Police Officer Research Paper

The job of a police officer requires them to put their lives at risk to protect others and the threat seems to end when the uniform is off. Does the threat really end for officers of color? Eric Adams opens a small window into his world as a colored officer with his article, “The Thin Blue Line Between Us.” Though he takes his job seriously and upholds his badge with honor, he is aware that not all police actions are for the best. He recognizes the brokenness of the system that he must fight against with his fellow community members. Being a police officer of color comes with the decisions: “Is this right or wrong? Am I doing right by my job, or by my people? Did I do the right thing? To Eric he is not just black, he is not just an officer.
Documented in an article titled, “The Driving Life and Death of Philando Castile,” Philando was pulled over at least “46 times and racked up more than $6,000 in fines.” An interesting fact about these stops is “only six of them were things a police officer would notice from outside a car — things like speeding or having a broken muffler” (Hurt, Knight & Lill, 2016). Many of his tickets and citation were due to his license being suspended or the lack of proof of insurance. This led to his being in court for the tickets he was not able to pay, due to low income. The amount of trouble Philando has gotten into would persuade anyone to think that he deserved to be pulled over, because his previous offenses, but did he deserve to be
After researching his criminal record I uncovered from the article, “This is Who Alton Sterling Was,” before he was killed, that Alton had been arrested for “aggravated battery, simple criminal damage to property and unauthorized entry, domestic abuse battery, carnal knowledge of a juvenile, failure to register as a sex offender, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and illegally carrying a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance” (Hogan, 2016). His last offenses put him in jail for five years in 2009. Though he had a rough past with police everyone he encountered never spoke ill of him. He was known as a loving father trying to make ends meet by selling DVDs, CDs, and he even had a job as a cook. He did have a gun in his pocket that he did not have a permit for. Though this is a crime to be arrested for, it is not one to die over.
Members of the black community are not the only ones being “targeted” in this war. Two police officers were shot point blank while they sat in their patrol car in New York City. The shooter, Ismaayl Brinsley, posted on social media about his frustration towards officers in general, due to the recent Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases (Mueller & Baker, 2014). After shooting the officers he proceeded to run from the cops to a subway platform, where he killed himself. This assassination was not fully planned and the two officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were shot just because