It is very important to recognize police brutality in the United States because it is one of the many social issues causing conflict among the population. Police brutality and racism are issues that people take sides on. But what we don't realize is that many of us tend to focus on one side of the problem without considering, or sometimes even hearing, the other. Often the information we gather, whether from the media or our community, is accompanied by biased information that does not give us the opportunity to see the bigger picture. “There are two sides to every story” have you ever heard of this? Well, this social question has two sides; the victim and the aggressor. But if you step back and think about the question of who really is who? Sometimes you may hear “The treatment of black people by the police is unacceptable there, aggressive and violent”. And sometimes we can hear: “The majority of police officers do a dangerous and difficult job. The media only portrays police brutality against black people more than the problem of inner-city crime.” The point is that both statements have value and recognizing one does not diminish the other. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Likewise, there is no doubt that the cold-blooded killing of police officers is crucial, as the AJC reports. Yet some would argue that this is just a consequence of growing resentment against police in the United States. Proven through the use of body cameras, dash cams and phone footage, there are various examples of abusive and excessively violent police behavior. For example, the brutality documented in a Baltimore Sun article "FORCE UNDUE" claims several victims, including a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who witnessed a beating, a 50 year old man. a woman selling raffle tickets in a church, a 65-year-old deacon rolling a cigarette, and an 87-year-old grandmother helping her injured grandson. Additionally, an article in "The Week" shows numerous occasions where police were called to help someone in need and ended up killing them. And the police face no consequences, because as numerous newspaper articles show, American police departments have paid hundreds of millions of dollars each year in settlements and compensation to victims of police abuse. But that money is typically paid for by taxpayers, not law enforcement. And even when accused of senseless battery or murder in the line of duty, police officers are generally protected from criminal charges and prison time by a doctrine of qualified immunity. On the other hand, police advocates suggest that most police officers do their jobs courageously and appropriately. But, as the Libertarian Party said, "When one thug cop after another gets away scot-free after using excessive force and no changes are made and consequences are not felt, it causes this horrible tension we feel today. Another often debated question is: Is police brutality a racial problem? Depending on who you ask, the answer may seem very different. Wall Street Journal editor Heather MacDonald doesn't believe black people are unfairly victimized. In “The Myths of Black Lives Matter,” MacDonald statesthat it is the police who should be afraid of black people. She points out that police officers are killed by black people at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate of police killings of black people. MacDonald also says white people should worry more about the police than black people: 12 percent of all homicide deaths of whites and Hispanics were due to police shootings. But because black people die by homicide at a much higher rate, only 4 percent of black homicide deaths are caused by police shootings. These statistics are all valid and deserve careful consideration. Police advocates say groups such as Black Lives Matter ignore the scale of black-on-black violence police face. One example is Franchesca Ramsey, who defends Black Lives Matter in an MTV Facebook video. “Black-on-black crime doesn’t exist,” she says. Ramsey points out that people tend to murder others in their own community and that 84% of white murders are committed by white people. This fact is correct. However, Ramsey ignores the fact that, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, black people are almost 8 times more likely to commit murder than white people, and 6 times more likely to be victims of homicide than white people. Whites. The Baltimore Sun reported that "blood was shed in Baltimore at an unprecedented rate in 2015, with mostly young black men gunned down [by other blacks] in a near-daily crush of violence." Heather MacDonald has a valid argument that if black people have more altercations with police, they are more likely to be victims of police shootings. On the other hand, others argue that the number of violent crimes committed by black people is irrelevant to the debate. Franchesca Ramsey is also right when she says that focusing on black-on-black crime can distract us from the distinct problem of racism and police brutality. Black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, but account for nearly 40 percent of those killed unarmed. As she states, if police are not doing their job to “protect and serve all communities, we must reevaluate and find solutions.” The truth is that violent crime and police brutality are issues that should concern everyone. But the way these issues are presented through social and mass media often divides us and causes us to become defensive. Some point out that police brutality against white people is underrepresented in the media. For example, when an unarmed white teenager was recently killed by police, there was almost no news coverage. The other camp deplores that demonstrations by black organizations against violence in city centers are generally less publicized than rallies by blacks against the police. These statements are both true and important because what we see in the news influences how we perceive the problem. A George Washington University report found that personal experience had mixed effects on overall satisfaction with the police, but "repeated exposure to media reports of police abuse was found to be a powerful predictor of perceptions of police misconduct, racialized policing, and support for reform. » The report states that “the role of the media has not received the attention it deserves from policing academics; this can constitute an important dimension of any overall explanatory framework of police-citizen relations. » Police brutality is a serious problem that requires: 10.1111/1745-9125.12214