Facebook is a social media platform where people can connect with anyone, whether they know them or not. While scrolling through Facebook, one could notice a viral video post with the title, “I was so scared.” The video begins with an African American woman speaking about an experience that just happened to her during the month of October. The woman begins her story by saying that she was leaving an army base at night to make a ten-minute drive home, her husband and family was at home waiting for her. On the way home, she noticed police lights abruptly start to flash signaling her to pull over. She begins to cry, while recalling this part of her story. She pulled over and the policeman pulled up behind her and told her to get out of the car and approach the back of her vehicle. Her tears were steadily flowing down her face. She has no idea why she is being pulled over. The officer saw her tears and told her that she was pulled over for driving under the speed limit. The officer told her when cars are driving under the speed limit, it typically means that the driver is either tired or under the influence, so he was just checking on the woman. She says the look on the policeman’s face was one of sympathy and genuine care. The woman said she couldn’t help but feel afraid; the police are there to serve and protect but, yet she was still deathly afraid. 

Why was she afraid? Clearly the police officer was just trying to do his job the best way he could but think about it from her point of view. She, an African American, was doing nothing wrong and still got pulled over.  She was just trying to make it home to her family and what flashes through her mind is what she has seen in the media. Numerous accounts of white officers killing unarmed or innocent African Americans. Countless African Americans are cautious when interacting with law enforcement because of the historical issue of racism in this country. 

There is a saying that one bad apple can ruin the bunch. That exact meaning is being applied to our law enforcement today. Law Enforcement is trained to handle situations by the letter of the law without any bias in their decision makings, but humans are human. No one is perfect and certainly not everyone means ill will towards others. With that being said, not every cop is a bad cop, but when you have a person with authority abuse that authority, the risk of someone else doing it is extremely alarming. 

It’s like how some individuals are afraid of flying because they see on the news every month that a plane has crashed but the chances of dying from a plane crash are one in an eleven million. That is a very small chance but all it takes is that one time for a plane to crash and you are dead. No matter the odds, the fact that there is even a small possibility of the fear coming true is enough to persuade a person’s mind to be terrified and not want to fly. The same could be said for African American citizens interacting with law enforcement. 

Just like the odds of dying in a plane crash are small, the odds of dying from the police are also small. I was reading this article about why cops even kill to begin with and the author, Miller, had some interesting facts that I found very informative. In a study of all police reports from the year 1997 to 2012, it was shown that less than one percent of the reports did an officer draw their weapon. Also less than one percent was there an issue with law enforcement abusing their authority but then again police officers are still human. No human is perfect. ’Certain types of attitudes, personalities, and job experiences may render some officers more prone to use force in police–citizen encounters, and certain emotional and behavioral features of police–citizen confrontations may eventuate in a tipping point, where force is then deployed.,” (Miller). The odds of a costly encounter with law enforcement may be small, but no one wants to become a statistic. 

During 2016 in California, a police officer by the name of Greg Abbott pulled over a Caucasian couple. The officers asked the driver to get out of the vehicle and Lt. Abbot noticed that the female passenger was a bit shaken up. Lt. Abbott, then in an effort to put the lady at ease, joked that “we only kill black people.” (Hauser). This was not funny, but by the mere fact that this officer found it necessary to joke about a matter that has this country in so much turmoil is catastrophic. There have literally been riots and protests, peaceful and not peaceful, in various parts of this country because of stories coming out about an African American losing his life at the hands of law enforcement. If the female passenger was African American, I doubt Greg Abbott would joke, “We only kill white people.” 

Some points of views on the matters of police brutality suggest that the African American community has a false or misleading point of view. Valerie Richardson, a writer with the Washington Times, wrote an article on a study done by a Harvard professor about police shootings and racial bias. The study examined thousands of police encounters at ten major police stations in various states. Roland Fryer is the Harvard professor who did a study with The National Bureau of Economic Research, and he claimed that their results were the, “most surprising results of my career.” (Richardson). They claim that the police are no more likely to shoot non-whites any different than whites. “At the same time, the study found blacks and Hispanics were more than 50 percent more likely to experience physical interactions with police, including touching, pushing, handcuffing, drawing a weapon, and using a baton or pepper spray.” (Richardson). The results of their specific research are a bit misleading. How are police equally likely to shoot anyone regardless of their race when non-whites are more likely to experience some kind of physical interaction? In the study, Mr. Fryer could not explain why non-whites are more likely to be touched by law enforcement. Mr. Fryer also went on to talk about organizations such as, Black Lives Matter, are taking advantage of small instances of police brutality to their own advantage and that maybe the African American community should look at fixing their own communities before blaming law enforcement. 

Authority abusing power is a matter that cannot be ignored. A further example of abuse of power is when a student at school is misbehaving in class, it is the job of that student’s parents to handle their child. However, if the teacher or a school official takes it upon themselves to get physical with that child, does the parent of the child not have the right to become angry with the school?  The school can handle matters with the student that are within the confines of the law but cannot step outside of the law. The same thing can be said for law enforcement when they murder an African American such as Freddie Grey, Philando Castille, and Eric Garner. 

Clearly ignoring the situations by trying to focus more on other areas such as the African American community itself is not a solution. Howard Wasserman wrote an article about police wearing body cameras. Body cameras could be the answer because then there would be no speculation of false testifying on either side. With video to record the incidents, everything would be in plain view. Hasserman talked about in his article that there is a positive and a negative to police wearing body cameras. The positive being that with citizens already free to record officers, now both sides have their point of view shown and the negative being that the cameras might make officers more hesitant to act knowing that their actions are being recorded. However, cameras do not guarantee anything because some officers that believe they are doing their job the right way will act how they normally do. 

There is a video found on the video platform, YouTube, named, “Columbus Police Brutally Beat Kick Unarmed Black Man Timothy Davis In A Local Store.” The video was uploaded by Eric Martin. In the video an African American named Timothy Davis is aggressively assaulted by multiple police officers. One officer even tries to block the person recording the incident.  Timothy Davis is punched, kicked, picked up, and body slammed to the point that his pants and underwear are literally beaten off of him. Four grown white men assaulted Timothy Davis. They continued their actions even though they knew that they were being recorded. 

Rebecca Roiphe said, in a writing for the Cleveland State Law Review, “The United States is in the midst of what seems like an epidemic of police shootings of unarmed black men. Cell phone videos made by bystanders or friends of the victims animate the injustice. Black Lives Matter activists have mobilized the resulting anger into a powerful social movement. Amidst all of this unrest, very few of the involved police officers have been prosecuted.” (Roiphe). Murder by the letter of the law, is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. The killing of Eric Garner was unlawful, he was put in an illegal choke hold and repeatedly told law enforcement that he could not breathe. No officer was sent to prison for murdering this man. His story isn’t the only one that is a sad tragedy. Numerous murders of African Americans by law enforcement have been documented but nothing seems to be done about it. 

When an African American is killed, it does not just effect the deceased individual. The family is left with emotional stress, hospital payments, and funeral costs. “Each episode of police brutality has emotional and physiological effects on individuals and communities. Witnessing or experiencing harassment, routine unwarranted searches, and deaths that go unpunished send a message to Black communities that their bodies are police property, disposable, and undeserving of dignity and justice.” (Alang, McAlpine, McCreedy, Harderman). Why should African Americans think anything else when nothing is being done and when the issue is brought up, it is either directed elsewhere or mislead into a negative issue. 

Colin Kaepernick is an NFL quarterback who is currently a free agent; he cannot get signed by any NFL team even though he is better than arguably three fifths of the quarterbacks in the league. Many believe his inability to get signed is because last season he began to kneel during than the national anthem rather than traditionally stand with his hand over his heart. This caused a big stir with the public and some players even followed Kaepernick. Instead of the media sticking to him kneeling because of police brutality, the media has tried to persuade the public that he is simply being rude to the military and the nation’s flag. 

Why can this country not simply address its racial issues instead of basically ignoring it or “sweeping it under the rug”? Why are African American afraid or cautious when interacting with law enforcement when law enforcement is charged with serving and protecting? Because even though the percentage of police officers that abuse their authority are small, it still happens. It should not be allowed that a civil servant can simply abuse and murder civilians. Allyson Collins is an author who interviewed some police officers and asked why officers do not inform on the wrong doings of other officers.  Fear is the main reason.(Collins) If police officers are even afraid of other police officers, then why should African Americans not be afraid of police officers? African Americans have every right to be afraid of law enforcement until a reasonable solution can be found to ensure the safety of all citizens of the United States of America. 
