Jack Olson
Opinion Column
Black Lives Matter, created in 2013, is a movement against police brutality towards African-Americans. In particular, unarmed African-Americans. According to a study conducted by the Washington Post earlier this year, African-Americans make up about 13% of the population. This percentage is small compared to the 61% of our country that is white. Although, the 13% population of blacks accounts for 20% of the deaths at the hands of police officers in 2018.
Over the period of 2015 to 2016 the number of deaths of unarmed blacks dropped considerably from 38 to 17. This almost positively because of the outrage from the Black Lives Matter initiative. Over this time period, police officials and departments tried to change their ways and fix their errors while out on the job to prevent the lethal killings.
In 2018 alone, blacks have made up 38% of the unarmed civilians killed. This is almost three times the amount of the total percentage of blacks living in the United States. This does not mean that those killed did not do something wrong but justifies that the police overuse and abuse their power. The need to fatally taze, strangle or shoot an unarmed civilian is the hardest thing to wrap your head around. There has to be an alternative to taking a life.
The initiative here is to end social injustice within the police force. Anytime the news is on nowadays it feels like there is a new case where a black civilian was shot and killed by a police officer. And for what reason? In cases like Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black male who was selling untaxed cigarettes near Staten Island, when police cars pulled up to confront him. Mr. Garner was known for selling untaxed cigarettes, a violation of state law, and when the police came, they used fatal force. As Garner stood there, unarmed, gasping for breath, one police officer choked and killed the 43-year-old. Garner didn’t resist arrest, the police jumped to conclusions and as he panted “I can’t breathe,” none of the officers let up their force. It is a stunning story and the video evidence is heart-wrenching. The police did not have to use the brutal force on him and it resulted in a senseless death of another African-American at the hands of a prejudice group of cops.
Another incident was 37-year-old Alton Sterling from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Sterling was selling CD’s outside a convenience store when a homeless man came up to him and wouldn’t stop begging for money. Sterling told the man to leave him alone and showed him his gun. The homeless man, who somehow had a cellphone, called the police and two officers arrived at the scene. Sterling did not resist arrest but simply questioned why he was being arrested. As he was being tackled and dragged to the ground, the officers claimed he was reaching for his gun, but the video evidence is inconclusive and appears that he has his palms wide open in fear. The officers fatally shot and killed Sterling that day, and again, for what cost? If they were civil about the way they handled the situation with Mr. Sterling, he may still have his life, but instead the cops jumped to conclusions and killed the father of five.
Nothing can compare to the figures about those killed by police force each year. 61% of the population is white, yet only 6.4% of all police shootings involved an unarmed white person in 2015. 13% of the population is black, and 14.67% of all shootings by police were of unarmed black people. That stat proves that police are prejudiced towards blacks and abuse their power. Just because someone is black does not give them a higher chance of being dangerous, but certain cops see it that way and should be held accountable for abusing their authority.
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