Police, courts, and the judicial branch enforce laws and punish transgressors. The capability and fairness of the “justice” system, however, is not always effective. Members of the court and police men are humans with varied backgrounds and beliefs. It is difficult to have no prejudice and bias whatsoever when judging offenders of the law. A prime example of discrimination by law enforcers is the Ferguson riots in 2015. An African American teenager was shot by a Caucasian police officer. The incident led to “riots and tumults” between two diverse racial groups, which Paine identifies as nonexistent. America’s justice system works to ensure equality and unity, but the system in turn forces people to make debatable…
Michael Brown was an 18 year old black man who was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri 08/9/2014. Michael had intensions to go to college with no previous criminal record. The death of Brown sparked subsequent events in Ferguson and became a national controversy touching on much larger national issues of race, justice, and police violence. This event grew even more national attention when police reacted to protesters, even those acting peacefully, with military-grade equipment such as armored vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets, and sound cannons. Ties between local residents and their government arose again when heard the investigation into the shooting, inherently secretive grand jury proceedings and subsequent reactions which controlled by mostly whit politicians despite Ferguson’s majority black population. One of the main reasons this shooting grew national attention was the fear commonly held by many parents is that black lives matter less, particularly in the face of increasingly heavily armed police who carry tremendous legal freedom.…
Dr. Brown’s article “Requiem for Trayvon Martin: When Will America Stop Destroying the Lives of Black Boys” moved me as I was thoroughly reading it. I felt a sense of anger and disbelief running through my mind without realizing till I finished. The anger came from the verdict of Trayvon Martin’s case against George Zimmerman. And the disbelief came from the fact that white people tried to justify George Zimmerman’s actions by stating that historically black men are violent creatures so you can never be “too careful”. The main argument of the article is that blacks are arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced more harshly than whites, for similar criminal offenses. It still amazes me how the skin color you are born with can ultimately define your life, lifestyle, or whether you deserve to die or not.…
This article goes deep into the back-story of someone one may not want to hear about, this someone being Darren Wilson. No one knows his whole story, and no one near him is talking about the incident that has occurred, the shooting of Michael Brown. Wilson works in the Jennings, Missouri police department. This particular department has been reported to have questionable credibility. What kind of person would one expect to be involved with this kind of case? Darren Wilson’s past hardships and all the tense conditions that already exist between officers and their communities played a great role in the incident that took place in Ferguson, Missouri and why there are so many people Wilson’s his side.…
A wise man once said we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal. The wise man being Abraham lincoln of course. I like to believe that we as a society are all strong believers of this. Sadly that is far from the truth. It seems that sometimes power gets in the way of doing what is right. I personally have seen this multiple times but I would like to start with someone who has way more power than me. Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, and Michael Brown Jr. You are probably wondering what all of these men have in common, first of all they are all black men but that shouldn’t matter what is important is that they were all unarmed men shot by police officers. You may be wondering why all these men were shot, and the answer is simple power. I believe that all these men were killed because of power and specifically the thought of being powerless. Police officers have a lot of power they…
On Saturday July 13th, 2013th, all of America waited on what would be the verdict of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year old boy Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. In the end a six, mainly white, women jury decided to claim Zimmerman as non-guilty for second degree murder. This caused a huge shock for many Americans. They were left with this shock and pain through thoughts of how could this happen. There were protests because people felt that this verdict does not reflect the true justice that this country claims we fulfill. Due to this verdict and the overall trial, it displays how the United States justice system is not blind to race, because of the way the trial was set up and the ultimate outcome.…
Michael Brown was an 18 year old African American teenager, who was fatally shot by Darren Wilson a white ferguson police officer. Darren wasn’t charged because of the Stand Your Ground law. A Stand Your Ground law is a law that authorizes a person to protect and defend one’s life and limb against threat or perceived threat. This law states that an individual has no duty to retreat from any place he or she has a lawful right to be and may use any level of force, including lethal, if he or she reasonably believes he or she faces an imminent and immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death. Although some people may believe that the stand your ground law is just and fair,Many people could take advantage of the law by causing unnecessary harm to people, There for the Stand Your Ground law should be abolished.…
In recent news, there has been much talk about the Ferguson racial issues. Ferguson, Missouri has become infamous for its recent riots and protests. An African American teenager named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer. What happened on the night of August 1st is Officer Wilson was notified of a robbery and pursued Brown in his vehicle. Wilson came across Brown and was able to stop him with his car. There was a confrontation that Wilson allegedly fear for his safety and felt the need to discharge his firearm. After and foot chase, the police officer took down Brown with a fatal shot. The after math of this caused many protests and riot among the black community. Many people claim that the officer did not need to shoot the teen. The court decided that Officer Wilson was not guilty and caused an uproar within the Ferguson community. The author of the recent article attempts to explain the cultural differences between their white and black community and why these mistakes could be made. The main problem here is that the white and black communities simply do not understand each other. In the author attempt to prove this, he analyzed a series of tests to explain why many people can be confused in interracial issues. When people before the test claimed that they “do not see color”, it proved to be wrong. In fact, when a child is born, at about three months of age they understand the concept of race and they will prefer to be around their own race. This is means that there is still a form of racism. We cannot deny the facts that human beings have different cultures and unique trends within each race. Having said this, it also does not mean that noticing these things make certain people racist. The problem occurs here when a certain racial group tries to say that they are above another group. Profiling is the main way this is done in the instance like the shooting in the…
Why has the shooting of eighteen year old Michael Brown affected my community? Some say it was a race issue others say it was police brutality. Racism being a very sensitive matter in the community that I live in, all though I do not live in Ferguson City, it is only a twenty minute drive from my front door. It has effected where I live as it brings up civil rights, police use of unlawful and deadly force, and racism issues. The shooting of this young man has rocked our communities, and it is more than likely to get worse before getting better. How can we stop events like this from happening in our communities?…
The New York Times wrote an article on the case and stated “Mr. Brown’s Body had been in the street for more than two hours.” (NY Times) Tom was burned alive and killed in the middle of street just as Mike Brown was killed in the middle of the street. The mob that killed Tom can be classified as the police officers that get away with murdering unarmed black children. “A disproportionate amount of African-Americans were targeted for traffic stops and other low-level violations; the police relied too heavily on the use of force (almost 90 percent of ‘unnecessary force).’” (Chaney & Davis) This leads me to ask why do police feel the need to use excessive force with African-Americans? Is it the same reason that the mob decided to use fire instead of a fistfight with Tom? Does being black in America give non-people of color a reason to believe African-Americans are genetically criminals? As we examine the facts, we remember that Tom was the victim that was harassed and then used self-defense that escaladed in the death of Bob Stone. This is similar to the story of Trayvon Martin. Trayvon was harassed by George Zimmerman, then preceded to protect himself by using self-defense, however Trayvon did not succeed in protecting himself against Zimmerman and his gun. In all of these instances, a family…
There is not a day that goes by that somewhere in the United States that an innocent civilian gets beaten from a police officer for no apparent reason. Sometimes the reason is because a police officer is racist. Racism, discrimination, and police brutality all go hand in hand because police officers usually do not go around beating civilians up for no reason. Usually the motive is because they are racist. The most major race that was affected by police brutality seems to be Caucasian people but according to the “NAACP, they say that between 1976 and 1987, officers killed about 1,800 blacks and 3,000 whites. Since blacks comprise approximately 12% of the general population, the data suggest that blacks are about three times more likely to be killed by officers than whites”. These appalling numbers are probably on the rise.…
Police Brutality has become a serious topic in today’s time being that every time you turn on the TV you see them mention another act of violence from the police and since that were in 2015, cellphone cameras are being used to capture every single second of it, so it won’t become he say, she say evidence. According to Salem Press Encyclopedia, police brutality is abuses of authority that amount to serious and divisive human rights violations involving the excessive use of force that may occur in the apprehension or retention of civilians. Police brutality has become the issue of today’s time with civilians of this country; recent examples of police brutality are Eric Garner, Freddie gray, Sean Bell and it’s sad that’s there even more incidents. Police has been advised that some shootings are unjustified and wrong but they find a loophole, finding the victim to be wrong instead of the police officer. Most of the time it has been minorities that have been the victim in these incidents, and that is why police and minority groups have been having major conflicts that effects the country. I agree with this article that police brutality is a major issue and I believe that it’s wrong and need to be put to an end.…
With the recent not guilty verdict in on the case of the murder of 17 year old Trayvon Martin, many people in America are wondering what is going on. Just over a week ago a jury concluded that George Zimmerman was not guilty of the murder of the unarmed African-American teen Trayvon. This has caused quite the controversy once again within this country over the matter of race. Many believe that George Zimmerman racially profiled Trayvon Martin the night he allegedly stalked and in the end killed Martin when confronted while he was performing neighborhood watch duties. Many African-Americans and a few other races to include Caucasian white Americans blame it solely on a race issue but others such as mayor Michael Nutter from Philadelphia is looking at the race issue in another way.…
There are many people that oppose my opinion. Many people believe that officers do not use excessive force, that what happens is not police brutality and that these officers are only doing their job. There is no doubt that some are doing exactly that, their job, but when there is an officer that is shooting at a young man several times is unnecessary. This happened to Michael Brown, according to Darren Wilson, the officer that shot him, he fit the description a suspect who had stolen cigarettes. The officer pulled over Michael Brown and his friend. Michael Brown got away and the officer chased after him and many witnesses said that Brown was surrendering to the officer, while others said that Brown was charging toward the officer, either way,…
I read an article on Wall Street Journal about the Justice Department investigating the police force in Ferguson, Missouri. They suspect possible misconduct or discrimination against the 18-year-old, Michael Brown, who was shot by one of Ferguson’s Police officer, Darren Wilson. There is still question to whether the officer is charged or not. Ferguson and surrounding areas will be analyzed on their police training and policies. The Ferguson police force welcomes the investigation and analyzing so that they can improve in any way they need to serve the community better. Further investigation in this will help ease the Ferguson community and feel like they can trust their local police force. If there were not any more investigation, this would cause a lot of uneasiness upon the people of Ferguson. They expect thorough investigation to be done so that they know for sure what really happened and if the Ferguson police force is actually discriminating against the minorities in their community or not. The police force may be at fault for approaching situations the wrong way and coming off as discriminating with the community members.…