THE RECENT SURGE OF POLICE BRUTALITY

The Recent Surge of Police Brutality

Paola Santiago Ortiz
Old Dominion University

THE RECENT SURGE OF POLICE BRUTALITY

Abstract
This essay will be used to discuss the I will take the time to discuss a little bit of information
regarding the current and various cases that have been on the news outlets at the current
regarding police and their excessive force. I will begin this essay by giving an extremely brief
history on police brutality, which will result in very common case of institutionalized racism in
the police department similar to retired Commander Jon Burges case. I will also give a brief
background history on the Black Lives Matter movement that began in 2012 after a certain cases
that dealt with a civilian and the death of an unarmed teenager. I will thirdly discuss the some of
the cases that have been involved in the BLM movement because these cases are the ones that
have paved the way for the current surge of national recognition of all the injustices that
minorities suffer involving police officers. We will also discussed the cases involved with
correctional officers that have caused an uproar with the national security. And lastly, I will
discuss the fact that some people have decided to retaliate against police officers because they
felt like the law and police department will eventually fail the victims.

THE RECENT SURGE OF POLICE BRUTALITY

The Recent Surge of Police Brutality

Police brutality has become a major foundation into the current #BlackLiveMatters
movement that has spur riots in various cities and made society develop and spread selfawareness into the issue via social media. During the past five to eight years, there have been a
lot of cases brought into mainstream news channels about how police officers of different state
and police departments have been caught overstepping their boundaries. The big question for this
essay is what has cause the sudden surge of police brutality. The first point to discuss in the essay
will be police brutality throughout history. The second point to be discussed in the paper will be
the Black Lives Matter and how it came into fruition. The third point of the paper will be to
discuss some of the cases that have occurred currently and review their outcomes, including the
racial aspect and unarmed people. Then we will discuss the different deaths according inside the
prison systems. And lastly, it will be discussed the deaths of police officers in the hands of
civilians due to the current riots.
According to Amalcar, since the 1990s the public has been recording and sharing footage
of police violence, which mainly included the controversial video of Rodney King. The stop and
frisk situation began early during the War on Drugs, which was used has a form of psychological
violence against the participants (Cooper, 2015). Police officers would and continue to stop and
frisk people without probable cause still, which has made various communities around America
wary of police department. During their random searches and sweep of certain spots, they would
harass the victims with disrespectful words. According to Cooper, the police would handcuff
participants next to each other and speak disrespectfully to them which cause people in the
neighborhoods to feel insecure and not trust the police. Officers began to search the
undergarments of people theyd frisk and stop in efforts to locate narcotics, which humiliated the

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participants and began to experience police instigated sexual abuse. Retired police commander
Jon Burge cause controversy when it was discovered that he was terrorize at least 120 African
American men, their families and the black families for the next twenty years (Taylor, 6), which
began around the 1970s. He had a crew that would also torture African-Americans with an
electric shock device that they called the nigger box and showing the victims that they hanged
people in their basement all the time. The Midnight Crew would take their victims and use the
electro shock on their genitals. Burges action were a basically the same as those that people
displayed during the times of slavery and he was not the only person that was using these
methods. He would threaten his African American police officers and kept them in line with the
enforcement of the police code of silence (Taylor, 6), however some of these officers did try to
complain to higher authorities and opened up about Burges racism after they had retired.
Burges was able to retire after his long career has a racist and torturous police commander even
after being found guilty by the Federal Government, he was still able to receive his pension and
is defense attorney lawyers are still being paid by the city of Chicago government. According to
Staples, the black community felt that their encounter with law enforcement agents meant the
denial of their rights while whites were able to feel like they able to serve and protect their rights
and property. In 1693, Philadelphia courts give officials the right to arrest and return any African
American person seen wondering about without a pass from their master according to Staples.
Some people would consider the Burges case and all the different Jim Crow laws place in the
past have create a police department that is institutionally racist and tends to usually harass
those people that are of low level incomes and living in the ghettos, which tend to be those
considered to be minorities.

THE RECENT SURGE OF POLICE BRUTALITY

Prior to the Black Lives Matter, there was the Black Panthers and their movement, which
shares various similarities with the BLM. Black Live Matters was started in 2012 after the death
of Trayvon Martin murder after Trayvon was post-humously place on trial for his own murder
(Blacklivesmatter.com). The BLM movement is attempting to build a society where no Black
person is systematically and intentionally targeted for demise and to strive for the liberation of all
black people that have been wronged, including transgendered people. They asked for everyone
of Black ancestry to love oneself and support everything black, which includes women, disable,
and transgender folk. It was created by three women that wanted to take action against the
oppression of black folk and wanted to create peaceful protest against the inequality. They
created chapters throughout various cities around the United States that conduct peaceful rallies
and help the families of those that have been taken unjustly from the world due to police
misconduct. Orginally, the movement was just a hashtag on social media until it gain national
recognition then people began to protest and utilize various tactics that will stir emotion into
other citizens that will make them want to take action. The movement had support from multiple
famous people that helped launched the movement into the national coverage and it has caused
more people to start looking into the indifferences that minorities are forced to deal with when
they are confronted with law enforcement officials. But it is safe to say that an All Lives Matters
movement will eventually take over and become the movement that all people from different
walks of life will follow, due to the constant war on race and people have been wondering why
these movement does not include the black on black crime.
The Black Lives Matter movement has open up the eyes to the injustices that some
people have suffered simply because they are considered less of a person in the laws that govern
the police departments. Since 1999, 78 black unarmed men have been killed by police officers,

THE RECENT SURGE OF POLICE BRUTALITY

some are for committing petty offences while other were routine traffic stops. According to
Chaney and Robertson, a study conducted between January 1 to June 30th of 2012, it was
discovered that one black person was killed by either a police officer or someone acting in the
capacity of such every 36 hours (p. 46). Laquan McDonald was murdered on October 2014 by
officer Jason Van Dyke when he shoot McDonald sixteen times after he is seen walking away
from the officer after they had some kind of altercation. The Chicago police department is being
accused of confiscating video footage from a nearby Burger King that shows what might have
lead up to the death of McDonald and the police department lied on the officials report about
what had transpired. Van Dyke stated that McDonald lunged at him and he was struck by one
lone bullet, however that turned out to be false once whistleblowers send out tips about that
incident. Van Dyke has 17 complaints from civilian about his constant use of excessive force.
Even before the city had completed their investigation, they had approved a 5 million dollar
payment to the family of Laquan and the video footage from the patrol vehicle dash camera was
released a year after the fact because a judge had order it to be released to the public; and he was
arrested shortly afterwards. This specific case causing plenty of uproar because the current
Mayor had been recently elected and he had approved a million dollar payment before the family
had even filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Eric Garner was killed on July 17, 2014 due to a
combination of a chokehold and compression of his chest by the police, and his poor health.
Garner was approached by the police due to the suspicion that he was selling loose cigarettes in
the street of New York. After being subdued by the police, Garner informed them that he was
unable to breath, neither the police nor the EMTs perform CPR on Garner because they believed
he was still breathing, he was pronounced dead an hour later at the hospital. A medical examiner
ruled the death a homicide but Officer Daniel Pantaleo was not charged with murder or

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homicide. This caused an uproar and people began to protest against the decision after viewing
the video footage that Garners friend had recorded of the incident. Garners widow settled after
court for $5.9 million dollars and currently the Department of Justice is currently conducting an
investigation into the matter (Goodman). The last case that we will discuss is the one of Walter
Scott during the morning of April 4th, 2015. Walter was pulled over by Officer Michael Slager for
a broken brake light. A toxicology report shows that Walter had traces of cocaine and alcohol in
his body but his family states that this piece of evidence should not have any bearing in the case
because Walter was not pulled over due to driving erratically or speeding the day that he died.
The video footage does show a two to three second sign of a struggle between the officer and
Walter before Walter makes a run away from the officer while two objects fall during the simple
struggle, one was behind the officer and the other between the two men then we noticed that
Walter was attempting to escape from being Taser by the officer then gets fatally shoot eight
times as he is falling down then the officer is seen dropping something next to the body of Walter
as he approached him. It is not known if Walter had actually managed to grab the Officers Taser
or if it was moved and planted by the officer. Slager is currently facing a manslaughter charged
where he could face up to life in prison for the homicide of Walter Scott. All the cases have been
impacted by the Black Lives Matter movement and have been able to get national recognition via
various types of protests done by the participants.
Sandra Bland was arrested because she refused to put out her cigarette during a routine
traffic stop that would end up taking her life while she was in the custody of the Waller County
jail. The officials report states that she committed suicide by utilizing a plastic bag that was left
in her jail cell. This specific incident caused an uproar against the correctional facility because
they believed that Sandra Bland was murdered by the officers, but investigation and video

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footage showed otherwise. Sandra Bland was not the only person that has died while in police
custody, when people began to look to further into the matter, people noticed that there was a
pattern of females dying in a correctional facility. Latandra Ellington was seven months shy of
gained her freedom and being reunited with her children before she was found dead in her
solitary cell after months of informing her family that she feared for her life because SGT Q
continuously kept threating to beat her up then she was found dead in her cell due to force blunt
trauma in her abdomen.
And lastly, there have been at least two police officers that have been murder by rogue
criminals that are protesting the BLM movement. Ismaaiyal Brinsley took it upon himself to
murder two unsuspecting police officers on duty as revenge killing for the death of Eric Garner
and Michael Brown. He then committed suicide on December 20, 2014 the same day that he
killed the two police officers and he did it in the New York City subway shortly after escaping
the double homicide. Brinsley was allegedly affiliated with the Black Guerrilla Family and about
six other people have been arrested because they had made threats to murder police officers
around New York.

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Resources
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Brown, J. (2014). Inmate reports threats by guard, turns up dead. Miami Herald.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article2564576.html
Chaney, C., & Robertson, R. V. (2015). Armed and Dangerous? An Examination of
Fatal Shootings of Unarmed Black People by Police. Journal of Pan African Studies,
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Cooper, H. L. (2015). War on Drugs Policing and Police Brutality. Substance Use &
Misuse, 50(8/9), 1188-1194.
Goodman, D. (2015). Eric Garner case is settle by New York City for $5.9 million. NY
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Louis, E. (2015). Chicago politics: How justice was delayed for Laquan McDonal. CNN
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Ransby, B. (2015). The Class Politics of Black Lives Matter. Dissent (00123846),
62(4), 31
Schoichet, C. & Cuevas, M. (2015). Walter Scott shooting case: Court documents
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Staples, R. (2011). WHITE POWER, BLACK CRIME, AND RACIAL POLITICS. Black
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Taylor, F. (2013). Jon Burge's Racist Legacy. Nation, 296(10/11), 6-8.
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(2015). The Roots of a Riot. (cover story). Time, 185(17), 34.

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