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% were recorded as use of 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" by Radical Black Congress 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. Institutions within the United States, such a law enforcement departments, have established force and violence are necessary to the preservation of racial repression, not as an 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 "Over the last 500 years people of color, especially African Americans, have endured a pattern of State-sanctioned violence, and civil and human rights abuse. To enforce capitalist exploitation and racial oppression the government and its police, courts, prisons, and military have beaten, framed, murdered and executed private persons, and brutally repressed struggles for freedom, justice, and self-determination" is an example of this pathos. 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. He states that "police brutality and misconduct are perhaps the most serious and recurring violations of U.S. citizens' civil and human rights" and that "existing remedies at the municipal, state, and federal levels of government have proven ineffective in curtailing the unwarranted use of excessive force and subsequent cover up of such abuses." (1). The author also goes on to say that these events of police brutality also occur due to factors based on ethnicity and socioeconomic class. It is for these reasons the author establishes his beliefs and concerns on how the judicial system has failed a portion of the United States based on class and race instead of rights and justice.

The study conducted by Regina Lawrence's intended 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. As previously mentioned, "media coverage of police use of force...is fraught with ambiguity, clashing perspectives, high emotions, and deeply divided perceptions of the world."(xii)  Lawrence adds that the news has become so socially reconstructed that the representation of the news has become something of battle between reality and portrayal. She uses pathos when she speaks about how she has discovered that a lot of brutality cases are racially or socioeconomically charged. Lawrence references several cases including that of Rodney King, William Retana, a 26-year-old unarmed Mexican American, recipient of the Purple Heart recipient in Vietnam and a staff sergeant with the U.S. Air Force Reserves, died after two-and-a-half weeks in a coma caused by skull injuries sustained during a confrontation with Los Angeles police in 1985. 25-year-old African American Nathaniel Levi Gaines, who was unarmed, was shot in the back and killed on a subway platform in the Bronx by New York City police officer Paolo Colecchia. Gaines had served in the Persian Gulf War and had no criminal record.  . In May of 1990 Louis Segura, was shot, killed, and reported as "a reputed gang member" by the Los Angeles police officers. The cases she referenced were at incidents of profiling based on race and background (1,2). She also uses pathos when she refers to police brutality as societal problem that needs more attention, more coverage, and a more appropriate solution. According to her studies it is harder to make the general public think about police brutality as "a serious public problem. It is tougher still to persuade the public that the roots of that alleged problem lie not in the occasional bad behavior or poor judgment of individual police officers but in entire institutionalized systems of police training, management, and culture; in a criminal-justice system that discourages prosecutors from pursuing police misconduct vigorously; in a political system that responds more readily to police than to the residents of inner-city and minority communities; or in a racist political culture that fears crime and values tough policing more than it values due process for all its citizens" (4).

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.
