Black Lives Matter and Use of Body Camera (4)

Black Lives Matter

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Black Lives Matter and Use of Body Camera

Introduction

Over the past decades in the US, police brutality against African-American people in the US has risen steadily. Racial inequity issues have led to a lot of incoherence in various communities in the world, such as riots and demonstrations. Police brutality is the use of excessive force by police officers on its citizens. African-American people have always felt that cops and the entire criminal integrity system in the US target them as compared to different ethnicities. It prompted people to start Social Movement Organizations (SMOs) to fight for the rights of these people leading to the establishment of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement through the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. (Vanessa, 2018). The Black Lives Matters movement aims at fighting and breaking the racial oppression upon which the US has established herself (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015). It aims at fighting this new kind of racism by bringing together all the black people excluded by the Civil Rights Movements in the past (Bobo, 2011). A single idea started the movement in 2012 triggered by the demise of an African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin, and the acquittal of the officer who led to the death of the former, Officer George Zimmerman (Monica, 2018).

Thesis statement: In this paper, the researcher examines the reasons why the people coined the BLM hashtag and campaign through a content analysis study as well as importance on implementing body cameras by police.

Review of Previous Research

Extent of police brutality

The statistics showing that more than half of the victims of police brutality are either Blacks or Latinos in the US prompted people to formulate the BLM. Despite the black Americans making up 12% of the US population, the criminal justice system seems to target them through fatal encounters with law enforcement agencies.

Alicia Garza, Cullors, and Opal Tometi coined the hashtag BLM on July 13, 2013, through Twitter. The trio formulated the hashtag to dissent the exoneration of George Zimmerman, a police officer, who shot death Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black American youngster (Jelani, 2017).

Bonilla-Silva (2012) argued that people no longer racially discriminate based on biological factors somewhat covert or color-blind racism. He further explains that people should not see the color of an individual skin instead of a person’s social and cultural failings, giving a new base for racism in the US based on culture. People use the skin color of an individual to determine what they are in the inside (Bonilla-Silva, 2012). Bobo (2011) analyzes the colorblind racism and the criminal justice system in the US. Even though the criminal justice system wants to serve people equally, the level of black incarceration in the US tripled between 1980 and 2000. The ration of black people to white people increased to more than 8 to 1. It implies that for every one white American arrested, more than eight black Americans also faced

Problem statement

George Floyd Murder led to a lot of discussions including why often there has been need to use force especially on black men. This led to the discussion on the Collin Kaeprick as he tried kneeling to protest against police brutality as a peaceful means yet the backlash he got led to him losing his job.

The idea on peaceful protest has always been controversial in United States. Leaders like Martin Luther advocated for peaceful protests while Malcolm X on the other hand was seen as advocating for use of violence in fighting systemic racism. 2020 seem to be the year where discussion on which form of protest will seem to yield fruits.

There have been debates that only way peace can be found is if only there are better laws preventing police Brutality

Policy Effectiveness

There has been debates on the need of body cameras so that there is collaboration when it comes to the cases of police brutality (Dorothy, 2015).

Getting to capture these cases is important especially during trials as most police officers often do not want going behind their colleagues making the trial harder.

Most police brutality cases are usually the words of the officer against the police use of cameras would help.

Use of body cameras will help show the side of the story if excessive force will be used. Blue Code of silence is the leading reason as to why most police officers get away with brutality (Anthony, 2017).

Policy Recommendation

There are various police precincts that have implemented the use of body cameras most capturing the interactions between the law enforcers as well as citizens.

All officers should be made to wear body cameras

There should be review of all footage to determine the truth of the matter in cases where citizens file cases of brutality

There is evidence that police officers are far much more lenient when dealing with protests by whites as compared to when the protesters are actually black (Alese, 2020)

Conclusion

The BLM movement plays a pivotal role in raising awareness amongst the black people in American society. The police brutality and inefficiency of the US legal system have prompted the people to fight for their rights and voice their frustrations through social movements leading to a finely tuned awareness and social cohesion.

The social movement should objectify the acquisition of support and enlightening various black communities about colorblind racism. The criminal justice system should formulate laws that can replace the neutral laws that have been a subject of racial discrimination.

The fact that the cases of African Americans getting killed keep soaring then there needs to be a candid discussion on the need for laws that will protect the African Americans from the injustices most specifically police brutality

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 Alese Wooditch, C. D. (2020). Perceptions of Body-Worn Cameras: Findings from a Panel Survey of Two LAPD Divisions. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 426-453.

Anthony Braga, P. J. (2017). The Benefits of Body-Worn Cameras: . National Criminal Justice journal, 45-50.

Dorothy Charlse, Kathryn Himmelstern, Walker Keenan Nicholas Baried. (2015). White Coats For Black Lives: Responding to Racism and Police Brutality. Journal of Urban Health, 88-102.

Jelani Ince, F. R. (2017). The Social Media Response to Black Lives Matter: How twitter Users Interact with Black Lives Matter through Hashtag Use. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 14-30.

Monica Anderson, S. T. (2018). An Analysis of Black Lives Matter and other Twitter Hashtags related to political or social issues. Pew Research Center, 50-62.

Vanessa Williamson, Kristella Trump and Katherine Levine Einsten. (2018). Black lives Matter: Evidence that Police caused Deaths Predict Protest Activity. Cambridge University Press, 400-415.