The Global Fear Against Police Brutality

A police officer’s job is to serve and protect people and property. Their day to day duties can include, patrolling an area, arrest citizens, enforce the laws, issue citations, and that’s only a few to be named. There are many officers who wear this badge because they want to do all the duties but unfortunately, there are some who do it for the power and boost their ego. Many good police officers want to help others and want to see the good in their community. Some bad cops have a large bias against certain religions or races and when they come in contact with these individuals, it can sometimes end up bad. According to Kramer, “Black civilians are more likely to be stopped by the police than white civilians net of relevant factors”. Many police officers, whether they are on duty of not, still serve and protect at all times. According to Kane, “Not all police misconduct occurs when officers are on duty. Fyfe reported that in New York City, 20% of police firearm discharges involved officers who were off duty and that the NYPD found cause for disciplinary or criminal action in half those cases”.

Police Brutality can be defined as a civil rights violation that typically occurs when a police officer uses unwarranted force against a civilian that is more than necessary. When an officer uses excessive force, it is a violation of one’s rights. Force is something that should only be used by a police officer for legitimate purpose. Police brutality has become a violation of laws within the police force. It is important that if an officer is violating his laws, one should say something so that his actions are not spread amongst other officers in the force.

A police officers job is to protect anyone no matter their race or religion and in today’s world, this is something that is not always happening. Religions tends to play many different roles and can relate to many different things. It is an officer’s job to carry out a call regardless of one’s faith that they are being called to go to. According to Scheitle, “Both police report and victim survey data estimate that between 10 and 20 percent of all hate crimes are motivated by a religion bias.”. There are many times that officers who are racist or have other biases pull people over and it does not impact their job performance. Sometimes they may pull over people of a different race and treat them with less respect than a different race. Whereas other officers, who do bring their biased beliefs into their job performance, may make a false arrest or even unnecessary shootings. With many religions, there are many different rules that they may have to follow. However, a police officer may take it the wrong way and may insult or harm someone that they are supposed to be protecting because they were interfering with a religious act. It could be beneficial to police officers to learn about the religions in their jurisdiction so that bad events will not take place. If we understand their religion, then there will not be any incidents. Many police officers have severely hurt or killed civilians and have blamed it on the person was resisting arrest or had to use excessive force because they feared for their life. in this generation, we are lucky because now police officers wear body cams and most people who watch the person getting arrested, will video record the entire events happening, which tend to be very helpful when deciding who was the victim. When a person is injured by a police officer, it can be difficult to take them to court and win because even with an attorney, judges usually rule an officer to be not guilty.

There are many different religions that fear for their lives when they come in contact with the police. One religion in particular are the Arabic Americans, after the horrific incident of the terrorist attacks, in New York City. Many Muslims began to fear police officers because they were profiling them. Many officers began to treat them as if they were in on the attacks. According to Salaita, “Before 9/11 scholars examined Arab American invisibility or marginality— or whatever other term they employed to denote peripherality—but after 9/11 they were faced with a demand to transmit or translate their culture to mainstream Americans.”.

Catholic social teaching is the doctrine on human dignity and being a good person in society. When discussing how the dignity of the human person as it is understood in Catholic Social Teaching, it is relevant to police brutality. Many leaders have begun to address the issue of police brutality and have called for prayers, and peace and healing within all the communities. Many people have faith in their religion, so I believe that their leader will guide them and lead them into doing the right thing and make good in this world. I feel that they tie in with one another because we all should be looking out for one another and want good for everyone. A police officers job is to protect and serve us without having to use harm when it is not needed. Human dignity is giving all humans the respect that they deserve as well as receiving it back. With this dignity, it allows us to have rights that we have been given and deserve. Police officers tend to sometimes takes those rights away from us because they believe they have more power over us because of the badge that they wear. A police officer should only be punishing a person who commits a crime, not someone who has not, and they are just saying they did because they are indifferent towards them. The church believes that police officers are here to protect and serve their community and enforce all good in this world. They also believe that they should treat others with the respect that they would want to be treated. I feel that if police officers are trained to use human dignity from the start then hopefully that can continue while they are working on the force and when they come in contact with people of the community that they in.

Police brutality is not just affecting certain areas, but our entire country. I feel that police officers should have stricter laws and less rights. An example could be that if they kill someone who was innocent, they should not be able to be free just because they wear a badge, they should face all of the same charges that a civilian may face. I fear that one day when I have a child, I am going to have to explain to my child what to do when they have an interaction with a police officer. I hope that all good officers take out all bad officers so that this world can be a safer place to live in. I hope that police brutality can be solved in the near future because we will live in a safe and less violent country. I believe that black lives matter, but I also believe that all lives matter. Everyone was put on this earth for a reason and we should all be living free and happy.