This paper is going to be researching police brutality. There are two research questions That this paper will answer. The first is how does police brutality impact community relationships? The second question is why does police brutality seems to impact certain communities more than others? The reason why this topic is interesting is because it is a current issue in the country; this issue affects many people that have to deal with police brutality; and because citizens should learn more about the topic of police brutality. All people should be treated equally, but police brutality shows that there is inequality. This is huge problem because people are not being treated the same which is leading to broken relationships between Whites and Blacks. Some citizens do not have any personal experience with this issue, but it can happen anytime in the future. Since this topic is of current interest this paper will be researching hard to find out the facts concerning the topic of police brutality. 

The topic of police brutality is very arguable because people might have other opinions than other civilians. Some agreements and disagreements among some sources was that all the articles talked about police brutality, but they all differ by how each race views the police; some groups see the police positively and others negatively.  One of the differences is that the articles had data to support their arguments. These articles can help a lot in researching the topic by giving a broader perspective of how police brutality can affect the community. The articles will support research questions on issues of police brutality.

There are many reasons for police brutality such as fear on the part of the police, police feel above the law, police feel it is okay to use force because they have access to it at all times, and because police are trained to use to use force when they need to so it is justified. Police brutality is becoming more visible and well known through social media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all have shown how violent and brutal police brutality is to certain communities. There are ways to prevent police brutality as through classes teaching when and how to use weapons, giving new guidelines on how to patrol, and even taking away guns and replacing them with tasers.  Police brutality affects relationships with the community by people not feeling safe or protected by the way people who are supposed to protect them. The reason this is so, is because the history of the police and African American communities has been one that is violent and not filled with trust. Minority communities are targeted more than others, which contributes to the distrust. 

Literature Review

When considering the issue police brutality there is much research that has been done. The history of police brutality has been referenced by many authors. Two authors that have focused on this issue are Chaney and Robertson. In their article titled, "Can We All Get Along?" Blacks' Historical and Contemporary (In) Justice With Law Enforcement," the authors' purpose was to try to find out if that police brutality against African Americans in the past 21 years since the Rodney King beating has been changed. They wanted to see how the public generally viewed the police and how race and racism affect their perspective. The authors' study examined findings from the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project. The authors examined stories from 36 contributors in the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project site. What the authors concluded was that police brutality is getting worse and they need to enforce the law and get justice for the victims. 

The history of police brutality centers on African Americans and their relationship with the police and how the police see African American communities. One article that discusses this issue was titled, "Young Black Men and Urban Policing in the United States." This article is about how if people are colored, they are living at a disadvantage and the various forms of police misconduct that they experience is unique compared to Caucasians. The author is trying to address the problem directly by using examples of people on how black people feel like they can not depend on the police because of how they are being treated by the police.  Since people of color are being treated negatively this causes distrust in the communities between Blacks and the police. According to the article this problem can only be fixed by the police. The author is creditable because he works at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, which shows that he is very knowledgeable about this topic and has studied the impacts of race relations between minorities and the police. The article "Can We All Get Along? Blacks' Historical and Contemporary (In) Justice With Law Enforcement," examines the quotes made by Rodney King and they found that Kings quotes came from the "appreciation for the struggles of former Civil Rights activists, they also recognize his frustration with the legal system, the the plight of millions of Black men in America who are being assaulted by the police, social stagnation that allows the status quo to endure, as well as the ways that Blacks are not allowed to reach their individual and collective potential in America." 

The author Clarence Taylor writes an overview of the other research that has been done on the subject of police brutality and racism in America. The reason why Clarence Taylor wrote the article "Introduction: African Americans, Police Brutality, And The U.S. Criminal Justice System," is because it is important that people know how some groups are getting treated by the police or the legal authorities. By presenting summaries of works done by various authors, Clarence Taylor is helping to expand the knowledge that is out there on this particular subject.  This article is informative because it presents the ideas of others works of several authors and gives the reader a broader perspective on the topic.

A similar article that discusses the relationship between the police and minority communities is by Dottolo and Stewart (2008) was titled, "Don't Ever Forget Now, You're a Black Man in America: Intersections of Race, Class and Gender In Encounters with the Police," which looked at how black and white graduates got questioned about the racial issues as it relates to how different groups see the police and their roll in building community relationships. The author of the article s addressing the problem through interviews to see what people thought about the racial problems in society. The graduates answered with the descriptions of police harassments on how they target black people most of the time because they think that blacks mainly cause all crime. The authors point out that even if a person is black or white or wealthy or poor he or she is going to see the world differently. This research shows that based on a person's race and class that these factors strongly impact how a person sees the police in a community.  The purpose of this article is to find out why policemen shoot unarmed black men and why they were not indicted between 1999-2015. The authors used Critical Race Theory as a way to look at the impact that these killings are having on people. The findings of the researchers are that when police officers are not indicted for their crimes of shooting an unarmed black man the results is that the community loses trust to the police officers. The killing of unarmed black men creates a fear within the black community, and this fear leads to a mistrust where the police are always seen as enemies and never as supporters.

One reason the police are mistrusted by citizens is because the behavior of the police is seen as discriminatory and unequal. The book Race and Police Brutality: Roots of an Urban Dilemma is about how certain communities are affected by this problem and why this problem of police brutality continues to happen.  According to the authors the police already have an idea of how a place is going to be because police sources say that certain neighborhoods are bad places so the police patrolling that area automatically see an area as dangerous and life threatening, which results in an officer always is being on guard and possibly using blunt force. This book is useful because it provides information of how police officers think and why they preform certain behaviors.   

The issue of how people see the police and how they value the police as a group for good and protection is not a new topic of study but has been researched many times over the past few decades. Tuch and Weitzer (1997) wrote an article titled, "The Pools-Trends Racial Differences in Attitudes Toward the Police," which was about how different races feel toward the police. The racial attitudes toward the police for blacks versus whites is that blacks are more affected than whites because the relationship between blacks and the police hits them physically and more emotionally than whites. According to the article, "The magnitude of the change is greater for blacks than than for whites." The author is trying to give the information to let he or she decide for yourself. Also the author is trying to support his argument by using data tables so people can get more of an understanding of it. The author is not being bias because he is talking about how whites and whites are affected by police brutality so he just does not talk about one race he talks about all of the races.  The authors are creditable because they studied Sociology at George Washington University so they are knowledgeable about this topic. 

The impacts of police brutality open the experience to possible solutions that could improve the relationships between communities of color and the police as well as the tactics used by police to maintain safety and order. The article titled, "Incarceration in Fragile Families," by Christopher Wildeman and Bruce Western, argues that poor people; minorities especially are more likely to be arrested because they have few opportunities. The authors argue that the criminal justice system does not only need to be fixed but that also, "Addressing those broad problems, they say, requires a greater social commitment to education, public health, and the employment opportunities of low-skilled men and women" (pg. 157).  The authors findings were that if a child is born into a poor family and a member of that family goes to jail, the "life chances" of a child are lessened in terms of education and job opportunities. The significance of the research is that the research informs people about how poor people get incarcerated and how the cycle of poverty continues when a person is put in jail.  People should care about this because people should learn about how poor people are facing poverty and how that poverty is impacted by incarceration. When a person goes to jail, a person can lose job opportunities as well as school opportunities, both of which people need to improve their lives.

One contributing factor that prevents solutions being put in place are the assumptions that people have about the police and the role they play in society. The article, "8 Things We Still Get Wrong About Policing," from Time Magazine written by Seth Stoughton, agues that people portray the police the wrong way and often go off of what they heard rather than the facts. The author wrote this article to counter what everybody thinks about the police, like how they are bad people and make bad decisions for a reason that is motivated by racism.  This article is significant because it is important to have a counter argument to the research that is being completed. An additional article titled, "New York Police To Strictly Track The Use of Force," is about the NYPD trying to use less force as police officers. The NYPD are trying to use less force by having new guidelines and are going to be supplying tasers to the police officers as a way to use less force. This article is helpful because this article actually gives an example of how to use less force on people and how certain tactics when put into place can improve the behavior of the police and the relationship with communities of color. 

The need for change is clear as shown in the article "Political Lies About Police Brutality," the Editorial Board is stating that police brutality is a huge problem for the African American community and the politician's need to take the "Black Lives Matter" protests more seriously. If politicians do not take this issue seriously people will not feel protected and will see the police as enemies. This article confirms that this is a growing problem that needs to be addressed and stopped so that police officers can once again be seen as trusted people in the community. 

There is no shortage of research and reports on police brutality in this country. The research used in this paper points to problem within police departments in this country. Each of these sources has a certain perspective that can debated and while there maybe some bias on the part of certain others, most of the research included in this paper is fair, direct and honest.  

The Problem Going Forward

The current relationship between police and communities of color is not good because of several reasons as mentioned in the literature review and the current incidents on the news, show the current relationship troubled and strained. There are many examples of people being brutalized by the police, starting with Rodney King, but more recently the names of Laquan McDonald, Mike Brown, and Mario Woods bring up issues regarding the current state of police brutality. One of the more disturbing incidents can be seen in the video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald. In October of 2014, police responded to a call in which a young man was walking down the street with a knife. Officer Jason Van Dyke was one of the first to respond and ordered Laquan McDonald to put down the three-inch knife, but McDonald did not respond and 16 shots in 13 seconds were fired form 10 feet away.  The response of the community was with rage and anger over the brutal way in which Laquan McDonald was killed. The shooting was seen as excessive and unnecessary. The community called for a swift response and changes to the behaviors of the police (5NBCChicago, 2015).   

Another incident that created anger and rage from the black community, which was quite similar to the incident involving Laquan McDonald, was the incident of Mario Woods that happened on December 2, 2015. Unlike the Laquan McDonald the Mario Woods incident was much more gruesome. Mario Woods was stopped by police because he had a knife also like Laquan McDonald but Mario stabbed somebody.  The police tried to tell him to put down the knife but he did not respond to the orders so the multiple police officers shot Woods 20 plus times. Two shots hit him in the head and six shots hit him in the back and had multiple other wounds on his body by the multiple police officers.  Many videos surfaced the internet showing how gruesome and over the top the incident was (Shoichet, 2016). 

Then there was the Mike Brown incident. This incident had the most publicity out of Mario Woods and Laquan McDonald. Mike Brown was shot down by Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, but unlike Mario Woods and Laquan McDonald, Mike was unarmed. He was shot nine times because of an altercation between Brown and Wilson. The incident had the St. Louis community and the black community around the U.S. enraged with anger. The incident fueled huge protest and even riots that happened in the Ferguson and St. Louis area because people were so outraged by the grand jury's announcement on not to indict Wilson. The people felt outraged because Wilson should have been jailed for his actions on killing an unarmed black male despite getting into an altercation with the officer (Clarke, 2014).   

Solutions

According to the database website Free Thought Project, "In the U.S. every eight hours a person is killed by the police." This statistic creates fear and concern in all communities and leads to problems for the police in making good relationships with the community. People are afraid of police officers because there is a reason to be fearful based on the events from the past. Laquan McDonald, Mario Woods, and Mike Brown all show the brutality that police can have on an individual. The black community has the fear because of the recent events where black men have been shot and killed by police. To improve on relationships between communities and police officers is by using a standard approach which involves that police departments should adopt using tasers more, improve education, and increase foot patrols. 

Police departments really do need new policies for their officers to make it safer for everyone. One solution to this problem of police brutality can be that police officers can use tasers more than guns. In order to improve safety police departments should adopt using tasers instead of guns. According to a CBS News report aired in 2011 the report stated, "16,000 police agencies currently use the Taser gun." The report says the safety and benefit to stopping a person with electricity rather than using a gun lessens the amount of killings that can happen during certain situations involving the police. All police should go through using the Taser instead of the gun because it prevents deaths. According to Brewer and Kroll of the Corporate and Scientific Advisory Board for Taser International over 164,000 lives have been saved so far because of the usage of tasers instead of guns. The taser is a better weapon because it puts a person in a position to where a person can not harm the police. The police are worried about being attached which is why so many shootings take place. Police use their guns for protection, but that protection leads to shootings and death. The taser can keep police officers safe while keeping the victim in a position to where they cannot harm a police officer and are only slightly harmed by the taser. 

In order for an officer to use a Taser he or she needs to be smartly educated through school. There is a problem with the requirements in the education that you have to have to be a police. I think that the education requirements must be increased, because currently a high school diploma is the minimum requirement to become a police officer. The requirement needs to be changed to having at least two years of college or a college diploma. They should go to college first because a college education can improve the world view outlook. According to Newsweek writer Keli Goff police officers should have a better world view of the people they serve and work with on a daily basis. Also, a college education reduces problems for police departments. In an article written in 2006 by USA Today the article stated, "In an analysis of disciplinary cases against Florida cops from 1997 to 2002, the International Association of Chiefs of Police found that officers with only high school educations were the subjects of 75% of all disciplinary actions. Officers with four-year degrees accounted for 11% of such actions." The research shows that when police officers are educated the amount of mistakes made on duty go down, where as those officers who are uneducated are more likely to make more mistakes in the field. Education is a factor that can help prevent police brutality.  

An education can help a person understand a lot about the world, especially for a police officer so he or she can understand how to impact a community. To improve the comfort of a community the police should use foot patrol more often. In order to improve the trust and comfort for police officer's they must use foot patrol more often, because police officers move around by car too much and people do not feel safe. According to Kym Craven Director Public Safety Strategies Group police officers should use foot patrol more in communities, because it could also help the interaction between the police officers and the community to feel more safe. Foot patrols can also prevent some crime from happening because of the interacting between the police officers and the community. In the article Foot Patrols: Crime Analysis and Community Engagement to further the Commitment to Community Policing, "Community engagement, targeted initiatives, strategic use of resources, and data-driven decision-making contribute to decreasing crime." So through foot patrols, this behavior can positively impact a lot of people in the community to feel more comfortable with the police and stop some crimes from happening.

Conclusion

Currently there is a crisis with police brutality in this country. Although police brutality is not a new issue historically, the recent events that have shown the killings of black men have brought new attention to this issue. There are many examples that have happened in the last few years where young black males have been killed by the police. Some examples of this issue of the black males getting killed by the police that really stood out to me was Laquan McDonald, Mario Woods, and Mike Brown. Those events have people in the black communities and elsewhere fearful for their lives because they do not know that if they get a police encountering that something bad is going to happen them. Some of the police officers think that they are doing their job when they are imposing that much force, but they do not know they are harming people and making them not want their help when they are in trouble. But all these events of black males getting killed can easily be fixed. The issue of police brutality can easily be improved by the solutions that were listed earlier. The solutions of using tasers more instead of guns, better education requirements and opportunities, and using foot patrols more often all help to make communities safer and police departments more accountable. Police departments need to take all of these solutions into consideration to change the way offices operate to make the world a better place to live in.

