In front of a crowd of 200,000 Americans lined up along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. In this speech, Dr. King laid out the many problems Black Americans faced at the time--and continue to face today--even calling attention to the topic of police brutality in America. Dr. King asked the crowd, “When will you be satisfied?” and answered by stating, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of police brutality” (16). Famed civil rights activists like John Lewis, Robert Kennedy, and Thurgood Marshall also spoke out against the issue in those days, yet police brutality is still a problem in daily life for many Americans (16). Five months in, 2020 was already a year like no other, especially in America.
Not only was it an election year but the President of the United States had also just been acquitted in his first impeachment trial and beloved celebrities like Kobe Bryant had unexpectedly passed away, which was perhaps an attempt by the universe to prepare the people of Earth for the once-in-a-century pandemic that, by now, has claimed the lives of 500,000+ Americans (2, 3).
At this time, politicians were already going against the words of scientists and disease and health experts, convincing those who followed these politicians to take matters into their own hands in terms of survival during the Covid-19 pandemic (4). Little did America know that one of the biggest uproars in its history was about to unfold--a highly peaceful uproar that succeeded in exposing America’s persistent issues with racism.
The World Turned Upside Down
The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has long been a tourist attraction for its many professional sports teams, the nearby Mall of America, and the beautiful sculpture garden, to name just a few features. For the rest of American history, it will be known primarily as the death place of George Floyd. With a history of crime under his belt, Floyd’s past was far from perfect. However, when taking the words of those that knew him into account, one gets to see that while Floyd struggled with drugs at the time of his death, he had moved to Minneapolis years earlier to improve his life. “He’s the type of person that if you need help, you can count on him,” his former boss, Jovanni Trunstrom, stated in an interview. “Very nice guy. My employees loved him. My customers loved him. He was very respectful and a hard worker” (5). Former NBA star and champion Stephen Jackson, who also knew Floyd, stated, “He was changing his life… Floyd was my brother… we called each other ‘Twin’”(5). According to his siblings, Floyd was a peace lover who always did what he could to lift people and thought of his daughter in terms of being his entire world (5).
While it is important to note that the counterfeit $20 bill the cashier serving George Floyd called in that eventually led to his death was illegal, the actions that followed when police arrived on the scene to arrest George Floyd are nothing short of brutal (6). Four officers participated in the murder of George Floyd; three aided and abetted while the fourth, an officer named Derek Chauvin, was seen pressing his knee into George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes (7). While those watching the scene unfold pleaded with the officers to get off of George Floyd, George Floyd horrifically screamed three words forever etched into America’s long history of fighting for civil and human rights-- “I can’t breathe.” He was even seen screaming for his mother and pleading with the officer, as well (8). The penalties of George Floyd’s actions that day, to the average person, would have been a prison sentence for the counterfeit money, and for resisting arrest, as many say he did, would’ve landed him some jail time.
Not the most luxurious ways to spend a life,
but far better than getting strangled to death.
After his death, murals began showing up all over America, the most famous mural painted near the spot where George Floyd was killed. Painted in blue tones, George Floyd is seen in front of an orange and black sunflower, the names of police brutality victims etched in white text in the flower’s disk florets.
While George Floyd’s death is undoubtedly 2020’s most famous police brutality case, it was in no way America’s first of 2020. Another notable case took place months earlier, a case involving a young emergency medical technician named Breonna Taylor. Almost too surreal to be a coincidence, Taylor had fallen asleep in bed while watching “Freedom Riders”, a film documenting the struggles of civil rights leader John Lewis when he and a group of college students attempted riding predominantly white buses to integrate them, actions that led them to be beaten senseless multiple times.
It was 12:40 a.m. when police officers began knocking on the front door of Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker’s, apartment. Walker did not process who was at the door despite the police announcing themselves and asked who was at the door, a question that received no response. Soon, the officers knocked the door down, leading Walker to fire a shot in defense and terror that landed in one of the officer’s legs. The officers responded with a cascade of bullets--32 shots in total--and Breonna Taylor was killed during the altercation.
“The only reason I even had the gun out [was] because we didn’t know who it was,” Walker later recalled. “If we knew who it was, [this] would have never happened” (9). Walker had been suspected of drug possession, but it was soon discovered that the police had knocked down the wrong door when Breonna Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jemarcus Glover, was found with drugs in his possession a mere ten miles away from where she was killed. When investigators searched the room afterward, they did not find any drugs--only a room full of shell casings and bullets (10).
Both Breonna Taylor and George Floyd’s deaths are prime examples of police brutality. While they are two prominent examples, they are, as stated, in no way the only examples. Thousands of pages could probably be filled with stories similar to theirs.
What is Police Brutality?
By definition, police brutality is “the unwarranted or excessive and often illegal use of force against civilians by U.S. police officers” (11). This excessive force is not always murder or homicide; it can also mean verbal abuse, false arrest, assault and battery, mayhem, and even torture (11). While police brutality can and does happen to people of all races and cultures, it is much more apparent in cases involving minority communities and populations. Years of statistical evidence show that Black men and boys “face the highest lifetime risk of being killed by police” (12). Furthermore, while working in Black communities, white officers are more likely to use guns (13). Between 2015 and 2021, the rate of fatal police shootings by ethnicity per million Black, Hispanic, and other minority Americans was 65 compared to white Americans’ 14 (14).
Examples of Police Brutality & Harassment Through History
During the Great Migration, a period of American history that saw six million African Americans integrate into Northern and Western urban areas of America, police departments and officers didn’t know how to react. The racial tensions of Jim Crow laws and the new push for civil rights by so many elevated racial stereotypes to the point that some even believed it was Black people’s inheritance to pursue criminal actions. The stories of police brutality were not as well-known as in American society today as white media tended to avoid them. Black media outlets, which were not as popular as their white counterparts, often published them on the front page (11).
Peaceful protests for racial justice throughout American history have been arenas for police brutality. During John Lewis’s famous march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, an entire crowd of peaceful marchers was attacked with clubs, bullwhips, and teargas in the event that would go down in history as “Bloody Sunday”. Fifty-eight people suffered injuries--John Lewis himself suffered a fractured skull--all because the marchers had not cleared the area before the police’s two-minute warning to do so had expired (15).
In recent history, police brutality has been present in New York City through legislation known as “Stop-and-Frisk”. While the fourth amendment states that “the right of the people…against unreasonable searches, shall not be violated” unless the probable cause for a search is given, stop-and-frisk essentially allowed officers to search anyone they suspected of being guilty or dangerous (17). While this may have seemed like a sensible idea at first, it soon proved rather useless and both extremely unequal and biased. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights in a study using numbers and data from both the NYPD and the Census Bureau, it was seen in 2011 that only 6% of stop-and-frisk cases actually led to an arrest as well as only 2% of cases leading to the discovery of contraband. It was also calculated that 51% of cases involved Black people, 31% Latino people, and only 9% white people. In addition, the use of force in these cases saw a 686% increase for Black people and a 444% increase for Latino people when compared to white people (18).
Data from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study shows that out of all the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, “96.3% involved no property damage or police injuries, and in 97.7% of events, no injuries were reported among participants, bystanders or police” (19). However, many protests and demonstrations instituted to fight the racial disparities and brutality leading to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor saw media outlets like Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Network reference the small cases of violence as the main Black Lives Matter story and even disregard the evidence surrounding how George Floyd died.
“There was no physical evidence that George Floyd was murdered by a cop… [he] almost certainly died of an [fentanyl] overdose,” Carlson stated, completely ignoring that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner (HCME) had released an autopsy report stating that the leading cause of George Floyd’s death was “neck compression” caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officers” (20). While fentanyl and other drugs were found in George Floyd’s body, they were not the reason he died. “But, at that point [the “point” referring to George Floyd’s released autopsy],” Carlson continued, “It was too late. Cities had been destroyed, along with the fabric of this country itself. Scores of people have been killed. Democratic partisans used a carefully concocted myth--a lie, to bumrush America into overturning the old order and handing them much more power” (21). In fact, Carlson actually gave that report in 2021, likely in an attempt to calm the tension around the armed capital insurrection on January 6th.
On the Topic of Drugs
Both cases of police brutality explained earlier (George Floyd and Breonna Taylor) involved drugs. Drugs have long been an issue in America, and drugs also paint a picture of the inequality demonstrated towards Black Americans by police forces. In fact, data by Human Rights Watch shows that between 1980 and 2004, Black Americans were much more likely to be arrested for drug-related charges than white Americans, even with data suggesting that white and Black Americans use drugs at essentially the same rates (24). Going even further back to right after the Civil War, America’s reconstruction period began, and with it, a new process called “redlining that saw community leaders essentially marking the Black and minority communities in red and labeling them as “dangerous” or “hazardous”.
This process led many financial support systems and even health systems to avoid these areas, leading generations of Black families unable to afford anything beyond the necessities (22). This also led to a domino effect America is still seeing and feeling the effects of. Low-income minority families in those communities--at least in part due to reliance on selling drugs to obtain sufficient income and the use of drugs in coping--leading to work problems, job loss, and less money and finances.
Can America Solve Its Police Brutality Problem?
Like environmental racism and voter suppression, the issue of police brutality is caused by layers of history all revolving around systemic racism. One cannot merely write legislation stating that “the police must not target minorities” and call it good. Racism is not something instilled in people at birth; it is something that has been taught to Americans by years and years of implicit biases bred by issues present nearly 200 years ago. The racism involved in keeping African Americans as slaves never really went away; it is still in America. When governments began ordering segregation to end, the order was ignored by multiple institutions, communities, and individuals.
The belief that Black Americans essentially had it in their blood to commit crimes has led to discriminatory behaviors ranging from Black people often being portrayed as criminals to Black people having their resumes rejected as soon as employers see a “Black” name. The American education system also hasn’t provided any answers or comprehensive information about systemic racism and oppression in the past and present, which could have helped heal and eliminate discriminatory practices for the past few decades instead of blatantly ignoring them. This is why many people hear about police brutality and are quick to blame those attacked for doing all the wrong, especially as police officers and forces have long been seen as society’s heroes. The word "hero" not being the wrong term for police officers and police departments, but a word that should never be attributed to an officer who participates in police brutality.
But while America can begin to heal racist issues through education and honesty, the police force also needs to assist in solving the problem. For example, police brutality can be diminished or even eliminated by intervention from fellow officers. In a study by Oxford University, it was indicated that when interventions happen, violence is avoided (25). Experiments demonstrated that people are more likely to offer interventions when they already have done so, meaning that when one is encouraged to intervene, they are likely to continue to intervene as necessary to maintain peace. It was also demonstrated through data provided by the Las Vegas Department that when “hands-off” policies were implemented, officers used force 23% less (25).
Another component of the solution to the police brutality problem is holding officers more accountable for violent actions towards people who don’t deserve to be attacked. By requiring police forces to use body cameras while on the job, everything would be caught on video. This would not only make police officers avoid taking racist actions because what they say and do would be seen on video but it could also make court cases much swifter as all the evidence would be easily accessible.
Another more controversial solution to the police force’s problems would be to defund the police. While many take the phrase “defund the police” to mean essentially dismantling the police force, that is not the case, and in a way, it should be reworded. To defund the police would mean that while the police would still get finances and monetary assistance, some portions of the funds would go to other community social work programs like therapy, counseling, assistance to the homeless population, and even assistance to those addicted to drugs. By putting much more money into working on and resolving the problems that currently lead to police intervention, people would soon see criminal activities dwindle.
Yet another possible solution is to have money given to police forces and departments redirected to different portions of those departments. While so much money can be spent on weapons and other tools to stop criminals, money can also be spent on more extensive training for officers to work better in high-pressure situations using nonviolent interventions.
This way, officers would be able to better handle perpetrators and know to not act on their possible biases. The police force is made up of a multitude of great people looking to make the world a better place, which is why it is so unfortunate when the select few attack criminals and act on biases. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Tanisha Anderson, Eric Garner… the list can go on for pages upon pages. Were they all perfect people? No. Should they be held accountable for any bad things they might have done? Yes. But did they deserve to die while standing as an innocent bystander or committing a misdemeanor when so many non-minority people in the country would only really receive a side-eye and some harsh words? By now, it’s impossible to not know the answer unless you read this entire article with closed eyes and a gated heart.
This problem, while solutions to it were just listed off, is not going away. It cannot be undone. The fear in a Black man walking down the street, the fear inside a Black woman as well, the fear inside any Black person watching their child grow up, teaching them the best they can how to avoid not getting arrested, but police suspicion is not going away anytime soon.
It will not be gone tomorrow or next week or next year. The 2030s? Hopefully. The 2050s? Just maybe, as long as we all agree to hold strict accountability to those who participate in police brutality and give our support, understanding, and love to those who are affected by it the most.
Sources & Links
Trump acquitted of both charges in Senate impeachment trial || CNBC
Kobe Bryant dies at age 41 in helicopter crash || CNN | YouTube
Officer with knee to George Floyd’s neck to be tried alone || abc News
George Floyd’s mother was not there, but he used her as a sacred invocation || National Geographic
Breonna Taylor: What happened on the night of her death? || BBC News
Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex
What the data says about police brutality and racial bias-and which reforms might work || nature
Rate of fatal police shootings by ethnicity U.S. 2015-2021 || statista
Fourth Amendment || Legal Information Institute | Cornell Law School
2011 NYPD Stop and Frisk Statistics PDF || Center for Constitutional Rights
Tucker Carlson Just Lied About George Floyd to Defend Trump’s Insurrection || Vice News | Video Link to Fox News report that has been deleted by Fox News
A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America || NPR
How Does Addiction Impact Low Income Americans? || Addiction Center
What works to reduce police brutality || American Psychological Association
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