Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Lamis Aoun
Dobbs
AP English & Composition
January 16, 2015
Police Brutality Trust in our justice system has been shaken by the recent conspicuous stories of police brutality in our media. Sadly the general public has been exposed to anti-police propaganda that brainwashed the common people's mind thinking there is no good cop. Police put themselves in life or death situations, they protect us from all harm; what they do is so important yet it often goes unnoticed. According to the author of "The Cop Mind", "Nothing excuses specific acts of police brutality, especially in the Garner case, but not enough attention is being paid to the emotional and psychological challenges of being a cop." (Brooks 1). To understand society’s opposition against police, we would have to look into the subject of police mobilization through the rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos, evidence, diction, and audience. The use of pathos, ethos, and logo was prevalent throughout the analyzed articles. Most of the author’s claims were consistent throughout, and were supported by evident evidence. At the same time, the author writes such statements trying to convince the reader that his opinion is right, for instance in “Police Violence Seems to Result in No Punishment” it states, “In the current moment, police violence, like campus sexual assault, seems to be in a pandemic phase.” (Burton 1). Henceforth, this article had a good logical appeal. Also, looking at other articles, you can see a huge emotional appeal using pathos. For example in, “We Must stop Police Abuse of Black Men” it says, “They kicked me in the groin repeatedly. Out of every part of my body, that’s what they targeted. Then I spent the night in Spofford juvenile detention center. For seven days after that, I stared into the toilet bowl in my house at the blood I was urinating.” (Adams 1). Adams explains how he was arrested and abused after a criminal trespass charge of an unlawfully entering and remaining in the home of an acquaintance. The audience of this article would defiantly respond emotionally sympathizing with the victim and identifying the author’s point of view seeing that Adams did no wrong. These articles also use examples of pathos, for instance in, “Cleveland Police Cited for Abuse by Justice Department” it writes, “…the Justice Department opened 20 civil rights investigations into police departments… Cleveland is 53 percent black and 37 percent white, its 1,551-person police department is almost the reverse image: 25 percent black and 65 percent white, the latest data shows.” (Dejak 2). It uses statistics to show the difference in the amount of convictions between whites and blacks. A great majority of the analyzed articles used evidence to expand the amount of information to get the point across the readers mind. For instance, when the author of, “We Must Stop Police Abuse of Black Men” states that, “In order to finally bring this darkness into the light of day, our nation must address the foundation of this crisis. That starts with acknowledging that the training taught in police academies across the country is not being applied in communities of color.” (Adams 2). Using first hand evidence from people, and or families, gives information that the story could’ve been bias. Most people reading this article would’ve had their own opinion on the issue, which would have been that correct training hasn’t been applied to our police men across the country, and that they do need more training. On the other hand, an academic article that uses statistics show that most people have their opinions on the issue, instead of rather giving one straight opinion. For example, in “Obama seeks more police training, avoids addressing Ferguson head-on”, the authors state, “The facts in Ferguson are too disputed to address, with eyewitnesses offering divergent views about what led to the Aug. 9 shooting, according to the prevailing view among Obama’s aides” (Parsons &

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