Brown And Trayvon Martin Case Study

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Pages: 7

In America, there have been many changes to our society in the last thirty-five years. One change that has happened in past years, is the actions of police departments and the criminal procedure laws they follow. Today this has repercussed into today’s police brutality epidemic. With the onset of an increasing population and a higher crime rate. Law enforcement agencies have expanded their resources so much that in past years, many people fresh out of high school or college could receive a full-time position with no prior experience in the criminal justice field. Today for law enforcement officers, they are feeling the consequences of undereducated officers and the actions those officers took that has caught them in the spotlight of the …show more content…
Since then many accounts of police excessive use of force case have appeared in the media and in the court systems of various states. One case of excessive use force that is now circulating through the media is the case of Eric Garner vs NYPD, Garner was suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes. When a passerbyer recorded the confrontation between multiple officers and Garner, which basically showed them talking up until the point Garner tried to resist the arrest and five officers jumped on top of him and one officer place him in a choke hold. Garner yell “ I can’t breathe” but the request for the officer to let go went untaken and Garner ended up dying moments later. Once the video circulated through the media and online, the family of Garner received five point nine million dollars in a settlement. Today the family still protest and rallies with other people against all police department that are accused of excessive …show more content…
It is important to see both sides of the research on deaths of police officers. Economics plays an important role in how citizens feel about this matter. In large areas of poverty and surplus crime locations, the amount of the police force becomes stagnate in pay. The salary of the officers who work in these areas is decreased dramatically from the average pay of an officer working in low crime areas. This seems very backward, but in the eyes of the state those who can pay for protection get it the most while those who have been forced into poverty get little to nothing. In an area such as the small town of Lake Placid, New York the people pay for the officers to protect them. In Ferguson, a poor area with a majority of African Americans living there who can’t are also faced with high crime rates while the state is forced to pay those officers. Is it the fact that the police officers don’t care? No, not at all. The police officers placed in these high crime areas are in low numbers and are paid the least. According to NBC News ”in a survey of 24 municipal police departments in the St. Louis County reveals a gulf between police officer pay in poor, majority African-American northern cities and wealthier, whiter cities further south. Average annual patrol officer pay ranges from $23,000