Police Brutality In The United States

Words: 1283
Pages: 6

The seriousness of police brutality is way under looked not only in the United States but all over the world. Since the early 1900’s, there have been many brutalities that have involved severe beatings, excessive force and unjustified shootings. Often times these beatings or shootings are towards the minority community, those of color. Although there can be many different reasons and excuses for this, it can be perceived that police brutality happens to show power. Places such as Brazil, South Africa, and the major cities of the U.S. have had many incidents where brutality has been reported. In an article from NY Times it has a solid example how the police in Brazil are ruthless. The article is about how a mother in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil …show more content…
Excessive force used by police has been going on since the 1800’s but in the early 1900’s is when police brutality started become noticed, and out of control. During this time there was excessive police brutality going on all over the world. South Africa, Brazil and the United States have had the highest brutality rates from all over the world. Majority of the people in power and police officers were white males in all the countries. Basically the power and police force could be known as a white supremacy and they did everything they could to keep it that way. Thus, giving them a reason to take out colored people without any …show more content…
In Brazil, the officers were ruthless. There were many cases where Brazilian officers would kill, especially kids, without having any reason. The reason for this is because the country had no control, and the officers were basically able to do whatever they wanted. In the article Police Brutality in Brazil: Authoritarian Legacy or Institutional Weakness, it says “Regarding police activity itself there are no standards in place to regulate interactions with the public.” This basically meaning that the officers were able to get away with thing such as shootings, or severely beating someone. An example is from the case mentioned previously where the Brazilian officer had shot a little boy in his head. Not only did this happen in Brazil all the time, there were cases that happened later on in the U.S. The most famous case being the one involving Rodney King. Rodney King was severely beaten by four police officers in Los Angeles after he was caught during a high speed chase. Video of this happening showed the four police officers severely beating Rodney until he couldn’t move. Although the officers were immediately charge with assault, they were let off once trail was over. Both of these situations can show how the lack of punishment to these officers who inforce police brutality can lead to the lack of control of the officers. In both situations, the officers were let off