Essay On Police Brutality

The second most significant case of police brutality occurred during the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. There were three marches and the aim of the marches was to make evident the black American’s need for a constitutional right to vote. Amongst the marchers were prominent civil rights activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Thomas Fitzpatrick Jones. The first march took place on Sunday, March 7, 1965, and was stopped by state troopers who violently attacked the peaceful demonstrators in an attempt to stop the march for voting rights. The first march became known as Bloody Sunday because the police terrorized the peaceful protestors. Watson stated in his article that one of the protesters, Lewis, was clobbered across

The most significant contemporary methods that are used to combat police brutality are independent civilian review boards, body cameras, and cell phones. To begin with, one these safeguards was an independent review board which was implemented by the mayor of Newark, New Jersey and it established the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to monitor the Newark Police Department (NPD) (McGregor 2015:141). The most important aspect of independent civilian review boards is that they are not sworn police officers. It is important that independent civilian review boards are not sworn police officers because civilians do not abide by the blue code of silence. The blue code of silence is a phenomenon that exists among police officers. The blue code of silence consists of numerous unwritten rules, one of which is not to report on a colleague's errors, misconducts, or crimes, including police brutality. Skolnick stated in his article that the code has obstructed inquiry into police corruption and excessive use of force numerous times (2002:7). In addition, the function of an independent civilian review board is to monitor and sort the complaints that are made against the police; as well as, make a case against the offending police officers when there is a credible complaint. The Newark CCRB is not the only one of its kind, there are many independent civilian review boards in the United States. However, the Newark CCRB is unique as opposed to other civilian review boards because they have the power to subpoena offending police officers to a formal hearing; as a result of these enhanced powers, the Newark Police Union was planning to sue on the basis that too much power was granted to the CCRB (McGregor 2015:142). The police have resisted the implementation of independent civilian review boards mainly because they do not want an outsider