Police brutality: When police officers have less training hours than a barber….

Despite being an economic and political powerhouse the US has a high crime rate and the main reason behind this is poverty despite having the largest economy, the US has one of the highest rates of income inequality. This wealth disparity is also seen when we compare statistics racially. Only 44% of black Americans own a house for comparison it is nearly 74% for white Americans. In America, in one part you can see mansions and all most crime-free zones but in the other, you see the disproportionately poor and violent neighborhoods of Detroit and Phoenix. The US has an incarceration rate of 655 which is the highest in the world for a comparison it is 178 in Venezuela. For starters, the incarceration rate is the number of prisoners per 100,000 citizens.

The police in the US are so violent because none can prosecute them for using force all because of Qualified Immunity. Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in the US federal law which protects government officials from being prosecuted for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity. The police officers who killed George Floyd had used force previously but got away because of this doctrine. Apparently, the training hours for a police officer vary from state to state in the US. All most all of them are lower than those required for a licensed barber for example in the state of Louisiana police officers require just 360 hours of training and a licensed manicurist requires 500 hours. The police in the US kills more than 1000 people every year. That is just the tip of the iceberg. A study conducted by researchers from Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and Washington University in St. Louis was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They used data from Fatal Encounters, a journalist made a database of fatal encounters with the police. They used the data to estimate the risk of being killed by police on the basis of race, age, and sex. The study concluded that police violence is the sixth-leading cause of death for men ages 25 to 29 across all racial groups. The study clearly proves the brutality of police towards black Americans. 1 in every 1000 black men faces fatal police violence which is 2.5 times that of white men.

Many of those killed don’t even resist the police with force and sometimes they are even innocent. Take the example of Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year-old black man who was unarmed and even raised his hands to surrender was fatally shot by police officer Darren Wilson in the city of Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014. The most recent incident related to George Floyd showed how inhumane these officers can be. Despite George’s multiple attempts to make the police officer realize that he wasn’t able to breathe but the officer showed no mercy.

The police need to be defunded and the funds should be diverted into crime prevention by investing in housing, employment, etc. The police need to have more training hours. They need to be taught to respect each and every person irrespective of their race. Policies against the use of force need to be rewritten for example the type of neck restraint that Officer Derek Chauvin used on George Floyd has been banned in New York City since 1993, the other counties and states need to do the same. The use of body cameras

George Floyd needs to be provided justice and the protest shouldn’t end until there is a reform in the American law enforcement system. People should sign petitions, donate, and protest in a non-violent manner.