A Speech on the Impact of Police Brutality

Police Brutality Can you imagine walking into your local Timmies and getting your coffee for free? Can you imagine being able to drive as fast as you want, make a u-turn whenever you want and run through as many red lights as you want? Can you imagine having an army of men at your side with one phone call? Can you imagine driving, and at the flick of a switch, every other car moves out of your way? Seems out of reach for the average person, well, that is the daily life of a police officer, and if you were given that much authority, would you abuse it? Police officers are not only trained to uphold and respect the law but it is made very clear to them that they are not above or immune to the law themselves, although they seem to believe they are. Due to the amount of power and authority given to police officers, they must be held accountable for any criminal actions. Many of you are probably wondering why I chose this topic, and it is simply because it has probably touched every single person in this room, whether you witnessed it, heard about it or were a victim of it yourself but nothing is being said or done to stop it. I’m not sure how many of you attended Bloor West Villages annual Ukrainian Festival last weekend but if you did, there is no doubt in my mind that you are thinking about the hundreds of armed police officers patrolling the festival as if it was a federal prison. Now I ask you, why would they do this? Why do police officers feel they have the right to treat the average citizen like a criminal? There are many incidents across Canada involving the RCMP and Regional Police Forces, in which they are accused of abusing their authority and power, such as unjustified deaths including, but not limited to, the death of Robert Dziekanski in October 2007 at the Vancouver Airport, the unnecessary arrest and searches of hundreds of innocent people during the G20 summit. There are countless videos and eyewitness testimonies to these