Police Abusing Power? | Teen Ink

Police Abusing Power?

December 22, 2016
By Conway BRONZE, South Orange, New Jersey
Conway BRONZE, South Orange, New Jersey
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Did you know that police officers in the United States kill black victims at least 2 times a week? Police need to stop abusing their power to kill people, abuse people, and shut down people's freedom of speech in the United States. This is a concerning issue because people are being abused and killed by people that are supposed to protect us. Police need to be put back into their place of good law enforcement, instead of hurting people.0o
Police, as stated before, abuse their power to kill people. Did you know that just last year, according to police killed nearly 965 civilians in the United States, 371 of which did not have a gun. Police are going way overboard in killing people, especially unarmed people and people who were only carrying some sort of knife or other object. Hundreds of unarmed people are being killed, and that’s completely unethical. This is saying that there are officers who will shoot immediately when threatened. A police rule, is even when a person is arrested, unless your life depends on it, you cannot use a weapon against them.


How many people have police hurt? Well, statistically in 2012, police’s misuse  of their power in their guns, tasers, and batons, hurt 55,400 people. That’s only in the United States. Imagine how many people all over the world are being oppressed by police on the daily. The people of the United States, and the rest of the world, deserve better than the law enforcement that they are currently receiving. Police definitely need some sort of extra disciplinary training, and learn how to deal with situations in which they may act in a way to kill or hurt somebody. An example of somewhere that is trying to discipline their officers better is Chicago. In the passage by Ron Safer and others, the Chicago Police Department admitted to having a lot of non-disciplined officers, and are trying to implement a new way of training to discipline them to make better decisions.


Police have shut down so many movements in the United States. These movements are normally people looking for change, in which is allowed in the United States according to the First Amendment. The First Amendment says, “The First Amendment guarantees freedom concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition”. This means that no police officer, or anybody in the United States, should be allowed to stop revolts made by the people. An example of police abusing their powers to stop people from protesting, was very recent in one the the anti-Trump protests. This specific Trump protest was very peaceful. Even so according to the article, written by the Chicago Tribune, 5 people were arrested for almost no reason at all. This cannot be allowed any longer, as this is even against the values of the United States, according to the First Amendment. Let’s hope that soon, police will begin to realize that they’re not helping their country, they’re contributing to making it even worse.


As stated before, police officers are completely out of hand at this time. They are abusing their powers to do so many other bad activities than the few named. The few in particular highlighted in this essay are police abusing powers to kill people, to hurt people, and to revoke protesters of their right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Police officers cannot be killing up to 965 people a year and 55,400  people hurt in 2012, as that it about 2.6 people that police kill per day just in the United States. Police are supposed to protect us, and at this moment in time, Surely many people are more terrified of the police, rather than feeling safe or guarded by them. How do you personally feel about police. Scared or guarded? Ask yourself this the next time you see, maybe on TV or wherever, people being beaten, killed, and protesters being stopped by police.

 


 


The author's comments:

I think that people definitely need to be informed that police are in fact abusing their power to kill, hurt, and shut down people's protests.


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