Over the recent past, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of police shootings in the U.S. Many innocent civilians have died at the hands of law enforcers amid the concerns of the executive order by Trump to invest more power to the police departments. Even though these cases have been reviewed by the justice department, there has been no resolution to the issue. In the past, the federal government has shown some effort to track the officers who have been involved in these homicides but the law enforcement department still continues to show very little concern on such matters.
Officer-related shootings are in most cases not traced back to the offender and as such, the problem has become rooted to the fabric of the departments in the nation ( Ross, 2015 ). The problem comes as a result of the lack of a central authority in the system. The yearly homicide reports for these shootings are only estimates of the real figure because it is evident that most of these cases are not reported. At the end of the day, the issue is traced back to racial profiling by the police department, since most of these deaths involve African Americans. Racial prejudice by some officers has tarnished the names of the law enforcement agency and as such, many civilians have lost faith in the fairness of the system. In 2016, two Louisiana officers shot and killed 37-year-old Alton Sterling after finding a gun in his pocket ( Culhane, Boman & Schweitzer, 2016 ). The incident was recorded by an anonymous bystander and it could be seen from the video that the deceased had already been pinned to the ground. He had very little room for movement and in addition to this, the police had already confiscated the weapon. There was, therefore, no reason for them to shoot him in the chest because he was showing no signs of resistance or violence. The following night, Philando Castile was also murdered in the same way, only that he was in his car as his girlfriend recorded the whole incident ( Culhane, Boman & Schweitzer, 2016 ). One could see that the officer had no reason for firing multiple shots at the deceased because he was reaching out for his identification.
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A research conducted by Harrison (2018) in 2016 shows that by March the same year, 971 people had already been killed by law enforcers whereas the number in 2015 and 2014 was 825 and 709 respectively. Fatal police shootings that have resulted in the deaths of unarmed people has increased tremendously. On average, the police shot and killed 1000 people last year and this trend has not changed much over this period ( Ross, 2015 ). Based on these findings, it can be concluded that this issue affects the African American community externally since they are the ones who suffer at the hands of irrational officers. The law enforcement department is affected internally because these incidences go against what the task force is supposed to do. There is a need for this problem to be addressed so that innocent lives can be saved. If equality is to be achieved in the society, then the justice department needs to streamline the police departments in every state so that these issues can be addressed effectively.
The federal government should put in place a set of guidelines and policies regarding the use of lethal force by the police so that there is no biases in the system. Whenever an authoritative system lacks uniformity and proper training, it becomes difficult to achieve a peaceful future. The problem has not yet been solved because the mentality of the police has not yet been changed regarding the use of force when reprimanding suspects. If standards will be set to regulate this issue, then the entire system can be changed for a better tomorrow.
References
Culhane, S. E., Boman IV, J. H., & Schweitzer, K. (2016). Public perceptions of the justifiability of police shootings: The role of body cameras in a pre-and post-Ferguson experiment. Police Quarterly , 19 (3), 251-274.
Harrison, D. C. (2018). Is the damage already done?: effect on the black community's psyche caused by viral police shootings (Doctoral dissertation).
Ross, C. T. (2015). A multi-level Bayesian analysis of racial bias in police shootings at the county-level in the United States, 2011–2014. PLoS One , 10 (11), e0141854.
