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Collin's Theory Of Police Violence

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The beating of Rodney King – the presence of situational and emotional dynamics in violent situations.

Most incidents of police violence which have created a public scandal has the appearance of atrocity due to its disproportionate use of force. The Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, March 1991 is an archetypal instance. King was caught by police officers after a high-speed chase and was brutally beaten (Karstedt, Loader & Strang, 2013). Local witness George Holiday filmed much of it from his balcony and the video later aired around the world, which raised concerns about police treatment of minorities in America (Karstedt, Loader & Strang, 2013). After a three-month trial the officers were acquitted and the outrage sparked the violent 1992 …show more content…

Randall Collin's (2009) micro-sociological theory of violence can be employed. According to this theory, violence is successful when antagonists overcome the barrier of confrontational tension/fear. This essay focuses on the role of situational and emotional dynamics that caused the violence event to occur. The essential thesis of the essay is to fit the police violence into the framework of Collin’s theory. This leads to the discussion of the theory of the “tunnel of violence”, where actual violence involves dominating the emotional attention space and the attacker enters an altered state of consciousness (Collins, 2013). Collin’s proposed "pathways" that lead into the tunnel of violence will also be drawn upon. The pathway of the "forward panic" is particularly useful for illustrating the finer details of precisely how the police mobilised the violence. Collins (2008) shifted the attention away from background and cultural conditions in this case, suggesting that there are "no violent individuals, but [only] violent situations" (p.70). This essay concludes by suggesting important implications about confrontations between police and civilians, especially when officers are in full forward panic

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Leadership, decision-making processes can sometimes result in dilemmas. The dilemmas are often the result of contradictions between personal perceptions and biases on the one hand and the application of legal principles and best practices on the other (Bergesen & Max, 1998). The Roy King Riots case study is a prime example of how conflicts between personal perceptions and set rules can clash resulting in ethical dilemmas. In the case, a Los Angeles jury had acquitted four officers caught on camera brutally assaulting a suspect, Roy King, until he was unable to move before arresting him (Bergesen & Max, 1998). Television stations aired the tape, which sparked uproar within the Los Angeles African-American and Latin American communities claiming the incessant use of brutal force by police officers from the LAPD and constant lack of response from the institution’s top leadership.

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Police Brutality Rhetorical Analysis

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This story is told to provide the reader with a testament of police brutality. To prove that it is a real thing that happens and that the police officer’s actions were not only unnecessary, but unfair. Danna heavily relies on pathos to appeal to the audience’s

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The Injustice Case Of Rodney King In 1992

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After the trial and the verdict had come back, the four police officers were acquitted of the crime. The community began to riot, loot, and kill which fifty-four people lost their lives, over seven thousand people were arrested, and cost the city of L.A.

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Rodney King Court Case

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Rodney king, born in Sacramento, California in 1965 and grew up to be known as a polite yet not very intelligent child and teenager. King was a high school dropout and a single father with a history of criminal activity. Rodney King was most famously known for his court battle against L.A.P.D. officers Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Ted Briseno, and Timothy Wind . On March 3, 1991 two crimes occurred involving King, one of which he was the offender and the other where he was the victim. On this Saturday night at 12:50 am Rodney king was driving his white Hyundai under the influence of alcohol along with his two fiends Freddie Helms and Bryant Allen.

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Cesar Chavez Nonviolent Resistance Analysis

651 Words | 3 Pages

On lines 17-21, Chavez presents the unwanted outcomes of violence. He argues that once violence begins, it will escalate and result in injury or death on both sides. And, if somehow the violence does not escalate to that point, total

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Analysis Of Pathway I: Attack A Weak Victim

1007 Words | 5 Pages

Pathway I: Attacking a weak victim Collins (2009) claims that it is easier to surmount the confrontational tension when the victim is considered weaker. Although King was a muscular man, he was outnumbered, off-balanced, and able to be emotionally dominated in the situation by officers (Aho, 2013). In Collins' study of riots, he found that violent behaviour is often committed by four or five people against one victim (Collins, 2008). Holiday's video is horrific because violence displayed in the media appears different as groups are usually balanced. Moreover, policemen with training and organisation allows them to overcome confrontational fear more easily and to readily attack a weak victim Research has shown that violence is easier for military and police forces, as they have been trained on to use weapons and to conduct violence (Worden, 1996).

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Summary: Similarities Of Police Violence And Guard Violence

602 Words | 3 Pages

Similarities of the Police Violence and Guard Violence In the summer of 2015, I read a literature that theorizes about the police violence. In Police Violence (1959), Westley argues that the abuse of the power by the policemen are due to misunderstanding that the power, “a property of the state”, is thought to be given, not loaned, to be used “at [policeman’s] discretion”, and social nature of the job pressures one to adopt more cruel methods when dealing with the sexual deviants and felons, so that one can improve the “social status among the colleagues” (Westley, 47). When I was reading Solomon and the violence among the guards of the immigration detention centers, I saw some parallels to the work of Westley, since the socialization among the guards that dehumanize the “deviants” is recognizably innate to the violence in the detention centers.

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A Perpetrator Is Not The Most Dangerous Part Of The Holocaust

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"A perpetrator is not the most dangerous enemy. The most dangerous part is the bystander because neutrality always helps the killer. " This quote, said by Holocaust survivor, Miles Lehrman, presents the idea that being a bystander to a situation is worse than being the perpetrator. While it is true that bystanders can play a role in enabling violent actions, it is an oversimplification to say that they are the most dangerous part of the equation. In fact, perpetrators of violence are an even greater threat to society than passive bystanders.

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Christopher R. Browning in his book “Ordinary Men,” argues the influence that violence and pressure had on these men to carry out a such attack. For instance, he mentions that some of the men who agreed “sincerely thought that they had no choice when faced with orders to kill,” emphasizing the nature of their actions (Browning, pg. 170). If they didn’t follow orders, what would happen to them? Even though some were given the choice to not be a part of this, it is predictable that there was a sense of hesitance to disobey orders. In addition, he states “many policemen admitted responding to the pressures of conformity,” by making such a statement one can infer that some felt forced to act as they did because they did not want to be judged by their peers (Browning, pg.174).

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And to prevent incidents like this in the future and to prevent violent against the citizens, it was an excellent idea to reduce the cost of innocent civilians. After the shooting of Brown, there were nearly 95 percent of police departments reported that they were using the live body camera according to National Survey (J. Thomas Manger, Donnie Youngblood, 2015). Which, of course, reduce the violent and provide a solid encounter among police-civilian(s). The chart from the ‘Mapping Police Violence show that only less than one in every three blacks were killed by police in America back in 2014 where only 69 percent of the suspect were non-violent or unarmed while just 31 percent were armed and violent. Two decades ago, in the city of Los Angeles, Rodney King was brutally beaten by multiple officers and this lead to a riot- which cause the lives of 53 civilians in the hand of police.

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Injuries: was beaten over 50 times with police bats, which resulted in 11 fractures and other injuries. Tragically, there were over 20 police officers that were present but did not protect the safety of Rodney King Rodney filed a civil case against the officers for his injuries but was awarded nothing at all. Moreover, other things such

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This report is showing light to the communities’ response to police brutality particularly in the black communities and also their encounters with police officers. Police brutality is physical violence and great cruelty demonstrated by a police officer. Police brutality and misconduct have existed for many decades and it even has been broadcasted in news stories over America, but nothing has changed. It has happened predominantly to African Americans in lower-income states. Police officers are given slaps on the wrist for taking a life or injuring an innocent person.

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