Over the years, incidents of excessive police force by United States' police departments have generated huge reactions from the public such as riots and protest all across the country.  The deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray are just a few of the deaths associated with extreme force and harsh treatment from police officers.  As an African American in the United States, it is crucially important to try to avoid contact with police officers for obvious reasons.  Racial profiling and police brutality have become a huge problem.  More and more police officers are becoming more prone to using extreme and excessive force against minorities because of the lack of punishment for the offense.  The appearance of minorities seems to cause police to pursue them which then leads to forceful actions.  Likewise, the issue seems to show no improvement.  There seems to be little to nothing being done to protect our citizens from police brutality.  If the issue does not turn around soon, it will cause much more problems in the United States.

People have taken sides on the issue and have expressed their opinions about their side all over social networking sites, blogs, countless websites, and the news.  Both sides have expressed sound arguments that explain their thinking and reasoning behind their position on the topic.  Both have also spoken on the racial element tied to police brutality.  Some believe it is race related and some feel it is not.  However, it is true that police brutality in the United States is a racial issue because of the lack of training for officers and the lack of punishment for their actions.

People that do not think police brutality is a racial problem argue that there are many other factors involved that tend to get over looked because of the influence of African Americans and the media.  When a young African American is injured or killed by police it is automatically a huge deal.  The incident is publicized as a racial problem and sparks riots and protest.  Some people feel that when a white person is a victim of police brutality it has the tendency to be overlooked because it does not fit nicely into the race narrative (Minkoff).  Their cases are not widely publicized so that the racial problem with police can still be evident.  Video recordings of incidents with white victims are not revealed to the world all over the news and social media.  They link that to being the main reason why most African Americans think they're are the only ones being targeted.  If more evidence of police brutality among the white community was exposed to the public, some believe there would not be a racial element tied to police brutality.  For that reason, some people would say that the problem is not necessarily related to racism, even though many officers may very well be racist.  

Arguments have been made that the media also has the tendency to leave out facts about the black victims of police brutality.  Some people blame the media for showing video recordings of African Americans getting beaten and thrown around like rag dolls and failing to mention the facts about the victims.  People feel that they leave out the fact that some of those victims are criminals and have an extensive record.  The media makes them seem innocent to convey the message that police officers only harass and go after helpless African Americans.  Many people would say that the problem is not the police, it is the victims (Kirk).  

It is branded that black communities have a disproportionate amount of crime.  Some people relate the amount of crime that occurs with the way some African Americans are raised.  They think that some of the parents allow their children to do what they want without respect for authority figures, which leads to the disrespect for police officers.  They believe that black parents feel they do not have to parent anymore, so they give up on raising their children to respect authority (Kirk).  People are upset at the fact that the parents, along with the media, are quick to result to calling it police brutality when their children get into trouble with officers but fail to reflect on how the children were raised.

Some people also argue that police officers only use violence and excessive force when they feel threatened.  They feel that an officer's job is to pursue suspicious people in order to keep the environment safer, even if that means constantly looking toward the black community.  Some would link the reason for brutality among black communities to five factors:  the higher likelihood of violet criminal conduct in that community, the lower level of cooperation with law enforcement, the greater likelihood of residents to be armed, the high population urban area with low socioeconomic status, and the perception that the police are already bias which creates hostility among the community (Miller).  These people feel that police officers are only doing their job.  They believe police officers are to protect and serve to make a safer environment by any means necessary.

Some elements of the arguments made by the people who do not see brutality as a racial problem are valid.  It is true that white people are also killed due to police brutality.  However, it is proven that the rate of police brutality against African Americans is much higher.  It is also true that some of the black victims have criminal records.  Yet, this is not an excuse.  Having a criminal record does not justify the extreme actions of police officers.  Everyone has a past and should not be held to mistakes they have made before.  Many people that have criminal records have learned from their mistakes and have abandoned that type of lifestyle.  Another point that was made was that the way black parents raise their children can contribute to the likelihood of them getting into trouble with the law.  Though the argument presented about how some black children are raised is true in some cases, it is also true for all races.  People of all races raise their children in different ways.  It is not fair to say that the black community do not raise their children to respect authority because it goes far deeper than the black community.  It is present in white, Latino, and many other communities as well.

People with the impression that police brutality is not a racial issue fail to look at the hard facts.  Statistics have shown that there is definitely a relation between police officers and racism.  Surveys show that minority groups, especially African Americans, believe that law enforcement is likely to use excessive force on them.  A publicized report by ProPublica in 2014, concluded that African American males are twenty-one times more likely to be shot by police than their white counterparts (Wihbey).  Research has definitely proven that racial profiling and police brutality are real and is at a high rate in the United States.  Unfortunately, the rate of brutality against minorities is still rising.

One victim that fell into that statistic was Freddie Gray.  Gray was a twenty-five year old African American male.  He died on April 19, 2015 due to spinal injuries he suffered from after being arrested.  He died while in police custody, which was at first hidden from the public.  Authorities cannot even give a reason to why Gray was arrested in the first place.  According to the city of Baltimore, an officer made contact with Gray and he began to run away.  Officers then pursed him (Graham).  Though Gray has been in trouble with the law before, he was not wanted for anything at the time.  

The police immediately said that they did not use any kind of force with Gray while arresting him.  However, a video recorded by a bystander says otherwise.  During the video, Gray is heard shouting in pain.  One of his legs seems to be injured; however, the police drags Gray to a police van.  Gray also suffers from asthma and requested his inhaler during the incident, but officers ignored him.  Although he had a leg injury and asthma, he was killed from grave injuries to the spinal cord.  His family says that he was treated for three fractured vertebrae and voice box.  

The police van, carrying Gray and the officers, made two stops before arriving to the police station.  However, there is no footage at all of what happened during the stops.  When Gray and the officers did arrive to the station, Gray could not talk or breathe.  The six officers involved in the case were suspended with pay and placed on desk duty.  The Baltimore Police Department did not specify their races, yet the officers arresting Gray in the video are visibly white.

Police and Justice Departments have the tendency to deal with the officers of brutality in an unfair manner.  Most officers involved in police brutality cases get a little to no punishment for their actions, like the officers with the Baltimore Police Department.  With the lack of punishment for officers, more and more of them are going to become prone to brutality because they know that there will hardly be any consequences.  The departments also try to handle the situation by giving some of the victims a payout. For example, the city of Baltimore paid victims of brutality 5.7 million dollars between the years of 2011 and 2014 (Friedersdorf).   Conor Friedersdorf says, "Millions of dollars were paid out to numerous victims of police brutality. And almost none of us noticed."  Though some of the victims were paid after their trauma, the actions of the officers are still inexcusable.  Money is a good start; however, it does not replace the memory of getting hurt by officers who are meant to protect citizens.  Victims are going to have to live with that nightmare for their entire lives.  

Some police departments have also been known to have investigators who try to cover up facts.  For example, the Chicago Police Department had a video showing police brutality concealed for three years.  One of the investigators from the Chicago's Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) found the officer's actions in the video to be justified.  However, the IPRA supervisor ruled that the shooting was not justifiable due to the fact that the victim was unarmed and several other reasons (Gallanis).  Investigators are quick to rule a killing justifiable without observing the evidence.  People want justice for the extreme actions of police officers.  However, they cannot receive that because some killings are considered justifiable without careful consideration.

Another reason for the high rates of police brutality and racial profiling is the lack of training of the police officers.  This accusation can be supported by reports taken recently.  The Justice Department conducted a report in 2015 that analyzed 394 incidents of excessive force by the police in Philadelphia from 2007 to 2014.  The report showed that police officers did not receive adequate and consistent training on the department's deadly force policy.  Another study conducted in 2007 called "Police Education, Experience, and the Use of Force," found that officers with more education and experience maybe less likely to use force.  The lack of training has obviously caused many police officers to think that their behavior is acceptable.  The issue will continue to be controversial until there is more strict and precise training of the police officers in the United States (Wihbey).

Reasonability of force is the most important factor involved in these cases.  It begins with an of cer's assessment of justi cation at the time force is applied.  The Rehnquist Court suggests using the following steps for determining the reasonability of force: the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the of cers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest (Atherley).  Officers have the tendency to not analyze the incident enough to make a fair decision.  They seem to racial profile a person and go straight to pursuing that individual.  Some people would also say that using excessive force against an individual is violating their person rights, which is true.  State, local, and federal law enforcement officers should be charged individually with a violation of someone's personal rights when using excessive force against an innocent victim (Prusinski).  The extreme force used against individuals is unfair and unethical.  No one should be allowed to violate another person in such ways, especially because of their race.

The Justice Department has talked of several things to implement to reduce police brutality.  The most effective action put into place to improve the issue is body cameras.  They attach to police officers' clothing and are wore during their shifts.  States have discussed the use of body cameras since 2014.  Fortunately, it is mandatory for police officers in some states to wear the body cameras. Since implementing the use of body cameras, the percentage of violence and complaints has lessened (Brown).  However, even with the body cameras attached to the police, police brutality is still occurring.  Some police disregard the cameras and still use extreme force against African Americans.

Some people struggle to recognize that we live in country where there is systemic racism.  Sociologist Joe Feagin uses historical evidence and demographic statistics to create a theory that asserts that the United States was founded in racism.  He says that the Constitution classified black people as the property of whites, and that this legal recognition of slavery is a cornerstone of a racist social system in which resources and rights were and are unjustly given to white people, and unjustly denied to people of color.  Rooted in this foundation, systemic racism today is composed of intersecting and overlapping racist institutions, policies, practices, ideas, and behaviors (Cole).  Feagin goes into saying "Systemic racism includes the complex array of anti-black practices, the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society's major parts [...] each major part of U.S. society--the economy, politics, education, religion, and the family--reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism."  There is not a lot of room for progress to be made in the current system.  The United States will become full of problems if the system is not reconsidered and changed very soon.  The current system will end up causing the country damage that will be very challenging to recover from.  However, if we, together as a unit, work to develop a new and better system to make everything equal and fair for all races and people, we can strive as a country.

Racial profiling and police brutality has had a negative effect on the United States.  If there continues to be little to no punishment and inadequate training for police officers, it will only lead to more problems for the United States.  One of the problems will be an increase in racism.  If white officers continue to be racist and prejudice towards African Americans, it will result in more and more African Americans becoming racist towards the white community, which would not solve anything.  The country should be united as one.  A group of people should not feel targeted and inferior to others.  There should not be any inequality in the justice system.  There will also be higher rates of violence, especially towards police officers.  If the police continues to look toward the black community it will only create hostility and disrespect for authorities.  This will lead to a much more serious problem between racial groups in the United States that will be hard to recover from.

