Police Brutality Across America

The United States have an abundant amount of problems with criminal activities across the U.S., and police brutality is one of the biggest issues this nation must be concerned with. Eric Holder, the first African-American attorney general, takes over the Department of Justice that has struggled tremendously on racial justice in America (Muwakkil). The issue of police brutality in American society has been an ongoing problem in the United States. There are many accusations and stories that relate to police brutality in the U.S., but where is the line to be drawn when excessive force is too harsh on civilians?

The issues with police brutality focuses more on racial discrimination towards one another then any other matter involved with police brutality in the United States. “Another car chase. Another black suspect. Another televised beating by the Los Angeles Police Department” (Kasindorf). The Los Angeles community is used to hearing such words from local news stations across the L.A. area. They’ve grown to be accustomed to racial discrimination occurring in their own local police departments. These kinds of incidents where criminals are being beaten by police officers make the question to be asked, “Has the long-troubled LAPD changed since the 1991 beating of Rodney King?” (Kasindorf) Of course they say it has, but across the nation there are such incidents happening too, so really it’s not all to blame just on one police department. Experts say it’s based in part on the nation’s racial history and injustice between races (Marks). The American Civil Liberties Union believes that racial profiling, in part, comes from the war on drugs (Marks). The war on drugs could be one of many reasons why police officers use excessive force upon a criminal of different race.

New attorney general, Eric Holder has a tough job ahead of him as he has to try and control racial injustice in The Department of Justice. American society has a problem with the freedom that is given to police officers and the new policies that are used in local police departments. “There is virtually no public oversight or accountability, not only for police who follow their new policies and kill or hurt citizens, but for police who act outside proper authority and abuse their power” (Greenhut). In other words, Mr. Greenhut is saying that police officers are able to get away with criminal activities easier because they work with a law enforcement agency. Being a police officer gives them no other rights then any other normal civilian of the U.S. to act in any criminal activity. The reason they have a badge is to protect the people, not to get away with the same actions that they arrest people for.