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From Minneapolis to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, illicit use of force by police can end in injury, death, and devastation. As we have seen many times, police injure or kill people during arrests fueled by racism in the USA and elsewhere. Throughout 2019 and 2020, people have repeatedly deployed weapons like rubber bullets and tear gas in an unlawful way against protesters. Police officers who injure or kill people after using force illicitly were roaming freely.
There’s no end to police brutality. Some recent reports and videos of brown and black people beaten or killed by police have exasperated the public. People have fueled a national uproar over the misuse of power and lethal impression against racism and roused demands for law enforcement reform.
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What is Police Brutality?
The term police brutality refers to various human rights violations by law enforcement officers. Police violence might include racial abuse, beatings, unlawful killing, and torture. The unlawful use of force by police deprives people of their right to life. If the law enforcement force is excessive and unnecessary, it adds to ill-treatment. Misuse of power by police violates the right to be free from racism, the right to security and freedom, and the right to protection under the law.
Racism in the United States
The three men had already been sentenced to prison for murdering Ahmaud Arbery. They have been found guilty of federal hate crimes. The father and son who initiated the pursuit were denied parole. The life sentence was declared after Kyle Rittenhouse announced not guilty of the shooting of two men in Kenosha during protest 2020. George Floyd’s death under Derek Chauvin’s knee created the biggest storm against racism in the USA. People continue to call for justice in the murder of Daunte Wright, Daniel prude, Breonna Taylor, and Rashard Brooke.
Besides these incidents, the USA has strict standards and national laws on when police can use force, particularly lethal force. UN basic principles urge police to protect the right to life. Under international law, police officers should use lethal force as a last resort. Many killings around the world don’t meet these criteria. In the USA, many black lives who lost their breath were unarmed. During a protest in Iran in 2019, police killed hundreds of protestors who marked no risk, including 23 children.
National Laws Against Police Brutality
All administrations have integrated human rights law with domestic legislation, but several states have failed to do this adequately. Likewise, Mexico’s law on the police force doesn’t limit the use of lethal power where it is mandatory to protect the lives of others. It doesn’t require that law enforcement officers use the minimum level of force to resolve a situation. In the USA, nine states have no laws on the lethal force by police officers.
Other countries have closed the doors of justice against police brutality victims have to seek justice from international tribunals.
What Causes Police Violence?
Police violence against people of any color has factors including racism, insecurity, conflict, entrenched impunity, and inadequate laws. Governments who crush freedom of expression and peaceful protest often approve of loaded-hand police responses to demonstrations and protests. We have seen this in Iraq, Iran, Hong Kong, Sudan, and Nicaragua. Police brutality often leads to a deadly cycle of violence. For example, in Brazil, officers often kill black lives; these killings are rarely investigated or prosecuted.
Police Brutality and Racism
International humanitarian law prohibits any form of discrimination. Any person should not be treated differently based on gender, race, religion, belief, political opinion, sexual orientation, social origin, disability, or another status. Any form of discrimination or racism is built into the justice and law enforcement systems worldwide, from discriminatory police checks and racial profiling to selective enforcement of anti-terror laws. In the UK, Amnesty International stated how Gang Matrix, a racially biased databased approached by London’s Met Police, stigmatized and criminalized young black lives. Many people suspected as criminals based on videos and content they watched on social media platforms. Even the law enforcement of a fully developed country can’t leave racism behind.
More examples of racial disparities in policing
- LGBTI people around the Earth are being abused and harassed by police.
- In 2017, the administration in Russia released a wave of police assaults on people who believed lesbian or gay. Dozens of men in Chechnya were tortured, abducted, and killed at the secret detention site.
- In the Dominican Republic, trans women and sex workers face abuse from police, including beatings, rape, and humiliation.
5 Facts About Police Use of Force in the USA
In the USA, many deaths result from an officer using a firearm. Police have shot people multiple times, misusing force that was neither proportionate nor necessary. Michael Brown, for instance, was unarmed and shot six times. According to data, in 2019, black lives were 24% killed by police violence despite only 13% of the population. A 1996 law sanctioned the US department of defense to provide surplus equipment to law enforcement agencies. This law resulted in police using military equipment to practice at the protest.
Civil society has been calling long for racism and police violence in the USA. These critical steps can save everyone:
- Congress and all USA states should pass a law to limit racial dispiriting in policing.
- The justice department should publish detailed data on people killed by misuse of force.
- All police brutality and racism cases should be independently and transparently investigated, and found responsible should be brought to justice.
- The justice department should deport oversight law enforcement departments that have breached human rights.
Accountability against Police Brutality and Racism
No one is above the law, especially those responsible for keeping it.
All cases of police violence should investigate carefully, independently, impartially, and publicly. If evidence indicates that the murder was illegal, the police officer in charge of the case should charge with a criminal offense. But Amnesty has written about how police officers who kill or injure people illegally often flee.
There are multiple reasons why this happened. In some cases, police and security forces threatened law enforcement officials, witnesses, or survivors, forcing them to drop the charges. In some cases, laws are enacted to give the police immunity or disrupt justice, even if they act illegally, for example, in Brazil.
In the Philippines, President Duterte ordered police to kill anyone he believes is linked to the drug trade when he took office in June 2016 and vowed to protect security officials from prosecution. When the President punishes murder and promises immunity, accountability is almost impossible.
Policing Protest
Governments have a responsibility to ensure that everyone can enjoy the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
There are clear international guidelines for police conduct during protests:
- It is the role of the police to promote peaceful protests. If a disagreement arises, they have a responsibility to reduce it.
- When some protesters commit violence, this does not turn a peaceful protest into peaceable. Police must make sure that those who live in peace can continue protesting.
- The violent acts of the minority group do not support the use of force indiscriminately.
- If the use of force is unavoidable to protect the safety of others, the police must use the limited power required.
- The decision to disband the protest must be a last resort – where all other non-restrictive measures seem to fail.
- To disperse the protest, tear gas canisters or water cannons should only use when people leave the scene. They can only use to respond to widespread violence even when highly targeted methods have failed to contain violence.
- Guns should not use to disperse a crowd.
Final Words
Every country in this world possesses its domestic laws, and they are not definite in any one direction for making them secure and fair. Amnesty International presents complete guidelines on the use of force by law enforcement to set out clear instructions on how the police and other security forces all around the globe can make better laws, policies, and practices.
Some of crucial the suggestions are:
- The police’s ability to use force and firearms must be properly regulated by law.
- The principle of “health protection” must be adhered to in law – lethal force can only use to prevent the threat of death or severe injury.
- When police use of force causes injury or death, there should be prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial investigations. Defendants must face the full force of the law in fair trials.
- During protests, the police should guide by their duty to promote peaceful rallies, and their starting point should not be the use of force.
- Imprisoned people have the same rights as everyone else when it comes to the power of murder.
References:
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/police-brutality/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z
- https://www.pbs.org/articles/racism-in-america