The original objective behind a police force was to establish
a governing body of trained citizens to apprehend criminals for fair trial
through the judicial system. But over the last few years major police forces
such as those in Ferguson, Milwaukee, and Chicago have been acting as judge,
jury, and executioner. A staggering number of police complaints, and criminal
charges arose in 2015 with minimal punishment for their wrongdoings. In some
cities the police force is nearly untouchable due to the lack of the operation
of the system of Internal Affairs which has led to an uproar of public protest
across the nation. The abuse of power by these officers creates an image of a
force to fear within the citizens of these areas as opposed to the desired
image of a force to turn to for help.
The year of
2015 has entailed multiple causes for concern towards police brutality in cities
like Milwaukee, Ferguson and Chicago. In Milwaukee there have been ongoing
protests due to the dispute between the constituents of the Milwaukee and the
prosecutors in a case against Officer Christopher Manney who was brought up on criminal
civil rights charges after fatally shooting an unarmed black man 14 times.
According to NBC 15, the Department of Justice decided that there was
insufficient evidence to charge after receiving eyewitness accounts, physical
evidence, testimonies and even counsel from use-of-force experts. More protests arose in Ferguson due to a
similar situation when an unarmed 18 year old black male was shot dead in
street. Multiple news sources such as the New York Times and Guardian state that
the initial incident that led to the death of Michael Brown was that he was
walking down the street. Once again the courts found there to be a lack of
evidence against the officer despite eyewitness accounts of Brown’s friend who
was with him at the scene. The failure to prosecute the officer led to not just
protests, but also riots in the city of Ferguson, eventually sparking the Black
Lives Matter movement and the All Lives Matter movement after an investigation
by the Department of Justice revealed the extent of excessive force used by the
Ferguson PD. The most recent and more startling event is the recent scandals
among the Chicago PD beginning first with the discovery of an off the books
holding center in downtown Chicago known a Homan Square. The Guardian released
an article that exposed the inner workings of the facility and described it as “an
interrogation warehouse that has been described as the equivalent of a CIA
black site and now a torture chamber” (Woolfe). Evidence provided by the
article also suggests that upon the arrival of the detainee, he is denied both
a phone call and the access to legal counsel even during interrogation, both of
which are constitutional rights after being arrested. The Chicago PD was also involved
in the shooting of Lequan McDonald, a 17 year old black male who was stopped by
police and immediately shot 16 times for refusing to stop walking away from the
officers. A video was released a year later showing the actual shooting from
the dash cam of one of the police vehicles. The video caused an outrage among
Chicagoans, especially after the evidence pointed toward the attempted cover up
of the event along with the cover up of a similar case in 2008. The
combinations of these police misconducts have led to a Department of Justice
investigation of the whole Chicago PD, and the stepping down of the Chicago Chief
of Police. Other police injustices have come to light once the investigation
began, according to the Citizens Police Data Project there have been a reported
18,000+ complaints against officers with only 1,009 of those complaints leading
to any disciplinary action at all. A large portion of those complaints have
been regarding use of force, illegal search, and Inadequate/Failure to provide
service (CPDB).
This issue
continues to grow with the constant release of more cases of police misconduct that
reach public eye all across the nation. The continued protests of these cases
have brought an overwhelming amount of awareness on the issue since the initial
protests at Ferguson which has sparked a chain reaction of Department of
Justice investigations. Movements like Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter,
and If You See Something Film Something are also pressing the issue with
multiple social media campaigns as well as the organizing social gatherings
like protests or meetings with public officials. Thanks to modern technology,
electronic media has been the primary social force causing change in this issue
by spreading the news of new cases and other information, by showing support through
electronic posts, and by providing a means of sharing personal experiences through
phone video recordings. Since the exposing of this issue hundreds of videos
have reached the web of police misconduct which often force action within the
police forces that would otherwise would not happen, in a way citizens are
shaming police into changing their ways through media. However, there has also
been social forces resisting the issue from further out brakes. In the case of
Lequan McDonald the police union is making a significant effort in destroying a
mass collection of documentation regarding police misconduct to protect
officers from further charges. Similarly a law has been passed in Cook County
to prevent the recording of police officers in the line of duty, but due to
widespread outrage among the general public the law is up for constitutional
review by the Supreme Court.
Recent
developments in this issue have led to beginning of reform in police training
and policies. For example, in Illinois new legislation has been proposed to
have all officers pass a mandatory psych test before entering the department. Also,
in the case of the Department of Justice investigation of the Chicago Police
department, a new system of accountability is being designed for disciplinary action
due to the alarming lack of action and investigation for police misconduct
cases. Part of this proposed system involves the use of personal cameras for
officers on duty which will be required to be recording anytime an officer is
on duty.
As a member
of the general public that has been well too informed on the issues of police
brutality due my upbringing in the Chicago area, I too have felt outraged by
the misconduct and propose a few possible solutions. The first possible
solution follows the English model for policing which involves the possession of
non-lethal weapons only. In most European countries police officers do not
carry guns, instead they use non-lethal weaponry such as Tasers, batons, and
pepper spray. Because of this method, the number of people killed by police is
often in the single digits as displayed by the graph below.
This method would be
easy to implicate into modern policing because American police officers are
already supplied with these items. However, many may argue that because of the
much higher rate of guns per capita in the US that this might put officers more
at risk in the line of duty. That is why I also propose solution 2 which would
entail that officers that have had complaints of excessive force be subject to
criminal assault charges. In many cases made against police officers the excessive
force is often justified as necessary for the apprehension of the suspect, but
officers are often seen tackling, dragging, and beating suspects unnecessarily.
A system of criminal charges eliminates the gray area between unnecessary violence
and policing. The third possible solution is that all complaints of police misconduct
be handled by an outside governing institution instead of by internal affairs
within the department. Officers often form a sense of unity within a department
because they all work together and have all been through the same training and
day to day operations that often creates a conflict of interest in disciplinary
cases. If an outside body were to oversee the disciplinary portion of the department,
there would be no sense of attachment to the officers in question. While not
all of these possible solutions may not be plausible due to unknown political, financial,
or judicial reasons, they still should be considered in hopes of changing the
ways that police operate. At the end of the day the police motto is to protect
and serve, not to install fear abuse power entrusted by the people that police
are supposed to help. So get active, join the cause, find a way to make change
within the issue, and don’t sit idly by while innocent people are wronged.
Sources
No comments:
Post a Comment