Police Brutality in the U.S. - Sarah Seeliger

Police Brutality in the U.S.

Police brutality against African American people as well as other minorities is disproportionate compared to white people. According to ACLU, "Black drivers are stopped at a rate 85 percent higher than white drivers." Disproportionate force is also used by police officers when attending to African American drivers as well as other minorities. There is a good example of police brutality from Missouri. 

In 2013, a man named Josh Bills was walking near his home when he was stopped by 5 police officers. He greeted the officers calmly and stood with his hands out at a 45-degree angle, and Bills was not aggressive at all. The police approached Bills after getting a call about a black man in black clothes. The encounter went downhill. Even though Bills did not act aggressively toward the police officers whatsoever, one of the officers grabbed his arm and kicked his legs out from under him. While Bills was on the ground, obviously injured and unable to move, another police officer restrained him and put him under arrest. Bills was denied justice for this violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment.

I think that what happened to Josh Bills is yet another example of the racism that still exists in America today. Bills didn't do anything wrong; he was simply walking near his house. Just because he was wearing black clothing doesn't mean he is doing anything suspicious. I think that racism still exists in the form of police brutality because there's still the misconception that African American people are more likely to commit crimes or be involved in suspicious activity, which is totally untrue. No one person is more likely to commit a crime than another; any person can commit a crime at any point in time, and race doesn't play a part in that.  I think that the article I read represented the issue quite well. It presented the facts of this issue as well as the incident in a way that wasn't heated or argumentative; it just said presented everything the way that it happened. I think this is a good representation of this issue because once an article begins to get heated or argumentative, things can get misrepresented and false information could be spread. 

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