(Professor/Instructor)
Members of racial minorities, specifically African Americans, have a higher propensity to be victims of inequality in their own country, according to the findings of the United Nations discrimination guardian Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) after its assessment of the subject in the context of the United States. One of the most glaring abuses is in the area of police barbarities by the police establishment against racial minorities. The shooting of Michael Brown by a “white” police officer placed the abhorrent state of the relations of the demographic sectors in the United States.
In the report of the Daily Mail (2014), the inordinate use of force by police elements against racial minorities has been highlighted as one of the major issues in the debate of race and its comprehension in the operation of societal dynamics. There are studies that have discovered there is an excessive inclination among law enforcement officials and personnel against racial minorities. In addition, there is an absence of appropriate mechanisms to ensure the correct implementation of the policies regarding the use of force, and the paucity in equipping the police and their officials.
In the resolution of the UN watchdog, the country’s “Stand Your Ground” laws, a highly debated piece of American jurisprudence, must be reassessed in the light of perceptions of impunity and to ensure strict compliance to regulations governing proportionality in the use of lethal force. This mantra of impunity among the “whites” is not new; in fact, there is a longstanding case in American jurisprudence that accurately depicts this instance.
In Terry v Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the United States Supreme Court resolve that ‘forcible detentions (stops) and searches or ‘frisks’ are legal; however, the basis for the affirmation fell short of the Fourth Amendment’s criteria for “probable cause.” The Terry decision was resolved a short seven years after another landmark decision in Mapp v Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). The Mapp Court expanded the safeguards of the Fourth with regards to the “exclusionary rule” to the states and ordered the police to abide by the law in the same time these are implementing the law. The Terry ruling was significant in that the focus of the Warren Court in defending the rights of the citizenry from excesses of police power, as seen in the rulings in Mapp and in Miranda to granting a sense of entitlement to the police and even widening the extent of the power of the police establishment in the community (Katz 423).
In the report of La Vigne, Lachman, Rao and Matthews (2014), there must be a sufficient definition as to the extent of the practice and the legal basis for the police action. “Stops” can be typified into two classes; “citizen-initiated encounters” and “police initiated encounters.” The former include requests for service and rarely end in the arrest of the person, the use of handcuffs, and the ‘use of force.’ On the other hand, the latter includes street side interdictions without any ongoing crime, this can result in a completely different contact experience for the citizens, one that can include a partial or full search, and in certain instances, and the person can even be detained (9).
When policies become licenses for violence
Swaine, Laughland, and Lartey (2015) avers that African Americans are twice as likely not to be armed when these are killed in police encounters compared to the statistics for “whites.” An examination of the public records posted by the Guardian publication discovered that 32 percent of African Americans died in police encounters in 2015 were all unarmed; this is compared to 25 percent of Hispanics, and 15 percent of the people killed in police encounters who were unarmed were “white (See Figure 1).
These statistics included the use of other weapons aside from a firearm, such as Taser, collisions or incidents with police vehicles, and deaths of suspects in police custody. Of the nearly 460 people surveyed, the Guardian found that 29 percent of the individuals, or 135 people, killed in police encounters were African Americans. Sixty seven persons, or 14 percent, were Hispanic and half of the deaths came from the “white” sector.
Though it can be seen here that majority of the deaths came from the “white” demographic, it must be noted that African Americans only comprise 13 percent of the total US population; it was also noted that in the report, of the more than 400 killed in police encounters, majority of the victims of police barbarity were African American males-95 percent of all victims, with a mere 5 percent of the victims female. However, there is a note of caution that the issue of police cruelty may be erroneously centered on African Americans and overlook the instances of police cruelty committed against other racial minorities.
Michtom (2014) avers to a slew of court resolutions and police equipping manuals, the phrase “officer safety” has frequently been integrated into the wordings of these works, silently declaring the concept that the police have a right to defend themselves from harm or worse. In actuality, the concept exists owing to the bigoted policy of an associated but deviant idea, that of “civilian dangerousness.” In the United States, a society that has been highly separated from each other on the basis of race for over four centuries exists; within the society is an inordinate fear where the color of one’s skin and the concept of evil are tightly interlinked in understanding that dangerous civilians in society have “black skin.” The “white dominated” cultural anchors strongly teach to the police that the “blacks” must and should be viewed with hostility and suspicion. Owing to this issue, this angle teaches that a simple interaction with an African American member of the community will turn into a lethal confrontation.
The growth and the perpetuation of the fear of the society towards African Americans and members of other racial minorities can accurately be traced to the decisions of the US Supreme Court, where the concept of “officer safety” has been matured into a sort of phylactery that can be used to fend off any signs of challenges against the excesses of police officers in arresting suspects. By applying ever widening policies to expand the ambit of police powers in their decisions to buttress the concept, the High Court has plainly expressed its inclination in recognizing the growing fear of the police of what is sees are hostile civilians as well as the plethora of measures that the police must develop to protect themselves from the hostility in the streets and communities.
In subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court such as in United States v Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973), the Court affirmed the power of the police to conduct full body searches; though in the mentioned case the police did not achieve the intended purpose, the alternate action of the police was still recognized by the Court, acknowledging that the actions were within the ambit of furthering the concept of “officer safety” that necessitated the conduct of the other search for any “arrestable offense.” In the Mitchell case, the court rejected the proffer that individuals who are arrested for the sole offense of driving with expired or revoked driver’s licenses can pose the same threat as those who are in possession of lethal weapons.
Simply put, the Supreme Court enunciated the legal canon that any person that has been arrested for even minor offenses such as jaywalking and selling untaxed items can present the same lethal threat to the police in the same way that a hardened criminal possessing illegal weapons. This reinterpretation of the already flawed jurisprudence in Terry where the Court ruled that there must be a “reasonable standard” in believing that there is a crime being committed or about to be committed; in Robinson, the jurisprudence is that all suspects should be regarded as dangerous. Moreover, the determination of who qualifies as a suspect is completely dependent on the determination of the police.
This redirection was further strengthened in Pennsylvania v Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977), wherein the High Court widened the scope of Robinson from “arrestable offenses” to all interactions between the police and the person in the vehicle;” here, the High Court stated that the traffic stop “was enough justification for the police officer to [command] the driver to get out of their vehicles and begin a body search, even though there are no indicators to any danger to the police or to the community (Michtom).
For centuries, the connection between the race-based massacres in the United States and the disparity in the application of the Fourth Amendment, fresh outbreaks of race based violence in the 1960s saw the Supreme Court interpret the Fourth in previously unseen ways. By the time of the Terry decision, there was a wide held recognition that police cruelties were driving some of the hostility in the African American community. When these instances were bought to the attention of policy and law makers, one can reasonably believe that policies or codes would be developed aimed at either curbing or even eliminating the practice.
Nonetheless, the recognition of the brewing storm among the African American community and the recognition of that anger justified the belief among law enforcement elements that there grew the call for increased policing in the community. With this, the Supreme Court ruled the landmark decision wherein the legal comprehension of police interactions with the citizenry-what was allowed by the law-was greatly impacted (Hutchins 892-893).
Alleviating Police Barbarity
Black Lives Matter Movement
There are groups that are countering the march of police cruelty-centered policies being propounded in legal circles. One of these groups is the “Black Lives Matter Movement;” the main demands of the group are to put a stop to police brutalities as well as pushing for the restructuring the prevailing criminal justice system in the United States. The group, first formed in 2012, has steadily gained support in the two years after its establishment after a number of high profile cases of excessive use of force resulting in the deaths of weaponless African Americans (Simkins).
However, one must ask whether all the propaganda of the group is accurate. Ever since the movement came into the scene, Americans have been deluged with claims that the African American demographic, particularly the men, are inordinately vulnerable to falling victim to police brutality. A number of social media “tags” such as #DrivingWhileBlack and #WalkingWhileBlack have institutionalized the story that African American men face the threat of being killed by the police on the sole basis of their skin color. With anecdotal narratives on police barbarity and a number of stories designed to show the uneven handedness of the law, the group is pushing that the US police establishment has gone berserk. The moderate response to this militant declaration has been clear; though the police organization is far from ideal in handling confrontation situations, in general, the police will use lethal force to defend themselves and that given societal demographic differences, those who commit more criminal activities will in parallel will have a higher propensity to be in conflict with the law.
Moderates admit that there are “bad eggs” in the police organization, and these criminals in uniform must be bought to the bar of justice and made to pay for their crimes, it would be an injustice to issue sweeping statements such as those given by the Black Lives Matter movement that the entire police establishment is permeated with police who are racially biased and hostile to all members of racial minorities. However, there are still cases of police officers shooting unarmed African American men. These cases according to research studies engaging the concept found that these cases, which form the bedrock on which Black Lives stands, represent only 4 percent of all police shootings wherein the suspect was killed (French).
Demilitarization of police
Police militarization is framed in the context of pictures of police personnel wearing equipment and gear previously only seen in the battlefield. Moreover, the police arrive at a scene in an armored personnel carrier, handling powerful assault machine guns and in armored gear. However, these scenes are not the exception in how the police are responding to criminal instances-this is fast becoming the rule in many jurisdictions across the United States. The militarization of the police has come on the heels of the Federal government’s drive in supplying surplus military hardware and equipment to the police, giving a civilian agency enough firepower far too excessive to sufficiently address criminality in their jurisdictions.
These “donations,” coupled with the acquisitions of the police departments, have accorded the police with far too many weapons to address simple criminality in their jurisdictions. Deploying a heavily armed police unit into a conflict situation can easily amplify the tension that should not have been addressed in a hostile note in the first place. However, in the research of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), it found that police special weapons and tactics (SWAT) elements were being deployed in illegal narcotics operations than in emergency situations, which was the original design for the teams.
Additional African American police personnel
Police departments across the United States, buffeted by accusations of using excessive force and racial stereotyping, are intensifying efforts to recruit more members from the minority sector. However, scarce public funding and tenuous relations between the members of the minority community and the police have significantly hampered recruitment efforts. It should be noted that three out of four police officers in the United States come from the dominant “white sector, and in the data of the United States Census Bureau, “whites” comprise more than 60 percent of the whole US population. In this light, senior government policy makers have asked various minority interest groups to help in the recruitment efforts (Alcindor and Penzenstadler).
Budowsky (2014) avers that there are those in the police force that serve their communities with integrity and honor in the most hazardous of conditions. However, there are those that tarnish the force and commit acts like those in Ferguson and in number of other communities. In this light, the Justice Department must act decisively to thwart further acts that will damage the already strained relationships between the police and racial minorities in the country.
References
Alcindor, Y., Penzenstadler, N., (2015) “Police redouble efforts to recruit diverse officers” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/21/police-redoubling-efforts-to-recruit-diverse-officers/21574081/
American Civil Liberties Union, “Political militarization” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/police-militarization
Budowsky, B., (2014) “Police brutality against black citizens” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/225991-police-brutality-against-black-citizens
Daily Mail (2014) “UN Committee on racism US over police brutality after Michael Brown killing and calls for review of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738734/UN-committee-racism-slams-US-police-brutality-Michael-Brown-killing-calls-review-Stand-Your-Ground-laws.html
French, D (2015) “The numbers are in: Black Lives Matter is wrong about police” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429094/black-lives-matter-wrong-police-shootings
Hutchins, R. McDonald, (2013), “Stop Terry: reasonable suspicion, race, and a proposal to limit Terry stops” Legislation and Public Policy Volume 16 pp. 883-917
Katz, Lewis R., (2005), “Terry v Ohio at thirty-five: a revisionist view” Mississippi Law Journal Volume 74 423-486
La Vigne, N. G., Lachman, P. , Rao, S., and Matthews, A., (2014) “Stop and frisk: balancing crime control with community relations” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p306-pub.pdf
Micthom, J., “‘Why did you draw you gun?’ how the law encourages police brutality” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://www.salon.com/2014/10/31/why_did_you_draw_your_gun_how_the_law_encourages_police_brutality/
Simkins, C., (2015) “Black Lives Matter Movement seeks reforms to end police brutality” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from<http://www.voanews.com/content/black-lives-matter-movement-seeks-reforms-to-end-police-brutality/3122558.html
Swaine, J., Laughland, O., and Lartey, J (2015) “Black Americans killed by police twice as likely to be unarmed as white people” Retrieved 21 March 2016 from <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/black-americans-killed-by-police-analysis
Figure 1
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, 2015
