assignment #13

Dyrell Wilson

Period 6

12/08/2011

Police Brutality

In the world we live in today there are unfair court trails, discrimination, hatred towards many people, killings and regular pedestrians getting harassed by police officers. Why is it that we as citizens having to show police officers respect and the police don’t have to show us respect? The police are here to protect and serve, not add there two cents when the don’t agree with something that does not go there way.
I listen to many people about the complications they have had with the law concerning speeding tickets, and getting pulled over for the way they looked. I was talking to a teacher from college corps and he was telling the class about a time he got pulled over by a cop because he was driving a nice expensive car and he was dressed like a person who didn’t dissever to own the car that expensive. He said the cop pulled him over and told him to get out the car. The cop looked him up and down and asked him why do you have this nice car and you are an illegal looking delinquent? Then he asked for they license and registration and seen that he was the owner of the car and the cop looked at him and said have a good day. What that cop said was not necessary. He should have just said can I see you license and registration, but he added the illegal looking delinquent part and that is not appropriate for him to say something like that.
Regular civilians work just as hard for their money just like cops but on are job we don’t act like the high school bully when things don’t go the way we want them to go. Rodney King is best known for his involvement in a police brutality case, involving the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991. The footage showed LAPD officers repeatedly beating King with their batons while other officers stood by watching, without taking any action to stop the beating. A portion of this footage was aired by news agencies around the world, causing public outrage that raised tensions between the black community and the LAPD and increased anger over police brutality and social inequalities with the Los Angeles police department. Four LAPD officers were later tried in a state court for the beating; three were freed and the jury failed to reach a verdict for the fourth. The announcement of the acquittals sparked the 1992 Los Angeles riots. A later federal trial for civil rights violations ended with two of the officers found blameworthy and sent to prison and the other two officers acquitted. So how hard we fight police they always seem to have the upper hand. The video shows the cops beating and watching him get beat and two officers don’t get any punishment.
Why do police officers do the things they do to people? Why disrespect and hurt someone who will never hurt you? That’s something I will never understand. People where doing a peaceful occupy movement at UC Davis and they were attacked by a police officer with pepper spray right in their faces. Multiple blasts of pepper spray to the face all fired at point-blank range. The rude police officers were put on a suspension as have two officers captured on video spraying the peaceful occupy movers. This is not fair because those occupy movers where they’re peacefully not disturbing anybody or anything.
If police officer treat people like they treat there families, more people will like and respect cops if they just act like they care about whom they are talking to. The police are good people I think they just need a taste of there own medicine. All that us as civilians want from the police officers is respect. If the cops gave us and showed us respect more people will trust the police for things. If cops act like they are acting then I don’t think anyone will respect them.