In a democratic environment, the policing departments are governed by the rule of law and should only act according to the law. For example, in the USA, the law stipulates when the police should use force and when to refrain from it. However, there are cases where the police have used force illegally, and have cited ‘imminent’ threat as a reason for opening fire. In the recent years, various policing departments have significantly reduced these cases and introduced interventions that are aimed at improving the police-community relationships. However, the main problem still lies in the fact that the police still use deadly force especially in the communities of color. This has instead created frictions between these communities and the relevant police departments. While the problem has been existing for a long period, it is only in the recent years that it has drawn a lot of media and public attention. The fact that the issue has been existing for a long time before receiving the needed attention can be linked to the culture of policing in America, which allows and condones such misconducts, while the perpetrators are protected. For example, in August 15, 2019, The Guardian newspaper reported a case where police shot black young man 34 times while the man was unarmed and sat on his car (Levin, 2019). The reason for such brutality is still not known, while it is also clear that the police did not follow the due course in shooting the man. The police are only allowed to open fire, if the suspect is armed and has no intention of surrendering. Even in that case, the law recommends that the police should only shoot the suspect in the leg, hand and other places that are unlikely to lead to death of the suspect ( Skogan, Hartnett, Comey, Dubois, & Kaiser, 2019 ). However, in most occasions, the police have defied this law, which is not only illegal, but has also created friction between the police and the community.
References
Levin, S. (2019). Los Angeles officers shot at Ryan Twyman 34 times. He was one of four they killed that day . The Guardian . Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/15/police-shootings-los-angeles-sheriffs-department-ryan-twyman
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Skogan, W. G., Hartnett, S. M., Comey, J. T., Dubois, J., & Kaiser, M. (2019). On the beat: Police and community problem solving . Routledge.
