Taylor Brown
BART Police Shooting of Oscar Grant
Menke, C. (2010). Law and Violence. University of California Press, 22(1), 1-17. (Scholarly)
The article focuses on how the law is supposed to reduce violence and be so against it, yet they bring it into the world themselves. The writer states that the law itself is a kind of violence and that the decision making could exert violence both physical attacks and inner violence which reflects back to my conflict. The officer who shot the victim in my conflict made a decision along with a judgment, a judgment who most define as a racial thing. The purpose that the officer gives about even confronting the victim was because he was bringing violence to citizens however, was it right to fight violence with violence? No. in an end result, there was a dead body on sight, Oscar Grant. Because of the incident, there then were riots, protests, many which ended in violence and plenty of deaths. The law doesn’t grasp the fact that their actions and decisions that they make will have an effect on future events. If the one officer of the “law” genuinely wanted to follow the law and make the streets a better and safer place, he would have played that incident out differently. This just goes to show how much the “law” is being valued or just human rights in general. Which is exactly what the reader is trying to get across, officers often time abuse their power. In the article it is made clear that there are people out here that are seeing the true colors of the law. The law is here to protect us not to kill us off themselves.
I chose this article because it focuses on two of the themes that my conflict is categorized under, violence and law. The only thing the article talks about is the abuse of the law and the loose ends of reasons why most officers leave a scene with a dead body on their hands. It tells how officers contradict the law every day. This article was really helpful for me because I always thought that it was only family or friends that have lost someone to a law abusing policeman that saw the blurs of the law but it’s not. Everyone is aware of what is going on its just a question now of what’s going to be done about it, whose voice will be heard. Even though I know some actual stories about how policeman fought violence with violence or just didn’t reflect the law so well, I think for other readers who would come across this it would be helpful to provide some examples.
Smith, K. (2013, July 25). Fruitvale Station is loose with the facts in an effort to elicit sympathy for Oscar Grant. Forbes. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2013/07/25/fruitvale-station-is-loose-with-the-facts-in-an-effort-to-elicit-sympathy-for-oscar-grant/
This article focuses on the side that shows no sympathy for the death of Oscar Grant. The author of the article is saying that a movie that was recently put out based on the last hours of Oscar
Grants life was a cry out for pity. He says that it was purposely put out right before the verdict of Trayvon Martin’s case was found to gain sympathy. He really didn’t see the bigger picture or reason behind the movie. The purpose was to get the story out there, to not have Oscar Grants life forgotten, and to have what many thought was unjust publicized.
I chose this article because it just shows the people who really don’t care about justice. It shows that because of people like that, it makes police officers think they can get away with police brutality. If one officer can get off easily from murder then other officers will think that they can get off with basically nothing if they just beat or hit someone just because of whatever the issue such as race, because they’re having a bad day, because the person said something in front of a group of people and the officer feels embarrassed etc. The article also shows another side of opinions other than the ones I’ve presented.
Liqun , C. (2002 ). Curbing police brutality: what works? a reanalysis of citizen complaints at the organizational level . Unpublished manuscript, Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology , Eastern Michigan University , Ypsilanti, MI, Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/192518.pdf (scholarly)
This articles talks deeper into the subject of police brutality. A term that is not put in the media as much as it occurs. This is what the article is saying. The news and what they put out would quickly say if a black man beat another black man to death without purpose, or a black man beats a white man to death without purpose but wouldn’t necessary put a police officer beats a black man without purpose in the headline. Most of the time viewers have to put two and two together. The news and government try their very best to cover up the wrong doings of policeman. The article also goes into details of a few incidents where police brutality was present, many where there was injustice or the policeman just got off or did very little time, just like the officer who murdered Oscar Grant. The article also brings out how long police brutality has actually been going on, which is since the 1980s. Police departments are always on TV talking about how much they are working forward to make the world a better and safer place but won’t even start that transition within their own department.
This scholarly article relates back to my conflict because I labeled police brutality as the larger conflict of my conflict. It gives a broad outlook on the opinions of it. It shows that everyone is not a blind as they seem. People are really catching on to the police and people will not stand for it for long. just like the people who started riots in Oakland for Oscar Grant, people will start taking action everywhere. The police will not be able to get off so easily sooner or later too many people are aware all over the world. This is also not happening just in one particular state, it’s happening everywhere.
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/topics/violence/
This article focuses on what the main issue of violence is, how to prevent it, getting help, and psychology tips. The article is really short ye provide links that can be clicked on to go into detail with certain issues and help of prevention of violence. Within the article it tell ways you can tell a situation is about to escalate to violence. It proves that violence could be everything, within your own home, within your friendships, marriage, anything.
This article reflects back to my conflict because I personally believe that as a policeman you know when a scene is going to turn violent and you know how to approach certain situations. Going back to my conflict, the officer seemed to had let all of his training go out of the window and just acted on the situation on his own. There are qualifications and training that all police officers have to go through before they are just placed on the street and sent to different scenes, everyone knows that. But, in many situations just like my conflict policemen do not always follow through with what they’re taught to do and how they are directed to handle things. How are citizens expected to keep violence off the street when we have to watch our back from the people who are supposed to be protecting us in the first place?
Izzet , L. (2002). A case study on police misconduct in the united states of america and an applicable model for the turkish national police . Informally published manuscript, Master of Science , University of Texas, Retrieved from http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3234/m2/1/high_res_d/thesis.pdf (scholarly)
This article is about police misconduct. Some key points of the article if in the very first paragraph when the author talks about human rights. It states that protecting human rights of the citizens are a part of the everyday duties of an officer. By law, officers are supposed to enforce the law when they’re out there on the streets and in the public. These days, because of many incidents that has happened because of policemen abusing their power, citizens may not even want to get the police involved because they don’t know what the outcome will be. The people should never have to fear the people who are here to protect them, but in this article, it is expressed that this is exactly what it has come to.
This article relates to my conflict because it just goes to show that people are growing to fear and hate the police. Not many people in the world feel comfortable when the police is around, many tense up. Just like the situation with Oscar Grant, once the police is on the scene you can never actually communicate with police respectfully and get that in return. Police officers always feel like they have something to prove which is where the problems come in. Yes, officers will come across people who are ignorant without purpose but for those who aren’t, like Oscar Grants wasn’t, will still get a weapon waved in their face or verbal abuse screamed at them. It’s obvious that policemen has lost sight in what their actual job is.
Information Literacy: Conflicts 