Racial Prejudice In Police Shootings

Racial prejudice by police is becoming alarmingly out of control as state by state African Americans men are gunned down in city streets throughout the USA. During the past year, there have been major controversies and civil unrest surrounding the number of minorities murdered by law enforcement without cause or reason. Keith Childress was killed in Las Vegas on December 31, 2015. Police explanation for the shooting was the victim had something in his hand and they thought it was a gun. The assumed gun that was in his hand was his cell phone. Again, on December 23, 2015 Kevin Matthews was brutally murdered by police in Michigan. Once again, police claimed that during the scuffle Matthews reached for a gun and so to defend themselves
Mapping Police Violence conducted a research and found that in 2015, police killed at least 102 black men. It was mentioned that unarmed black men were killed five times the rate of unarmed white males. Ironically, 37% of unarmed people killed by police were black despite black people being only 13% of US population. Moreover, only 10 of the 102 cases where an unarmed black person was killed by police resulted in officers being charged with a crime, and only two of these deaths resulted in convictions of the officers involved. Even when convicted, the justice that is imposed on these officers are often time bias. Imagine one convicted officer was sentenced to serve twelve months in prison but was allowed to do his time on the weekends. This type of justice allows police officers to continually use brutal and deadly force against the
Implementation of controls to curb and eliminate the use of force by police officers is necessary for harmony between police and communities. Police department need to revisit their recruitment process to include detailed background checks on new recruits. Another major change for the department will be to hire more minorities as well as women. This will help to bridge the gap between the communities and the police force while at the same time assisting with community policing. Training of police officers in various conflict resolution skills which will aid in defusing stressful and violent situations. Implementation of various departmental policies and guidelines on the use of