Police Brutality Argumentative Essay

In February of 2012, a 17 year old black boy by the name of Trayvon Martin was on his way back to his father’s home from a local convenience store where he purchased a bottle of Arizona and a bag of Skittles. While on his way home, he was followed in a car by neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman thought that he should follow Trayvon because he had on a hoodie which Zimmerman deemed suspicious. While Zimmerman was following this young man home, he called the police and they told him to remain in his car. Despite being told to remain in his vehicle, Mr. Zimmerman went against police orders and left the vehicle. When he Zimmerman his vehicle, he attacked Trayvon, which resulted in a scuffle. During that scuffle, Mr. Zimmerman shot Trayvon in his chest, which lead to his death. Mr. Zimmerman was put on trial, found not guilty and he was also acquitted. Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s
People like Keith Childress, Bettie Jones, Kevin Matthews, Leroy Browning, Roy Nelson, Tiara Thomas, and about 95 others lost their lives in 2015 to police brutality. What many don’t know about these individuals is that all of them were unarmed. Statistics show that police killed at least 102 unarmed black people in 2015, nearly two each week(http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/). Only 10 of the 102 cases in 2015 where an unarmed black person was killed by police resulted in officer(s) being charged with a crime, and only 1 of these deaths (Matthew Ajibade) resulted in convictions of the officers involved. Only one of the two officers convicted received jail time. To add more fuel to the fire, the officer only has to serve his sentence exclusively on the weekends. This officer received freedom, while his victim can no longer breathe which supports how the racial discrimination has an immense influence on racial policing