Over the decades, reports of police misconduct, specifically police brutality, has risen exponentially. In general (for statistical purposes), as reported in 2011 by The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project from "April 2009 to June 2010 5,986 reports of misconduct had been recorded, 382 fatalities were linked to misconduct, and $347,455,000 had been spent in related settlements and judgments" (Dantes, 1). In 2010 alone, of the 2,541 reports of misconduct among police, 23.3% was recorded as excessive force. Of that 23.3 percent, 17% was from Tasers, 23% from physical acts, and 60% was from firearms (1). These statistics along with persuasive news reports have molded the general perspective of how law enforcement officers handle escalated situations. It has been proven that these occurrences are often initially racially motivated, but the way that news reporters and bloggers report these stories may sway the general audience in multiple directions. So I will compare "Contemporary Police Brutality and Misconduct: A Continuation of the Legacy of Racial Violence" and Regina Lawrence's "Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality." Both sources utilize logos and pathos in order to present facts and opinions to persuade their audiences to think about police brutality and its effect on society in a more urgent and critical fashion.

According to "Contemporary Police Brutality", "racist violence has both structural and physical components" (1) meaning that in relation to racially motivated police brutality, the violent behavior persists by both the function and force of law enforcement and other associations. United States has established force and violence are necessary to the preservation of racial repression, not option. This text expressed a great frustration with the government and its tendency to lean towards the acceptance of brutality and racial injustices (1). Minorities have continuously been experiencing racial violence due to structural organizations and private agendas that have the indirect result of oppressing people of color. These agendas include, but are not limited to: exploitation and polices meant to "produce maintain and rationalize poverty, inadequate health care, and substandard housing" (1). This source was extremely driven by pathos. The language the author used really made the audience feel the frustration experienced by minorities affected by, not only police brutality, but institutionalized persecution. The author used logos in the statistics it provided about riots such as the LA Rebellion, the history of relations between racial repression, violence, and politics in America, as well as the logical arguments it makes as to why police brutality and misconduct should be federal crimes.

Lawrence's intentions for her study were to "analyze media coverage of police use of force because it is fraught with ambiguity, clashing perspectives, high emotions, and deeply divided perceptions of the world" (xii). She wanted to have a better explanation as to why and how "dramatic new events" (xi) develop our interests in the topics, problems, and stories we give the most attention as society. She wanted to discuss how we can think proactively about these topics in order improve them or even eradicate them. She has found that "in many use-of-force incidents, the actual details of the [victims] are murky and potentially subject to widely divergent perceptions" (3). She puts an emphasis on the responsibility of the media for societal perspectives throughout her book. She says, however, that it is still difficult to raise a societal urgency about police misconduct because, institutionally, many law enforcement officers are protected by the criminal-justice system, its prosecutors as well as regulations for police management and training (xii).  The news events that this study focuses on are incidents of police use of force which were subjected to news interpretations. This is how Lawrence uses logos and pathos. The logos is the way she uses reason to approach news reports and how she analytically looks at how they are portrayed in the news. She uses pathos when she speaks about how she has discovered that most brutality cases are racially or socioeconomically charged. She also uses pathos when she refers to police brutality as societal problem that needs more attention, more coverage, and a more appropriate solution.

Both texts use pathos and logos tactfully, but "Contemporary Police Brutality" served as an example for Lawrence's argument. This is why I chose to compare them. The author wrote "Contemporary Police Brutality" with a tone that concentrated on emotions and morals in reference to disadvantaged minorities in America. The author would use phrases such as "the essential role of violence in maintaining systems of racial oppression in the United States," "Police brutality and misconduct are merely the major contemporary forms of State-sponsored racist violence," and "People of color have been the victims of systematic public and spontaneous private violence since the slave trade and the colonial conquest of the Americas" ("Contemporary Police Brutality," 1). While some statements were factual, others were opinionated and specifically targeted towards an audience that would agree with a disapproval of structural violence against minorities in America.

Lawrence's study was meant explain how media sources such as an article written like "Contemporary Police Brutality" can shape general opinion about a topic as serious and prevalent as police brutality. If a person who had no former bias about police misconduct read "Contemporary Police Brutality," they would more than likely be persuaded to feel passionate or angry about the minority experience when it came to policing. Reading "Contemporary Police Brutality" and reading an article based solely on statistics would have different effects. "Contemporary Police Brutality" evokes more of a passionate frustration more than a statistical understanding, even though it does offer evidence behind its argument.

While the texts are similar in content, the way in which they portray their information to their audiences differ drastically. In all, both sources break down the importance of reporting police misconduct. After all, police misconduct, especially brutality is rapidly becoming a weekly topic in America and media outlets are the most accessible ways to gain information. If Americans remain uninformed and undecided on the topic, change will never come.
