The crimes that have occurred that involved African Americans led to police brutality in society. The killings of unarmed suspects by law enforcement officers is based on how they view African Americans as criminals. Has the increase of crimes pressured officers to use lethal force against minorities, whether they are in danger or not?  Unarmed suspects being killed has been a hot topic in the news, which has made a huge impact on the minority communities, since it seems as if minorities are targets of law enforcement officers. I have the right to speak out against the occurrence of police brutality due to the brutal images and videos of officers slamming and beating of minorities. This evidence shows that the violent behavior of police officers is unacceptable. Police brutality not only affects me, but it affects the minority culture because we are viewed differently than other ethnicities. Law enforcement officers are supposed to be a reliable resource, therefore, minorities are not trusting officers which leading to hatred between the officers and minorities. Police brutality is being caused by racial profiling of minorities and is leading to mistrust of officers in minority communities.  

The law gives officers the right to use force to protect both themselves and others in society. The fourth amendment states that officers can use force when making an arrest only if it is "objectively reasonable." While facing a judge in both excessive and lethal force situations, the judge has to determine whether or not the use of excessive force was objectively reasonable at the time. The police have the power to use excessive force, based on their individual judgment, when they feel threatened by a suspect. Police officers have the option to use lethal force if they feel it is in self-defense and if there is reasonable. Taryn Pruniski (2014) focuses on the court's decision when it comes to the use of excessive force determining whether or not it is reasonable. The reasonable objective gives officers the authority to use excessive force when they feel threatened only if it is considered to be what any other officer would have acted. Pruniski (2014) makes a supportive argument for the reasonable objective when it is necessary for officers to use excessive force when their life or anyone else is in danger. This is not considered unnecessary force, it is reasonable and justifiable, because it is what anyone else would have done to protect themselves and anyone else. However, Kindaka Sanders (2015) talks about the Indiana code that was enacted by the legislature in the state of Indiana, which gave officers the right to use lethal force against suspects, although the law that gave the right to resist an unlawful arrest was thrown out. Police officers are allowed to use excessive force, however suspects are not able to resist an unlawful arrest, which basically gives officers the right to arrest who they want. In result of using excessive force the second amendment does not justify what is considered to be self-defense. The second amendment protects an individual by giving them the right to use self-defense if they are going to be harmed (Sanders 2015). However, the second amendment is unclear because it does not clearly states what is appropriate self-defense.

Meanwhile, cops are taught a certain way to use lethal force in a harmful situation. Takurai (2015) explained how officers are trained to use excessive force only under two circumstances, such as defense of their life or anyone else or to prevent a victim from escaping. However, police officers use deadly force against a victim only if it is objectively reasonable and they do not have to prove that it was in self-defense (Takurai 2015). Police officers are taught to use lethal force as a last resort, although they are trained to shoot to kill, which is the center mass of an individual's body. It is a violation of the fourth amendment to shoot an individual who is running away, since they are not necessarily a threat. In most situations, officers are given a split second to determine whether or not to use excessive force, which is not fair because everything is based off of what they feel or think. For example, if a police officer is bias towards the minority group it is more likely that the officer will use excessive force before any other arrest method. Therefore, in court they will not be able to determine whether or not lethal force should have been enforced, because it is hard to determine if that was the only option.

Although, officers are able to use lethal force based on their decision records about police brutality are not being reported to the community. Awr Hawkins (2014) explains that there are records of police brutality, but officers try to hide the records from people in society. This shows how officers that commit crimes do not show evidence of police brutality against minorities, because they do not want to speak out on the violence of officers. Hawkins states (2014), that having a clear record of the incident would prove that "policing in black neighborhoods isn't the crime that blacks commit against one another but the brutality that cops -- "blues" -- bring to the neighborhoods they patrol." Awr Hawkins (2014) agrees with Michael Hirsh (2014) argument that police officers who use excessive force against unarmed victims are being protected by the law enforcement department by not sharing the excessive force statistics with the community. This shows that police officers are not abiding by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement act that requires that they distribute information to the community (Hirsh 2014). Police officers are getting away with excessive force and not being held accountable by the judges, because there is no evidence that prove that excessive force is being used against unarmed victims. 

Cases of fatal shootings of minorities who are viewed as criminals are less likely to be investigated.  According to Shaun King (2015) "when victims are truly valued, and violent people are labeled in a way that society despises, the mechanisms of government can actually move very swiftly toward justice."  This is unfair to the minorities in communities because when officers are killed or harmed by a suspect the case is investigated quickly. It brings questions about why minorities who are involved in tragic shootings cases seem irrelevant to society. Do minorities' lives matter at all? There are numerous amount of recent mass shooting that occurred that show how long it took for investigators to do their process of figuring out who is the shooter. All cases should be investigated equally no matter the race, because if minorities' lives actually mattered people will be convicted faster. In the world many innocent victims have been murdered by the law enforcement. Cassandra and Roberson (2015) addresses how "these murders demonstrates to members of this group that, when compared with Whites, their lives have little value ... " (62). Both Cassandra and Robertson used the critical race theory to question the white supremacy of officers because they are creating stereotypical view of minorities, that they are violent and dangerous in society. Due to the white supremacy, society see minorities as a larger societal problem without caring whether or not they are being brutality beat by police officers (Cassandra & Robertson 2015). Society identifies minorities as threat which is causing police brutality to become a huge problem in minority communities.

 Officers are profiling minorities based on their beliefs that minorities pose a threat to society. Police officers profile minorities in areas of low income and high crime rates as criminals, which is why they use excessive force. Police are categorizing all minorities as criminals which is racial profiling. According to Thomas Gabor (2003), "racial profiling is defined as a form of bias whereby citizens are being stopped, questioned, searched and arrested on the basis of their minority status"(457). Police officers see minorities as a bigger threat than other races in society, because minority's crime rates are higher than any other race. Therefore police officers are targeting minorities and assuming that all minorities fall in the category of violent criminals. For example, Gabor (2003) mentions how, "the more aggressive targeting of that group is due to the group's visible minority status" (457). Police officers racially profile minorities based off their communities, lifestyles, race, ethnicities, and income in efforts to try and contain or prevent minorities from committing crimes in communities that consist of violent criminals. This is causing people to think that police officers are racially discriminating against minorities, although they may be assuming minorities are violent based on the crime rates.

Even though crimes rates of minorities are rising officers are still discriminating by profiling minorities. Brad Smith and Malcolm Holmes (2014) argued that officers target racial minorities for all types of reasons such as income, location, high crime rate, and past experiences with the law. This excessive force is being used because police officers see minorities as a threat to communities and to themselves. Since officers do not trust minority individuals they tend to target them in order to maintain authority in communities and keep the social order (Smith & Holmes 2014). Police officers are more prone to use excessive force against minorities, based on the environment and the way that they see minorities as a whole. Officers feel that minorities pose a bigger threat in society and are more violent, so excessive force is their first priority when confronting minority individuals. Smith and Holmes (2014) states that the minority threat hypotheses is that the more minorities' individuals in a particular area will result in more crime prevention sources in the communities, whereas the community accountability thinks that it will promote more use of excessive force. Police believe that because of their presents in minorities' communities it will prevent crime, however it is increasing police brutality against minorities. The events that are occurring in society show that officers are abusing their power by discriminating against minorities in order to keep social order in society. Rajanna Natarajan (2014) addresses the problem of racial profiling and excessive force, "In a 2011 report, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights found evidence of widespread racial profiling, showing that African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately likely to be stopped and searched by police, even though they're less likely to be found possessing contraband or committing a criminal act" (1). 

The issue of excessive force based on police judgment needs to be justified because it is leading to illegal profiling, violence in the community and mistrust of police officers. This issue is leading to controversy in America by the separation of police officers and minorities. If this issue is not addressed this problem will continue and escalate into a bigger problem, because police officers will lose their authority, which will cause chaos in society because of riots and protests. Rajanna Natarajan (2014) states that officers racially profile minorities, which has caused corruption in the form of trust of the people in society. Racial profiling is leading people in society to not trust police officers, which makes police lose their authority while the society grows worse. Barack Obama (2014) makes a similar argument about minority community's mistrust of officers because minorities feel threatened by police officers. Obama (2014) also addresses racial profiling which is a major problem in society. For example, blacks and Hispanics are targeted by law enforcement and are more likely to be stopped by an officer because of their race. In New York, 85 percent of the time, stops consist of both blacks and Hispanics, although when searched they do not find anything (Natarajan 2014). While in Illinois, when searching whites they are more likely to have contraband on them, however black and Hispanics individuals are the ones who are likely to be searched first (Natarajan 2014). These statistics show that the racial profiling of minorities is occurring because minorities are being searched more than any other race.

Police officers think that if they focus on the less violent crimes the violent crimes will prevent themselves. "The Broken Window" policy focuses on criminals who commit crimes, but are prone to do those crimes based on the area, race, and their social status. The policy was supposed to focus on the minor crimes that are committed and the severe crimes will take care of themselves, however, that was not the case. The Broken Window policy became ineffective, which led to officers racially profiling against low income minorities. The reason for racial profiling by police officer is that, "poor people were more likely to commit crime because it offered short-term benefits; they were unable to consider the long-term consequences" when committing crimes (Thompson 44). This led to unequal treatment towards those who were minorities and had little income because they were considered to be a threat to the social norm. Police officers are more likely to control areas where there is consider to be a higher chance of criminal activity than others areas. The increase of police officers in minority neighborhoods is causing minority individuals to have mistrust against officers because off the amount of officers in that particular area which can lead to police brutality. Gabor (2003) provided evidence that shows that this is this case because actions, "indicates that high crime neighborhoods are often poor and contain a more transient population" (459). Statistics show that in poor areas it consists most of minorities which tends to have more police officers patrolling that area. With a lot of police officers in a minority area it may cause a higher chance of police brutality in minority communities. This will lead to minorities not trusting police officers in these areas or communities.

Minorities are already mistrusting officers, while the media is making the situation even worse. Valerie Callanan and Jared Rosenberger (2011) focus on how crimes that are displayed throughout media sources have made individuals view police officers differently. Television programs that contain police brutality builds confidence in the law for those who have yet to experience these situations personally. While those minorities who have experienced police brutality situations their confidence in the law enforcement is not effected by the media. Callanan and Rosenberger (2011) prove that minorities who have experienced being arrested were not affected by the media outlets that built the confidence in the law enforcement for non-experienced individuals. Minorities who have experienced excessive force from officers are not affected by the display of media since they have been involved in these situations. However, individuals who have not experienced these situations think that police officers are just conducting their job. Individuals who are unexperienced are mostly going to take the side of the officers, while those who have experienced these situations are going to always feel as if officers are in the wrong, therefore minorities will not trust police officers. 

The issue of excessive force and racial profiling has brought concerns in society about why these fatal killings are happening. Police officers are more likely to use force on minorities based on how society sees minorities as a threat. Officers have placed stereotypes on minorities where they are seen as violent criminals who are poor, which can affect the judgement of police officers. The criminal's background, where suspects are from, and the suspects location causes them to be at risk of being brutalized through excessive force in society. Now most people see police officers as a threat themselves and not as the law, because police brutality has become a major problem in the nation. The law is unclear as to what excessive force is and when excessive force should be used. Until the law that determines when police officers should use excessive force is clear, racial profiling from police officers is going to continue to occur leading to police brutality and mistrust of officers in communities.

