Police Attack Research Paper

Words: 499
Pages: 2

This is an article from ABC30 News. On July 27, 2017, Sergio Velasco Martinez, a 25-year-old was killed because of multiple shots fired from a police officer in Avenal, California. Two officers were called and went to respond to a child custody complaint, but when they arrived at the scene they were received by an altered man. The officers tried to talk with Velasco, but instead, he tried to attack them with a metal object. Moreover, the police officers tried to tase Velasco but it had no effect on him, it was when the tension incremented because Velasco commenced to beat one of the officers with the metal object in the face. As consequence of this action, the other officer availed his partner by firing multiple shots and killing Velasco. …show more content…
When the officer who fired the gun felt attacked and saw that they could no longer control the situation decided to shoot. Unfortunately, in this situation the community looked at the officers’ actions as inappropriate arguing that they were two officers against one individual. Many think that they used excessive force because instead of killing him they could have shot him in the leg or arm to calm the situation or even call for reinforcements to avoid using weapons, but on the other hand, it also depends on whom you ask. Usually, black and non-white people are the least confident of police officers and many others are strongly influenced by the media rather than personal experience. Additionally, Avenal is a small city and most of its population is Hispanic and I as part of this small community I can see that people prefer to defend their acquaintance instead of the officers even knowing that Velasco had already had problems in the past for the same reasons. The police did not give explanations on whether they considered the actions of the officers appropriate or not, they just said that the Hanford Police Department was conducting the