Oneiric — Police Brutality is America’s Constant Fever Dream.
On July 4th, 1776 Americans declared ourselves free of an empire. We declared truths sacred and undeniable in, “All men are created equal.” We live in an America that was founded on such words, on the promises of inalienable rights to the pursuit of happiness, of life, and of liberty. There was no clause, no secret paragraph, no question in the wording of this declaration of independence and yet we see a system in which independence is not given to all but to a select few. Where the pursuit of happiness is crushed short by a system that cares not of the rights to life and liberty, but instead seeing to it that we live in an America that now finds itself as having the highest amount of police killings per year in comparison to other developed nations. We see policies, outdated techniques, and training used by police and through law, that has enabled thousands to be killed at the hands of police and even more incarcerated and locked; barred and given little chance to come back. Like Martin Luther King Jr., I too have a dream. A dream that the American promise of a chance of a better life is given fairly to all. That the country I hold so dear in my heart and the country I believe so much in, reforms and changes so that those oppressed by law enforcement can enjoy the liberties and freedoms that I do. I have a dream that the violence and tragedies happening almost daily comes to an end. My dream is to abolish the problem we have at hand and allow for it, so that everyone has the chance to a pursuit of happiness. This is oneiric, this is the dream, to hope in a fair, just, and equal society.
The problem we have on our hands at its core, is police brutality. Lives are being taken away at rates unbelievable in comparison to other countries (Figure 1), and yet we as a nation have not done enough to try to stop this alarming phenomenon. This essay serves as a means to advocate for solutions and compromises to a situation and an epidemic that seems simple at first; just stop police killings, but yet has several under layers that serve to stop those who champion reform and those who protest against the unjust killings of fellow Americans. We have unions, public mentality, and a severely outdated training system of our police force that have become obstacles in the path towards reform. From the use of basic body cams, to de-militarization, police training, and finally community outreach, we do have the resources and ideas needed to be able to fix the problem of police brutality; but what’s important to note is that not one or two of these solutions be implemented, but all of them needs to, in order to find success to take down a complicit and convoluted system that has found itself spread throughout the nation. All of this, in order to accomplish the dream; the dream of a new America no longer plagued by the problem of police brutality.
We’ve all seen them, the footage taken from dash cams and body cams of police confrontation. Usually it is with this footage we see the terrible misuse of power and exploitation of force that our police enforce. When videos of body cams go viral, it is usually due to their involvement in showing the American people the crime and unjust actions committed by police; and this is a good thing (Figure 2). Body cameras are agreed by many to be an effective deterrent in ensuring that the police are held accountable and that transparency is maintained. Simply, the fact that those involved in
police confrontations understand that they are being recorded leads to safer situations. In 2015, a study was published that focused yearlong on Phoenix, Arizona police departments which showed, “the 50 officers that were fitted with cameras, 23% had fewer complaints filed against them than did officers without cameras. And this was despite the body-cam officers making 17 percent more arrests” (Johnson). A second study based on a year-long trial in 2012 in Rialto, California, showed “the use of force by police declined 2½ times for officers wearing cameras compared to0those without, while complaints
filed against officers declined from 28 the previous year to just 3 during the study” (Johnson). It is in these studies and the statistics we get from them that we see officers wearing body cameras are affected positively by their presence (Figure 3). Officers are more thoughtful about the correct procedures and policies in regards to their interactions and as a result fewer complaints and issues arise. This is clear correlation with the fact that with video evidence, accountability is enforced due to potential that the footage is viewed by not only supervisors but is under public scrutiny as well. Accountability is a great thing within law enforcement. It proves to the people that the misuse of power cannot go without consequence. By being held accountable, not only are our officers producing better results, the fear that law enforcement can get away with crimes are diminished. For example, as reported by Eyder Peralta for the news source NPR, he documents the story of which a Cincinnati Officer was charged and convicted for his involvement in the death of an unarmed black man. In his article he writes, “Cincinnati police officer was indicted Wednesday on murder charges after a body camera he was wearing captured footage of him shooting driver Sam DuBose point-blank during a routine traffic stop (Video 1). The video directly contradicts the version of events Officer Ray Tensing officially reported, including his claims he shot DuBose for fear of his life after being dragged by his car” (Peralta). What we see with this case is that Body Cameras do work in holding officers accountable for their actions out in the field. If it had not been for the footage taken from the bodycam, what we would have seen instead was the murder of an innocent go unsolved and that his murderer is free to roam the streets and continue practicing a job that will only give more chances at incidents like that from recurring. So if we see body cameras statistically show positive trends and their usefulness towards accountability, how come not all police departments implement and enforce body cameras on their officers in the field? Going back to the studies we saw earlier, we see that “Of 70 agencies surveyed, only 18% implemented or have started using pilot programs with the use of body cams” (Johnson). If these numbers help give indication to the rest of America, that shows that less than a quarter of our police force has policies and equipment to support body cameras on their officers. Seeing that it works so well, why is this the case?
What’s happening here is that the police union, a group that has interests only in ensuring that officers are protected regardless of circumstance, are adamantly against the use of cameras. The union serves as legal grounds in terms of helping officers charged with misconduct cases as well as advocates for policies and improvements that help officers. A union is not a bad thing, but what’s wrong is that whether in the right or in the wrong, all officers are given legal protection and thus even if guilty the union will do all it can to ensure that the officer is protected. This coupled with the fact that Police Unions work in lobbying and influencing politicians to ensure that harmful policies than can hurt police are never passed have it so that police officers are almost invulnerable and un-accountable for their actions out in the field. Thus, we see them fight against the progression of body cameras due to the face that the increase in accountability will only hurt police officers who find themselves involved in a police brutality incident; as seen with the Cincinnati Officer, footage can be extremely valuable evidence in the charge towards the accused. The Union protects those they serve, and only those they serve, rather than let freedom ring and allow for justice to be dealt to those law enforcers who think they can get away due to their power and position as an officer. Unions, through their lobbying and influence have been extremely detrimental in the progress of body cams, but they are not the only one who opposes it.
Due to privacy concerns, there are also police departments who fight against implementing the technology. Of those who have implemented the use of body cameras, each have had a different set of guidelines and policies in regards to their use. Things such as the allowance of recording on private property, in changing rooms, and in hostage situations are all considered when drafting rules on the usage of body cameras. This alongside the fact that whether or not the footage should be shared with public, or how to store it, or if the camera should always be on, are things that police departments find too much work for too little reward. Many officers fear that the camera only helps in making more policies, that if broken, can only do more harm to an officer than help.
What many fail to realize is the overarching positives of the use of body cameras; body cameras when used, do work. Studies show that “officers wearing body cameras know their actions are being recorded and as a result ‘increase their compliance to rules of conduct, especially around the use of force.’ But it also notes members of the public were also aware their actions were being recorded and were ‘more cognizant that they ought to act cooperatively.’” (Johnson). Is the safety of not only the public, but of officers due to their compliance with rules and policies not important enough for Police Departments to figure out the policies and guidelines to implement body cameras? Officers fear cameras due to their accountability but isn’t the reason they joined law enforcement to protect the people? The use of cameras does just that, they protect the people and it is statistically confirmed that it works. So this fear and this apparent laziness from departments to figure out policies are just excuses that are not helping in the progression of implementation ofd body cameras, or police reform in general. As reported in the news source, The Daily Dot, reporter Aaron Sankin helps deconstruct the arguments around body cameras. He mentions studies that help back up the argument such as:
“A year-long study of body-worn camera use in the small Southern California city of Rialto showed that department-wide implementation of body cameras decrease police use of force by 65 percent. Civilian complaints against officers dropped by 88 percent. Another study, this one conducted in Orlando, Florida, produced similar results. Use of force incidents for officers wearing the cameras dropped by half compared to those without them. Civilian complaints decreased by two-thirds. The officers themselves reported significantly fewer injuries because civilians, cognizant they were being recorded, were less likely to do something stupid (Sankin).”
These numerous studies, from Arizona, to California, to Florida only help in proving that there are so many positives that come along with bodycams and the selfishness of Unions and Departments hold no merit when compared to potential lives saved; but new technology will not solve everything. We see this with the introduction of dashboard cameras on police cruisers in the 1990s as an effort to increase transparency. The dashboard cameras, although helpful, didn’t do the job in completely eradicating police profiling as to how the implementation and use of police body cameras will not completely eradicate police brutality incidents. What’s important, is that this is one of many solutions implemented to help curb and completely get rid of police brutality and that with each and every solution implemented, the dream of a better America comes closer and closer.
Imagery is important, and first impressions are everything. When we think of law enforcement, we should think of the men and women in blue who are out there protecting us, but with the recent influx of riots and social media fixation on such issues, now when we think of police, we see them clad in armor, holding rifles, driving armored cars and geared for war. A police force armed tooth and nail ready for war is not the image we want of our police; this image only serves to intimidate the community through use of force (Figure 4). In an article on the Obama’s administrations plan on de-militarization of American police posted on, The Washington Post, journalist Radley Balko put it perfectly when he said, “It isn’t difficult to understand how a cop who is dressed in camouflage who rides around the neighborhood in an MRAP is likely to approach to his job with a different mindset than a cop in traditional police blues who conducts daily foot patrols in the same neighborhood. Nor is it difficult to understand the abundant fear and sense of confusion and mistrust that forms in the minds of those in the communities when faced with such opposition” (Balko). Police are not soldiers, police are not warriors, police are protectors; this is something that has been distorted and changed due to the recent trend of how militarized American Policing has become.
With the start of the “War on Drugs” by President Nixon in 1971, we saw with it an influx and steady flow of military gear and supplies rushing into police departments throughout the country. Police were being rewarded with supplies like armor and rifles for their active participation in the raids and seizure of drugs and supplies used in drug trafficking. The militarization of American Police grew astronomically with the start of the war on drugs, and after the attacks of 9/11, the desire to further increase military strength only went up. Before we knew it, America suddenly found itself owner of the most militarized police force in the democratic world (Figure 5). But yet with the militarization of police we did not see a drop in crime or stats; we only see more instances of police brutality in which we now find ourselves on top of the list when we compare statistics of police killings and shootings with other developed nations. With tensions running high throughout the country, places like Baltimore, Ferguson, Cincinnati, and Chicago need the law enforcement working to rebuild trust, regain confidence, and work towards community approval. The image of a police force no longer wearing blue, but instead Kevlar, rifles, helmets, swat shields, and such not only conflict with the views people should have of police, but also only helps in raising tensions and spurring more conflict. The American Civil Liberties Union, in a recent report published in 2015, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, reported on the intense over-militarization of our police and the negative implications it has on American people. In the report, they write “Militarization of policing encourages officers to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies” (ACLU). This quote ties in what was referenced early by Balko, in that the turning of protectors into warriors does more harm than good. Violence spurs violence, and fear generates more fear. The image of these police and their attitudes and how they approach their line of work is distorted due to their transformations into “warriors.” These warrior mentalities show up when we see instances of officers firing rubber bullets into unarmed peaceful groups of protestors, when we see tear gas, hosing, and other riot tactics being used on large groups of crowds (Figure 6). These warrior mentalities make it so that when officers are confronted with civilians, their first reaction to potential conflict is to immediately go toward their guns and tasers. How are tensions and relationships between a community and its officers supposed to mend, if protests and police/civilian interactions are met with the extreme militarized force and warrior mentality of police?
Even officers and police chiefs see the wrongdoing when seeing how militarized their departments have come. A retired Wisconsin police chief, David C. Couper (Figure 7), wrote a letter and call to reform for all police departments out there. In his letter he addresses the growing issue of police misconduct and issues to why such instances were happening. In it he wrote,
“Since 9/11, our nation has lived in a climate of low-grade fear. Our decade-long military adventures abroad have led to the creeping militarization of our nation’s police at home. Police have gone from being the guardians of our democracy to being our homespun warriors. It is not an appropriate shift: Police guard and protect us; a warrior’s job is to kill our declared enemies” (Couper).
This not only helps highlight our countries over-militarization, but seeing the words coming from a man who has spent twenty years as police chief only serves well to deny any allegations that the over-militarization of police is a construct created by the public in order to weaken police. This is a man who has seen it all and experienced first-hand police misconduct, calling for reform and asking to de-militarize American police. What’s important here is that even though we want the de-militarization of police, some officers want the exact opposite. We live in a climate of fear and mistrust and it’s a two-way street. Some officers are legitimately scared for their lives. Seeing the recent killings of five officers in Dallas and three in Baton Rouge respectively, we are given more instances in which police departments point their fingers towards and say that the militarization of police only helps in stopping such events from happening. Some argue that if the officers who died were heavily protected and armed with military gear, their deaths would never have happened. But what they fail to see here is that this whole issue all ties back into one hidden cause: police brutality. The tensions and fear that spurred such atrocious acts on those innocent policemen was a direct cause of police brutality. If stories like those of Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and hundreds of other instances never happened, the views and thoughts we have of our police would never have become so distorted. These distorted views manifested in the individuals who brought upon themselves their own verdict and decided to commit acts of terrorism in the murders of those policemen. Their deaths were just as unjust as the deaths at those who fell to police brutality, and by calling for de-militarization of police we call for a joint effort in stopping the senseless violence and the beginning of the restoration of trust and faith between communities and their officers. To trust in someone, or in a group of people you have to be able to see them for who they are. It is impossible to see our police currently when they are hidden behind riot shields, Kevlar, rifles, and tanks.
When you work towards serving and protecting a community, you must also be a part of that community. What we have become witness to today is broken and fragmented communities scattered throughout America in which Police Departments have become their own entity outside of the communities they try to protect. Community mistrust and dislike towards their police officers have reached all-time lows (Figure 8). This is vice versa and the attitudes our officers have towards the citizens they protect have also deteriorated to the fact where police see to it that every encounter is a dangerous one and that because of the fear they have towards civilians and the anger the civilians have towards them, it creates volatile situations leading to incidents of police brutality. When the police have to look over a community that no longer believes in them, the relationship that is seen is one of mistrust and misguidance. Compliance to officers is reduced and thus conflicts arise, and through these conflicts give potential for even more national cases of police brutality. As mentioned earlier, retired police chief David C. Couper stated in his letter
“Police in some communities have lost the confidence of those they are sworn to protect and serve. They are seen as threats to justice, not agents of it. That is bad for everyone, including cops” (Couper).
Law enforcement should be a vital part of any community, and through law enforcement the people should feel at ease and at peace. Currently, law enforcement in places like Ferguson do the exact opposite. The sighting of police no longer invokes a feeling of protection and safety, but hate and anger. Couper mentions the negatives of situations like these because they lead to police brutality in that the police become angry that those they put their lives on the line for are uncooperative, and thus through anger they take it out on those they serve to protect. These incidents only serve as fuel for more hate towards police by the community and it becomes an endless negative spiral that continues to go out of control if nothing is done to stop it. But the thing is, a problem like this cannot be fixed by one group alone.
This situation is a two-way street and those who find themselves on opposing sides need to work towards building bridges of peace and trust. We need groups like the Black Lives Matter movement not just doing protests, but continuing creating events that worked towards outreach towards officers and chances for police to meet the community and restore relationships and re-establish faith. On such event as reported on NPR by Bill Chappell, was described as, “The First Steps Community Cookout — a reference to its goal of bridging the gap between police and the community they serve. Taking place instead of a protest that had been planned for Sunday, the cookout came about after Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay had a lengthy meeting with activist A.J. Bohannon and other members of the local Black Lives Matter movement” (Chappell). It takes the effort of two to have a healthy relationship, and it is this sort of effort from the community that’s needed to bridge the gap (Figure 9). Often times we see these officers as people not entirely connected to the community or not entirely the same as everyday people; with events like these we are given opportunities to see them for who they are and to get to know them as friends. The solution of community outreach also provides opportunities for police to become involved as well. For example, the Stockton Police (Video 2) Department, as written about in a local news station website, KCRA3 by Dana Griffin, is described as a new police initiative in which officers are given more opportunities to connect with the communities they serve. In the article, the program is described as “So, [the officers] are not just arresting and enforcing. They’re actually getting out of the cars and getting to know the very community they’re policing” (Griffin). This form of community policing in which officers are given less areas they are entrusted with, and by giving them smaller areas to patrol, allows for the ability for officers to do walk patrols as well as take time to greet and understand the people of that community they have been assigned to protect (Figure 10).
As mentioned in the article, the idea behind community policing is backed with research with positive results and both the department and the community believe it will do well in an effort to ease tensions and bridge the gap between the people and their officers. For example, as reported by the Detroit News, when the Police Department implemented community policing and had a handful of officers assigned solely to one precinct, or area of the city and solely had them focus on that area, we see things like,
“a state police sergeant, eight troopers and a canine officer have been assigned solely to Detroit’s 9th district. The officers focus on traffic stops, but not to write tickets. Of the 3,200 traffic stops made since January, only 109 tickets were issued. However, 105 fugitive felons were arrested along with 841 people wanted on misdemeanor counts. ‘We’re definitely seeing a double digit drop in the crime rate in the 9th district,’ says Lt. Mike Shaw, commander of the unit” (Buckson)
This coupled with other success stories across the nation prove the effectiveness of community policing. By getting the police to meet and understand the needs and wants of the community, the police departments hope it will do well to ensure not only the safety of those in that community, but also the safety of the officer as they will start to feel more at ease and safe within members of a community they have gotten to become a part of. The Stockton and Detroit PD is a prime example of taking initiative and helping in the restoration of community outreach and the overall re-building of the image of police in America. What police are beginning to see is that these programs that help promote interactions with community members and their police and help in deterring crime before it happens, are effective tools in keeping the city safe. Overall, community outreach is a concept and solution that relatively easy to understand and commit towards. A relationship, in order to be successful, needs to be one of trust. The relationship America has with its police needs to mended if any hopes of reconciliation and reform wants to happen, but again this is a two-way street. Not only do we need the cooperation of the police, we also need the understanding of the public and that together, the dream of a better society can be accomplished.
Department, as written about in a local news station website, KCRA3 by Dana Griffin, is described as a new police initiative in which officers are given more opportunities to connect with the communities they serve. In the article, the program is described as “So, [the officers] are not just arresting and enforcing. They’re actually getting out of the cars and getting to know the very community they’re policing” (Griffin). This form of community policing in which officers are given less areas they are entrusted with, and by giving them smaller areas to patrol, allows for the ability for officers to do walk patrols as well as take time to greet and understand the people of that community they have been assigned to protect. As mentioned in the article, the idea behind community policing is backed with research with positive results and both the department and the community believe it will do well in an effort to ease tensions and bridge the gap between the people and their officers. For example, as reported by the Detroit News, when the Police Department implemented community policing and had a handful of officers assigned solely to one precinct, or area of the city and solely had them focus on that area, we see things like, “a state police sergeant, eight troopers and a canine officer have been assigned solely to Detroit’s 9th district. The officers focus on traffic stops, but not to write tickets. Of the 3,200 traffic stops made since January, only 109 tickets were issued. However, 105 fugitive felons were arrested along with 841 people wanted on misdemeanor counts. ‘We’re definitely seeing a double digit drop in the crime rate in the 9th district,’ says Lt. Mike Shaw, commander of the unit” (Buckson) This coupled with other success stories across the nation prove the effectiveness of community policing. By getting the police to meet and understand the needs and wants of the community, the police departments hope it will do well to ensure not only the safety of those in that community, but also the safety of the officer as they will start to feel more at ease and safe within members of a community they have gotten to become a part of. The Stockton and Detroit PD is a prime example of taking initiative and helping in the restoration of community outreach and the overall re-building of the image of police in America. What police are beginning to see, is that these programs that help promote interactions with community members and their police and help in deterring crime before it happens, are effective tools in keeping the city safe. Overall, community outreach is a concept and solution that relatively easy to understand and commit towards. A relationship, in order to be successful, needs to be one of trust. The relationship America has with its police needs to mended if any hopes of reconciliation and reform wants to happen, but again this is a two-way street. Not only do we need the cooperation of the police, we also need the understanding of the public and that together, the dream of a better society can be accomplished.
To become an officer, and to be entrusted with the lives of the American public is… not that hard. On average, the police recruit finishes his/her time in the academy in the short span o f19 weeks, in which their sanctity of life and their safety is of the utmost primary concern; odd considering that their job is to value the sanctity of life of those they are entrusted with to protect (Figure 11) When we talk about the problem of police brutality, many incidents of such revolve around the fact that officers just are not adequately prepared to handle such situations. Conflicts arise and deaths happen because we train our officers incorrectly, and thus this may be one of the most important steps that has to be taken in order to ensure that police reform happens and that police brutality is solved. When we compare the amount of time our police spend training to other developed nations like Norway or Germany, we see shocking differences. Norway trains its officers for three years and Germany trains for at least 190 weeks (Video 3).
This compared to 19 weeks of training on average for American police gives reason to maybe why we see America as the leading nation in police killings and shootings. Training is fundamental in learning the job and if you train officers incorrectly then you are the only one to be blamed when you see the officers you trained going out and murdering innocents. Not because they want to, but because the policies and the mentality they were trained and brought upon teach them that, that was the only way they could have handled that situation. In an extensive article on the Ineffectiveness of Police Training in America, writer Seth Stoughton of The Atlantic, wrote “Police training starts in the academy, where the concept of officer safety is so heavily emphasized that it takes on almost religious significance. Rookie officers are taught what is widely known as the “first rule of law enforcement”: An officer’s overriding goal every day is to go home at the end of their shift. But cops live in a hostile world. They learn that every encounter, every individual is a potential threat. They always have to be on their guard because, as cops often say, “complacency kills” (Stoughton). From the minute they begin training to their graduation, Police recruits are wired to believe they are in constant danger when in the field; this is a mindset that is not healthy for anybody. To be this stressed and worried for your life only leads to situations in which an officer’s first and foremost thought when confronting individual is their own safety, means that they will always automatically go towards their guns as a means of defense. Stoughton describes of techniques he saw within the academy that seemed only to help in increasing the paranoia of the officers. He describes things such as:
“One common scenario teaches officers that a suspect leaning into a car can pull out a gun and shoot at officers before they can react. Another teaches that even when an officer are pointing a gun at a suspect whose back is turned, the suspect can spin around and fire first. Yet another teaches that a knife-carrying suspect standing 20 feet away can run up to an officer and start stabbing before the officer can get their gun out of the holster. There are countless variations, but the lessons are the same: Hesitation can be fatal. So officers are trained to shoot before a threat is fully realized, to not wait until the last minute because the last minute may be too late” (Stoughton)
Hesitation can be fatal, that is why we see officers not hesitate and thus we see massive numbers of police shootings. This is not how you want to train people who you entrust with firearms and people you entrust the safety of the public to. They are trained to be more concerned about their safety than the safety of those they serve to protect. Cops do live in a dangerous world, and their job is extremely volatile, but what’s important to note is that through proper training thing can be fixed as well as community outreach so that they as well as the community can feel safer.
The police academy needs to understand the real world, and the grim phenomenon that America faces in the wake of police brutality. Our academy trains officers differently than other developed nations, and we can see the difference first hand in statistics. We have to stop training recruits as if they were to die at any police encounter, that everyone they meet is dangerous. Most police shootings we see today are due to the fact that many officers are simply afraid. They aren’t trained well enough to understand how to properly de-escalate the situation and how to handle things. Everything is viewed as a threat and thus we see cases of police brutality everywhere. No officer wakes up one morning and chooses to commit murder that day. Stoughton mentions this in his article when he writes,
“Officers’ actions are grounded in their expectations, and they are taught to expect the worst. The officers who shot John Crawford may have honestly believed that he was raising his rifle to a shooting position even though security camera footage shows him on the phone, casually swinging the BB gun back and forth. The same may be true of the Phoenix officer who shot an unarmed man because he thought, mistakenly, that the suspect had a gun in his waistband. The officers saw what they were afraid of. They saw what they were trained to see. And they did what they had been taught to do. That’s the problem” (Stoughton)
and a problem it is indeed. We can’t expect our officers to be able to handle these situations when we train them that the only way to come out of them safely, is to shoot the potential danger. Training is severely misguided and what we need to understand is that violence is not always the answer. Norway and Germany spends months teaching their officers on how to talk to individuals in potentially dangerous situations as well as other deescalating techniques that ensure the safety of everyone, not just the officer. For example, taken from the same article, we see, “Police agencies that have emphasized de-escalation over assertive policing, such as Richmond, California, have seen a substantial decrease in officer uses of force, including lethal force, without seeing an increase in officer fatalities” (Stoughton). So the argument that by training our officers any differently leads to them being more exposed to danger is not valid. It is the use of force that we train our officers to handle that only spurs more violence which only leads to even more violence. Training needs to be redone in that officers do not automatically reach for their gun/baton/taser, or spray. These officers need to be trained properly so they feel safe to conduct situations as they should. The last resort shouldn’t be used in every resort.
The advocacy of any serious social issue is not a problem that can be fixed with a few words; The advocacy of anything does not work that way. What’s important is that the ideals and blazing spirit of those who champion reform must not be doused by those who seek to limit the advancement of progress. That our beliefs lay within them a society no longer fearing police, but instead rejoicing at their protection. Our beliefs stem from it, in the belief of declaration of independence in that all men are created equal and that we all have equal opportunities to the American Dream. A dream of prosperity and opportunity, a dream that cannot be achieved if our lives are cut short due to police brutality. Like Ghandi said, a journey of at thousand miles starts with a single step. Let this essay act as your first step and let these words be the wind beneath your wings as you help make history in reforming modern policing. As you champion reform and as you fight for progress and for equality. For freedom, and for humanity. For all that we hold dear, and for our fallen American comrades who have died tragically to a problem that we can see to it be fixed. Police brutality can be combatted, and we will win this war. We will see to it that our children, and our children’s children and the generations to come will not have to fear the police, but live and work alongside them. For everyone to be cognizant of the problems that plague our nation. That is the society I envision, that is my dream: a dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A dream of the future of policing, and dream that all starts with one thing; you.
Works Cited
ACLU. “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing.”WAR COMES HOME (n.d.): n. pag. 24 June 2014. Web. 1 Aug. 2016.
Balko, Radley. “Obama Moves to Demilitarize America’s Police.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 May 2015. Web. 30 July 2016.
Buckson, Robin. “Editorial: Detroit Community Policing Cutting Murders.”Detroit News. N.p., 13 Oct. 2015. Web. 12 Aug. 2016.
Chappell, Bill. “Police And Black Lives Matter Hold A Cookout, And Praise Rolls In.” NPR. NPR, 19 July 2016. Web. 01 Aug. 2016.
Couper, David C. “A Police Chief’s Call for Reform.” Letter to Police. June 2015. EBSCO. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 July 2016.
Griffin, Dana. “Stockton PD Introduces Community Policing Initiative at Church.” KCRA. N.p., 18 July 2016. Web. 08 Aug. 2016.
Johnson, Patrick. “Are Police Body Cameras Effective? Surveys Say Yes, Generally.” Masslive.com. N.p., 05 Aug. 2015. Web. 30 July 2016.
Peralta, Eyder. “University Of Cincinnati Police Officer Charged In Killing Of Unarmed Black Man.” NPR. NPR, 29 July 2015. Web. 30 July 2016.
Sankin, Aaron. “The Big Problem with Police Body Cameras That Nobody’s Talking about.” The Daily Dot. N.p., 29 June 2016. Web. 24 July 2016.
Stoughton, Seth. “How Police Training Contributes to Avoidable Deaths.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 12 Dec. 2014. Web. 08 Aug. 2016.