Law enforcement does not only require the cooperation of the residents of a particular area, but it also involves security agencies that ensure such laws are followed, and actions are taken whenever people do not adhere to the set laws. Police departments remain to be one of the most common units of law enforcement. New York City Police department is the largest police department in the US. Some guidelines spelled out in the constitution, as well as those inherent in the department’s guidelines, give directions on how much force police should use in the line of duty when they should be reported of not adhering to such guidelines and how such cases are dealt with.
In the view of police using excessive force, there are New York City Police department policies that have been recently enacted to prevent this. They mainly prohibit the use of force as well as the use of chokeholds to hinder a suspect or criminal from ingesting an illegal drug during his or her arrest (Chan & Rama, 2016). The need to come up with such policies has been fueled by past inconsistent guidelines on the extent to which force is applied in the interaction between police and civilians. The new guidelines are divided into level three levels, 1, 2 and 3. Level 1 entails the use of physical force by an officer while executing his or her duties, level 2 involves the use of a weapon which might not be considered lethal and level 3 is the use of force considered deadly (Chan & Rama, 2016). Depending on which level of force an officer uses, his superiors will investigate a case against such. Other than the defined way in which officers who use excessive force are made answerable to the law, the new policies also ensure accountability by making officers who witness others using excessive force without reporting them answerable. With this policies, an extensive discharge of firearms report is provided by the necessary department. This does not only make an investigation on the use of force easy, but it also makes the department as a whole vigilant on what it spends its income on. In addition to the above, there are also new policies that require police officers to give a detailed account of instances that they have been involved in using excessive force. This policy has been pushed forward by consistent incidences in which police were found to be biased and use excessive force especially when the person involved in such an encounter is a person of color. Even though the policies were constituted in 2015, there are still cases reported of use of excessive force in this department. This suggests that although the implementation might have partially succeeded in the achievement of its objectives, there is much more that needs to be done to ensure a majority of the police adhere to the policy by exercising restraint while in the line of duty.
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Police brutality in the New York City has caused a public uproar in different cases. The above raises a moral, legal as well as social concern. Many cases have been highlighted to show how police in separate incidences infringe the rights that citizen have regarding how they should be treated with dignity regardless of the situation they are in. There is one particular case that has been presented to the court by New York Police Brutality Attorney Sanford Rubenstein which shows how gross this issue could be. Abner Louima’s case is not only an immoral and socially unacceptable incident but is also highly illegal (Ioanide, 2007). When police were dispatched to bring order in a fight in which the victim was involved in a nightclub, the victim was arrested and beaten mercilessly on the way to the police station. Inside a police bathroom, he was sodomized using a broomstick and physically assaulted, an incident that left him half dead (Ioanide, 2007). His teeth were badly damaged and his bladder as well as colon severely injured. The above incident resulted in a public uproar from the Haiti people, a protest that had more than 7000 people match against police brutality. Although the event took place in 1997, in 1998, a lawsuit was filed against Volpe, the primary officer who was involved in assaulting Louima. Beside, Volpe, Louima testified of the presence of another policeman who in conjunction with Volpe abused him. Although he could not identify him at the moment, Schwarz later pleaded guilty to helping Volpe to assault Louima.Volpe, through several criminal trials, pleaded guilty, a confession that saw Louima compensated $8.75 million for the damages caused to him by the assault.
Although there were no major changes made to the use of force policy in NYPD at the time, such an incident, in addition to many others that followed it has forced the department heads to think on precise ways not only to classify but also how to educate their workers on the need to uphold the law while avoiding the use of unnecessary force. Today, such incidences are not condoned, and there are several ways to identify as well as arraign an officer found guilty of the same.
In conclusion, the newly formed policies that are meant to regulate the use of force in the New York Police Department are an effort put in place to reduce police brutality. Such force could risk civilians' life, as demonstrated by Abner Louima's assault, one which saw him undergo multiple surgeries to correct the internal damage to his organs such as the colon and the bladder. Such brutality is not only illegal but also inhumane. Although the newly adopted policies are likely to assist in the reduction of such cases, there is a need for continuous improvement to ensure that they continue to be effective and their objectives achieved.
References
Chan, S., & Rama, K. (2016). NYPD implements new ‘use of force’ policies to curb physical confrontations . WPIX 11 New York . Retrieved 2 April 2018, from http://pix11.com/2016/06/01/nypd-implements-new-use-of-force-policy-to-curb-physical-confrontations/
Ioanide, P. (2007). The Story of Abner Louima: Cultural Fantasies, Gendered Racial Violence, and the Ethical Witness. Journal of Haitian Studies , 4-26.
