Police brutality
Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, asphyxiation, beatings, shootings, improper takedowns, racially-motivated violence and unwarranted use of tasers.
The term "police brutality" was first used in Britain in the mid-19th century, by The Puppet-Show magazine (a short-lived rival to Punch) in September 1848, when they wrote: Scarcely a week passes without their committing some offence which disgusts everybody but the magistrates.
Boys are bruised by their ferocity, women insulted by their ruffianism; and that which brutality has done, perjury denies, and magisterial stupidity suffers to go unpunished.
"[6]The first use of the term in the American press was in 1872 when the Chicago Tribune[7] reported the beating of a civilian who was under arrest at the Harrison Street Police Station.
In the United States, it is common for marginalized groups to perceive the police as oppressors, rather than protectors or enforcers of the law, due to the statistically disproportionate number of minority incarcerations.
[8] Hubert G. Locke wrote: When used in print or as the battle cry in a black power rally, police brutality can by implication cover several practices, from calling a citizen by his or her first name to death by a policeman's bullet.
What the average citizen thinks of when he hears the term, however, is something midway between these two occurrences, something more akin to what the police profession knows as "alley court"—the wanton vicious beating of a person in custody, usually while handcuffed, and usually taking place somewhere between the scene of the arrest and the station house.
[9]In the 1960s, civil rights activists from the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee confronted police abuses with sit-ins at precinct stations, pickets outside department headquarters, and by blocking traffic to bring attention to officer misdeeds.
In return, activists found themselves the targets of political repression in the form of pervasive police surveillance, infiltration by undercover officers, and retaliatory prosecutions aimed at discrediting their movement.
Virtually all civil rights leaders--including Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, James Forman, Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis--criticized police brutality in speeches at one point or another.
[15] A type of government failure that can result in the normalization of police brutality is a lack of accountability and repercussions for officers mistreating civilians.
[16] However, the effectiveness of body cameras has been called into question due to the lack of transparency shown in police brutality cases where the footage is withheld from the public.
However according to Harlan Yu, executive director from Upturn, for this to occur, it needs to be embedded in a broader change in culture and legal framework.
African Americans, women, and younger people are more likely to have negative opinions about the police than Caucasians, men, and middle-aged to elderly individuals.
These groups often stress the need for oversight by independent civilian review boards and other methods of ensuring accountability for police action.
