, pp. 222 -- 224) In some cases, this has resulted from racial profiling and other tactics being utilized by various law enforcement agencies. As a result, a variety of civil rights organizations have begun to question the use of these and other tactics. Evidence of this can be seen by comments from the Founder of the Rainbow / PUSH Coalition Jesse Jackson who said, "We just want justice to prevail in these cases. These were individuals who were: young, Black and full of life. It seems, that in all of these recent police shootings there is rush to judgment by law enforcement officials, who fire first and ask questions later (when discussions host of questionable cases involving police brutality)." ("Black America in Uproar over Police Brutality," 1999) This is important, because it shows how the issue of police brutality is being affected, based upon a number of different factors. To fully understand the overall scope and issue requires conducting a literature review by: examining the incidents of abuses and the use of racial profiling. This will provide the greatest insights as to how frequent incidents of police brutality are occurring.

Cole (2007) discusses how in many cases, incidents of police brutality, can often be confused with various self-defense tactics or an actions that a suspect may have taken resulting in the use of force (such as: resisting arrest or attempting to physically attack the police). After examining various incidents from the National Association of Justice, they found that: law enforcement will use force in a limited manner. Where, it is usually involving low levels of force such as: pushing, grabbing and shoving. In most cases, these incidents will often occur during the process of making an arrest (with the suspect resisting). This is significant, because it shows how the various abuses that are often being reported in the press are based upon isolated incidents.

Yet, when looking at the information from the article Black America in Uproar over Police Brutality (1999), it highlights how racial profiling has often led to various shooting of minorities (by police officers). This is problematic, because as these incidents gain headlines, they are increasing the overall amount of outrage that many individuals are feeling towards law enforcement. As they believe that they are using various tools, to harass someone based upon their ethnic origin, rather than the person violating the law. In this aspect, the various ideas presented, highlight the possible abuses that can occur when law enforcement is given greater flexibility in determining how to use force. At which point, the odds increase that police brutality; will become more common in the future.