The United States is seen as the country of freedom and equality however, police brutality shows that the U.S is not completely free nor equal. To this day we continue to see police brutality occurring in our neighborhoods. The Watts Riot of 1965, was a racial tension that occurred after Lee Minikus a white California Highway Patrol tried to arrest Marquette Frye for suspected drunk driving in the city of Watts and a large crowd saw the incident. The Bloody Christmas of 1951, occurred when seven Latinos were brutally beaten by the LAPD when they were in custody. During the years of 1975-1982 the LAPD was killing more citizens with the chokehold than any other city in California. In 1992, Los Angeles had a massive and outrageous riot after Rodney King's beating by police officers was caught on tape. This recording hit media all over the world bringing attention to what was really occurring in the United States.
Today in our present of 2018, we are still seeing police brutality as well as protests that are done against the injustice when police officers are found not guilty. Police brutality has been caught in the very own body cameras that the officers are wearing like in the death of Samuel DuBose. He was shot by officer Ray Tensing in 2015, for having his car move forward and away from Tensing. In April of 2017, officer Anthony Figueroa was caught beating Nandi Cain Jr. for jaywalking in Sacramento. When he was taken to the cell the officers beat him, stripped his clothes off, and made offensive comments. There has been no change in the police department not even after all of the recordings that prove that to this day there is police brutality. All of protest and riots done by the community such as the Ferguson riot have received attention but the police brutality continues.
-Teresita Gaitan
April 17, 2018
Thank you for keeping a light on the issue of police brutality for this past and present blog. It is incredible that in spite of recorded videos of police brutality becoming more available since the George Halliday/ Rodney King video, that it still persists and that police often face little to no repercussions for their violent and discriminatory acts. One that still haunts me to this day, I swear to god, it was so hard to watch, was Eric Garner’s video before he died. “I can’t breathe” was stuck in my head on repeat after that. Truly awful, and sadly, relevant. Thank you for this post- Katie
ReplyDeleteHi Teresita,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Police brutality is an ongoing issue that needs to be regulated as soon as possible. There needs to be serious repercussions to what they do.