To be fair, it should be noted that Graham did not have a
clean record. He had been arrested eight
times with charges ranging from robbery on down to assaulting a police officer. Still, it is hard to justify the warrantless killing
of an unarmed young man in front of his grandmother and six year old
brother. Especially when the only
wrongdoing police can point to is the fact that Graham was flushing marijuana down
the toilet. I recognize the fact that
police work can be extremely dangerous and that Graham was certainly no angel
but the conflicts in the story just do not sit well with me. The idea that Graham lost his life over a
flushable amount of marijuana when just last month a New York City photographer
who got busted
with ten pounds of marijuana in her apartment was set free without jail
time or probation.
Unfortunately police killings are not all that rare. NYPD officers shot and killed two other young
men the same week of the Graham incident.
The NYPD seems to have a history of killing unarmed civilians. The most recent high profile case was that of
Sean Bell. Bell and his friends were
leaving a club after a bachelor party celebration for Bell. NYPD fired upon Bell’s vehicle 50 times. The common thread in these cases seems to be
that police thought that the victims were armed but the reality is that in many
cases they are not. Most of these
incidences do not make the national news and if
we use history as an indicator the officers involved in Graham’s killing
will be acquitted.
I chose this topic because I anticipate that a riot or an
uprising as a result of one of these killings.
These incidences are not exclusive to New York. The video below shows Oscar Grant being
killed by a law enforcement officer in Oakland.
A year or so prior to this a seven
year old girl in Detroit was killed by an officer when police raided the
wrong house. Just last year in London
riots did happen in protest of the police killing of Mark
Duggan. Our criminal justice classes
teach us that community policing is an effective model but only if the
community believes in the system. One of
the criticisms of community policing is that in some areas citizens will not
cooperate. How can you blame them when
they see police get off with slaps on the wrist for taking a life of innocent
civilians?
References:
I feel as though there are always going to be accidents with law enforcement and civilians. I do think that there are precautions that can be taken to help alleviate the chances of these accidents, however no matter what there are going to be conflict of interests between authority and society. The officers should be reprimanded, do some prison time, and have a permanent tint on his criminal record. He however should not be charged as heavily. It is the officers duty to protect society and use his own judgement in determining how to do so. No officer is perfect and makes the best decisions all the time, which in my opinion, is very common. Very interesting points and cases that are pointed out!
ReplyDeleteReading this i was just kind of going along thinking about what i thought about these situations, and then i watched the video and was absolutely shocked. That right there was a completely unnecessary use of force. I feel that officers sometimes just don't think and pull their gun. I know everyone has their moments and don't think the situation through but not everyone has a gun at their hip. I think that shooting someone for flushing marijuana down the toilet is ridiculous. Is the first thing they think of to stop someone is to shoot them? The victims here were not harming anyone yet they were shot and killed by the police. Quite frankly it disgusts me.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe this! Even if Graham was involved in the alleged drug activity, that is a non-violent crime! They shot him dead for flushing marijuana down the toilet.. How could he have been holding a gun at the officers at the same time that he was flushing the marijuana down the toilet? I want to know if the cops got reprimanded for this? They busted into a house without a warrant, and shot someone dead for a non-violent crime… do they still have their jobs?
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the BART video… that is absolutely insane! They had him constrained on the ground, he obviously was not getting away or hurting anyone, how could they do that??!
I thought in policing you have to do everything before you can shoot. I cannot believe this.Reading about Graham is unbelievable. Bad record or not no one deserves to lose their life over flushing weed. I believe that some officers are power hungry and they don't care the effect some decisions will have on others. Shooting him specailly in front of his grandmother and little brother? No one should have to see that. Then I read how the little 7 year old girl got shot and that just made me extremely mad. How many years of that little girls life did that officer take? Also how many years did that officer NOT get sent to jail?
ReplyDeleteIts a shame when these types of events take place and i feel like justie should be give to the people who loose their lives and maybe the departments need to make better poliies to deal with problems such as this
ReplyDelete