A Brief History of Police Brutality

★ by Dana Brady ★

Last year, 1,099 people were killed by the police. While Black people account for 24 percent of this figure, they make up 13 percent of the population — a disproportionate rate. Despite being halfway through 2020, protests over racial injustice and police brutality have built momentum in all 50 states. These protests are not just in response to the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, but reflect the public’s overall outrage and contempt towards the unchecked actions of police officers.

Historically, police officers who have killed unarmed Black individuals have faced little or no repercussions. Statistics gathered by the independent organization, Mapping Police Violence, found that “99 percent of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime.” In May, Reuters published a new investigation showing that police have benefited from qualified immunity, a statement intended to protect government employees against excessive or “frivolous” litigation. Instead, Reuters found that “...police won 56 percent of cases in which they claimed qualified immunity from 2017 through 2019. That’s up sharply from the three prior years when they won 43 percent of the time.” Before 2016, the Department of Justice did not require police departments to collect data on officer-related fatalities. New requirements have since been created to account for “arrest-related deaths.”

According to law enforcement officials, alleged “noncompliance with orders from authorities” justifies the use of deadly force against citizens. The police department in my home state of New York receives more funding than the housing, youth, homeless, and health agencies combined. Specifically, the NYPD receives $5.6 billion compared to a combined total of $5.4 billion for the other services listed.

These statistics suggest that increased policing has not led to safer communities. City Council members in Minneapolis have pledged to disband their police force because police reform alone is not enough. We need community institutions that are well-funded and highly valued to protect the people most at risk — the police do not fit these criteria. 

The following is only a fraction of the names and stories of individuals murdered at the hands of law enforcement. While these stories gained media attention, they still represent only a small sample of decades of cases. While the victims range from young to old with varying circumstances and places, those wrongly murdered continue to be disproportionately Black.

Tamir Rice was just 12 years old when he was shot by officer Timothy Loehmann. In 2014, Rice was playing with a toy pellet gun in a Cleveland park when the officer mistook the toy for a real gun. Within seconds, Rice was dead. That same year John Crawford III was killed under strikingly similar circumstances. Police responded to a call that somebody was wielding a rifle inside a Walmart near Dayton, Ohio. It was later discovered he was holding a toy air rifle from the store. No officers were ever convicted for his death. In 2016, Philando Castile pulled over for law enforcement and was killed when reaching for his driver’s license. While officers may use the guise of "it looked like a gun", they often base their actions off suspicions of the possession of arms. His fiancee and her 4-year-old daughter were inside the car.

“While the victims range from young to old with varying circumstances and places, those wrongly murdered remain disproportionately Black.”

When explaining their actions, police often cite the pressure they feel to make “split-second” decisions. Despite this claim, there are several instances that show us Black people aren’t safe even within their own homes. In March of this year, Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor inside her apartment after breaking in unannounced and shooting her eight times. In 2018, just two years before Taylor’s death, 22-year-old Stephon Clark was killed in his family’s backyard in Sacramento, California. That same year, Botham Jean was killed in his apartment by an off-duty officer who mistook him for an intruder in his own apartment.

Black people are three times as likely to be killed by police than White people. Additionally, Black victims are 1.3 times as likely to be unarmed than their white counterparts, often with non-violent offenses. Just last month, George Floyd was killed after being accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill. A Minneapolis officer used his knee to pin down Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes. His story calls back to Eric Garner, a man suffocated to death after NYPD officers put him in a chokehold. Garner was accused of selling loose cigarettes; a crime that, in New York, usually results in a fine. Both men pleaded for air as they struggled to tell law enforcement they couldn’t breathe; they were subsequently killed. 

Beyond these cases, similar patterns exist in traffic violations. In 2015, Walter Scott was pulled over during a daytime traffic stop for an alleged broken brake light. Scott was shot and killed by Michael Slager, a White North Charleston police officer. The same year, Samuel DuBose was fatally shot after being stopped by Ray Tensing, a White University of Cincinnati police officer who claimed DuBose was missing front license plates and had a suspended driver's license. These experiences with police intervention show that socio-cultural factors result in racial injustices for Blacks.

In 2015 and 2016, the Trump campaign dominated U.S. news outlets, leaving little room for discussion of police reform. In 2017, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that he aimed to “pull back on civil rights lawsuits and investigations against the police." Additionally, the 2017 Gallup poll indicated that public confidence in the police recovered from 52 percent in 2015 back to its long-standing average of 57 percent. This return was largely fueled by older White Americans whose survey answers reflected “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police. During this time, confidence in police fell 5 percent among Black Americans along with those under the age of 35.  Confidence in police fell 5 percent among Black Americans along with those under the age of 35 during this time. These results vividly highlight a divide between race and age.

This lack of confidence, coupled with the coverage of Black murders at the hands of police, have now (finally) sparked national protests. In the capital region of New York, demonstrations in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement are ongoing. Jammella Anderson, a Black 29-year-old doula and yoga teacher that attended the Albany Run/Walk Rally for Black Lives on May 30 said:

“For starters, I was pretty nervous to attend. On the one hand, I was scared that it would be small, and then, on the other hand, I was scared that there would be counter-riots. What I ended up seeing was the Albany community and beyond coming together to stand up and amplify black stories and experiences. The crowd just kept getting bigger and bigger into the thousands.”

The rally was planned by the grassroots organization, Citizen Action of New York. Anderson described that:

 “... the march was from Quail Street to Lark Street long — the biggest march Albany has seen in a long while. I have never felt so moved by our little city than [on] that day. Every person showed up 100 percent. The fact that police brutality against Black and Brown [people] is prevalent in so many cities is an outrage and, frankly, shouldn’t be stood for. I refuse to back down anymore and accept the nonsense that is law enforcement. I shouldn’t [and] we shouldn’t be afraid of the people who are supposed to serve and protect us. The march/protest was just a link in a long chain reaction.”

While the demonstration remained peaceful, the outrage of its attendees was clear and palpable. 

Several different narratives have emerged surrounding these protests. Discussions of looting and property damage give way to the deeper roots of racism stemming from its existence in society. Robert Williams-Taylor, a Black 28-year-old library assistant at Albany High School, pointed out: “Capitalism always backs property. Black people are not coming back from the dead.”

“It is not over after reading one book written by a Black author; it is not over after listening to one curated playlist of Black musicians — the work is on-going.”

Williams-Taylor was quick to point out, too, that many Black people are simply fed up with explaining it to their White friends: “I don’t need a black square [on Instagram], I need you to talk to your families ... I need White people to do deeper work.”

This deeper work Williams-Taylor is referring to is not over in one conversation or social media post; it is not over after reading one book written by a Black author; it is not over after listening to one curated playlist of Black musicians — the work is on-going. Indeed, it is everyday work.

We can create a community that defunds police and reallocates that funding into public safety that includes city employees, first responders, mental health specialists, teams trained in crisis intervention, and even our neighbors. We can begin by relying more on professionals best suited to help address social problems, rather than those who carry out punishment or deadly force. If we only view racism as a single-person illness rather than a whole system that is active within American institutions, we allow it to persist. Changing our priorities isn’t just a nice idea. For some, it’s absolutely necessary for their survival in America.