Excessive Force used by Police officers in US

Police and the law is made to protect us rather than to exploit us. Police officers also have some rules and regulations which they need to follow strictly in any procedure during their duty hours. But in-spite of all this, there is a case of police brutality or violence every seven hours in United States. Excessive use of powers by police officers has been observed to suppress the situation or take that situation under their control.

Undue advantage or misuse of powers given by government to the police officers on common citizens breaching their civil rights is called police brutality or police violence. Police brutality does not just includes torture or encounters but also physical or verbal abuse,  mental torture, giving stress during interrogation, rape and false arrests. Police is meant to help us and protect our rights but it is more often seen that it terrifies the people around.

According to a data, every nine out of ten people claim that police violence is a problem in the country. (The Guardian)  Excessive force refers to situations where police officials try exceeding the minimum limit to control the situation. The constitutional right meant to protect from excessive force is found reasonable and as a requirement in the fourth amendment right and the prohibition of cruel or unusual punishment in eighth amendment law. But even after that many of rights of common people are violated by the police officers. (Kellie Pantekoek, Findlaw)

There have been many such cases where there was found to be misuse of force by the police officers. In a certain case of Tennessee V. Garner who was trying to flee from a house he had burglarised, he was a non- threatening teenager but the police shot him to stop him. This case was taken to Supreme Court and it refused to authorise the use of “all the necessary means to affect the arrest” plead so avoid the violation of fourth amendment. Similarly, it recognized the arrest of unnecessary people and torturing them to get information. There should be certain ways to do it. (Berenice Garcia, The Monitor)

In the recent times, where there is a huge protest for treating black people with respect and dignity, there had been some cases which show excessive steps taken by police officers to stop the crowd, which was protesting peacefully. Last month when U.S president Donald Trump went to visit a historic church near the white house, the police officers threw tear gas on the people doing silent protest and turned them out of the way. (The Guardian)

The Black Lives Matter protests peaked on 6 June with half a million people protesting in nearly 550 places across America. This is being considered as biggest protest till date and the reason, not to mention, is excessive force and torture being executed on the common people by the police officers. It all started with George Floyd unreasonable brutal torture, where he was restrained in the ground on road and was tortured to such an extent that he lost his life. George kept on appealing that let him breathe nearly 30 times, he told that he was claustrophobic and did not had any weapons and was ready to surrender but the police officers inhumanly tortured him to death. (USA Today, Joshua Bute)

Racism is a big problem in America and the growing cases of police violence and brutality only makes it worse. There is a need of strict monitoring to avoid and discrepancies further and the US government should take strict actions against anyone not following or going through the defined laws. However, Trump has launched full-throated defenses of the police, about which the survey found by the guardian had contrasting views.  

According to the survey, three out of four people that are around 76 percent of people believe that most cops are good people but there are a few “bad apples”. But more than one in 10 that is thirteen percent people have the opposite opinion which is that most police officers are bad people, but there are some good ones. Through the survey one thing was clearly evident that excessive use of powers in US by the police officers was a serious matter or concern.

Law is above all and everyone should follow it. Police officers also have some guidelines which they should follow regardless of their personal liking or disliking. Powers are given to the police officers to take action when there is need. But misusing it for their personal grudge, no matter how serious is not acceptable.

Fourth Amendment and Eighth amendment speaks about the violence against common citizens. Also Supreme Court asked the police to get into the detail of an investigation and before taking actions, certain decorum should be maintained. Supreme Court issued some steps of differentiating the level of punishment and actions which can be taken by police officers in order to arrest the criminals. (Associated Press)

Physical presence, verbalization, empty hand control which deals which physical body moves, less lethal methods or weapons and then lethal weapons like guns and firearms should be allowed. And while taking action on any step, police should have credible proof of arresting the person. Even then use of unreasonable force should stop if the suspect is successfully restrained and checked. It is not allowed to punish suspects or criminals who do not posses threats. 

After acknowledging all this, it is our role to keep ourselves aware of the rights and keep in check abouhow we can prevent police officers from using excessive force on the public unnecessarily. For that purpose some remedies are available. Excessive force is a constitutional violation and any person who has been a victim of such thing can file a civil right complain for monetary injunctive relief. (Associated Press)

The victim can also file a complaint in Department of Justice, which may decide to investigate your case if some relevant clue is found. Generally when the person files the complaint, the court looks into the matter very precisely and judges on some crucial criteria. They try to know the severity of the crime committed by the person, any happening which could or had threatened the police officer to take that particular action against him/her and whether it is justified or not. The court tries to find if the individual was resisting request or trying to flee in any case. If there were any alternatives which the officer had to prevent the action of sequences and if at all warning was provided by the police official. (Kellie Pantekoek, Findlaw)

These factors matter a lot however saying so over the year’s police officials somehow escape the trap and get immunity for just doing the job. The situation often is not that complicated as it is shown in the court of justice. Hence the real victims of police brutality do not get proper justice and their rights are often violated. It would not be wrong to say that due to existing racism in the country, a major amount of cases happening due to excessive power used by police force is on a particular community or race.

It is really disheartening to know that in every seven hours, there is case of police violence or brutality where the police officers use excessive force resulting in violation of civil rights of people living in United States. (Business Standard)  This unfair and unreasonable practice should stop as soon as it is possible.