2.2 Minority Perspective
Minorities, especially the African-American community, are the main target of police brutality. Since I am focusing on violence against African-Americans, I looked into them and their distrust and other feelings towards police officers.
40% of African-Americans think that the issue of police violence is very serious (Figure 3). They also think the police are far more likely to use force on them over their white counterparts (Figure 4), and that minority groups are treated unfairly by law enforcement. Knowing this, most are hesitant to trust the police (AP-NORC, 2017).
A perfect example of the hesitancy to trust law enforcement is this story told by Nikole Hannah-Jones, who spoke of this incident to put the distrust …show more content…
They fled the scene, trying to avoid danger. When they stopped, one of her friends, a mixed girl who had grown up in a predominantly white suburb, pulled out her phone. Hannah-Jones and her other friends were amazed when they found out the girl was calling the police. Nobody else had even thought of doing that. Police pose as too much of a threat to them to risk it.
They were used to all of the stories. Where witnesses and victims are spoken to as suspects and blamed for the crime. Where officers pulled guns on them just for being there. The girl on the phone was subject to the first case. The police called back, over and over, each time becoming more accusative until they were blaming her for firing the gun when she had only been there by chance.
Hannah-Jones told more stories like this. She seems to have an unlimited number of them. A young man in her neighbourhood was stopped by a cop. When the man asked why he was halted, he was thrown to the ground and tasered. The young man was later charged with resisting arrest, though he still had no idea why. Another friend was driving his son to soccer practice when he was pulled over because he looked like a suspect. He and his son were held to the ground at gunpoint before the police decided he was not the man they wanted and let him go. (Hannah-Jones,