Police Brutality Essay

432 Words2 Pages
Police Brutality Law enforcement officer’s credo is, “If you need me, I will be there for you. I will risk injury or death to get to you, because that is my promise” Police brutality remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers persists because of overwhelming barriers to accountability. This fact makes it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Racism, a big part of police misconduct, has become a major problem in the police force. Police officers have a tendency to harass the homeless, young persons, and minorities, among with many other groups of people. Every law enforcement officer or other government official, whether federal, state, county, city, municipal, or otherwise, takes an oath of office and promises to serve and to protect. Unfortunately, over the years we have witnessed such abominations as the Rodney King beating, a graphically disturbing atrocity caught on videotape, or the Nathaniel Jones beating in Cincinnati. We read or hear stories about Amidou Diallo, an unarmed man, being shot forty-one times by the NYPD. We find it incomprehensible that Abner Louima, an immigrant from Haiti, was assaulted by police officers outside a Haitian nightclub in Brooklyn; handcuffed and thrown into a squad car, then beaten with radios and fists. At the police station, the officers pulled Louisa’s pants down, took him into the bathroom, and sodomized the cuffed man with the wooden handle of a toilet plunger. These horrors continue. No human being should suffer as these people did, in a civilized nation of laws and government. The foundation of this country's creation is the United States Constitution, which specifically gives every person, regardless of race, creed, color, or ethnic origin, the
Open Document