Understanding a nation: police brutality and how to stop it.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Police brutality has become a growing problem. With shootings of unarmed citizens and protests, police brutality has become one of the most talked about issues in the United States. Police brutality is a term used to refer to unwarranted violence by members of the police force, with this violence often directed against minorities. With the growing awareness of police brutality, questions surrounding this issue have also increased. Is police brutality really a problem? Are there any solutions? The answer to both questions is yes, although some may disagree with the methods used. This argument is not an attack on the police. I believe the police force and I have a common goal, which is the well-being of the community in their care (in this case, the community of Ferguson). But it is undeniable that police brutality exists. Police brutality is an important topic to discuss because it still occurs today in various cities. And it still affects minorities all over the United States. Not to mention that this is not a new problem at all; Police brutality is something people have protested against since the civil rights movement. However, there are various solutions that will prevent, reduce and eventually eliminate police brutality if the police implement them. Police brutality is not a global problem. But it's something that's very recurring here in the United States. Compared to the rest of the world, the United States appears to have a much higher number of police shootings. This means that the problem may not be limited to this country, but it is certainly bigger here. The article “US Police Shoot and Kill Far More People Than Their Peers in Other Countries” presents supporting statistics. According to FBI data, the number of police deaths last year totaled approximately 458, which is an incredible number compared to Japan and Britain, where no deaths occurred (Lopez, para. 2 ). Of course, there are other factors. The chart does not separate justified from wrongful deaths, and one could argue that this figure parallels the crime rate in the United States. Yet I think no cop, no matter how good or bad, wants to take a life. As things stand, the police seem to be losing reliability every day. By at least trying to reduce this number, whatever the circumstances, the police could begin to regain the trust they have begun to lose. This problem comes from our past history of racism. To be more specific, our current policing system gradually began to replace the groups that hunted and harmed African Americans. Sure, it's far-fetched, but there's no denying that the police have become a force for policing black bodies, as David G. Embrick stated in the magazine article "Two Nations, Revisited: The Lynching of Black and Brown Bodies, Police.” Brutality and Racial Control in “Post-Racial” Amerikkka. Most minorities agree that the justice system does not favor them. This is also something Embrick mentions when he gives the example of a survey in which minorities were asked whether or not the justice system favored whites over blacks. 69% of minorities surveyed said they thought the systemcriminal justice system favors whites over blacks (Embrick, para. 8). Although this is just an opinion and not an actual fact, 69% is a pretty high number. This kind of mentality is not propagated solely based on baseless facts and myths. If this mentality spreads, trust in the police will be lost. Which could lead to things like resistance, which would cause police to use force more often and magnify the problem. The police should work to change this growing mentality, so that they gain more trust and are less labeled as discriminatory. Police brutality is born from our long history of inequality. Some say police brutality is not a problem. Or at least, not much. One of those people would be Andrew Sullivan, author of an article titled "Kaepernick's message is getting lost — along with the facts about race and police brutality" in which he explains how people are making a big deal out of police brutality, when the facts show that it is not a common phenomenon. Sullivan primarily breaks down a Washington Post graphic that shows police shooting statistics. Sullivan says that in reality only about 0.5 percent of black people are actually mistreated by the police, and that black people are only about 0.3 percent more likely to be stopped by the police than white people. (Sullivan, para. 9). Sullivan ends the article by saying that we must respect the spirit of the protesters, but that we must not “let emotion overwhelm reality” (Sullivan, para. 12). Sullivan is right that we should not let our emotions take precedence over the facts. But he seems to have misunderstood the problem. Sullivan seems to think that all of these movements and protests are mainly because people think that the police are massacring black people in the streets. And although some might think so, most of those who protest and support these movements know that this is not really the case. Most people protest because the few people who have been shot have been brutally shot and the officers responsible generally don't go to jail. They are protesting for someone like Timothy Russell, who was shot 137 times by 13 police officers while unarmed (Embrick, para. 10). They are not protesting because of the numbers, but because of the brutality of each case. We shouldn't let emotion overwhelm the data, but we shouldn't let the data stop us from examining the story behind each case. A lot of people say that police brutality is not a big deal, that it only happens in certain cities, and it rarely happens. This is true to a certain extent. However, it is also not fair to ignore this issue just because it occurs “in some cities.” The truth is that the families of these people are suffering and will continue to suffer for a very long time. There are examples of these stories in the book They Can't Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery. There are several accounts and individual stories that provide insight into the feelings of people related to the victims. A very good example is when the mother of Michael Brown, a man shot by a police officer, walks up to the microphone and says, “For some, it has become a cliché, for us, they are our children” (Lowery 35 ). A simple quote like this reflects the feelings of most black communities across the United States. Another example of how people have been affected by police brutality, this time regarding protests, would be when Lowery interviews a protester who says that one of the main reasons to protest is that we live in a society that.