Police Brutality In Nyc Essay Research Paper

Police Brutality In Nyc Essay, Research Paper

Police Brutality Incidents in NYPD

New York state law and police department policy provide that officers may use only the minimum amount of force which is necessary to achieve a legitimate purpose (e.g. effect an arrest or prevent the commission of an offence) when other options are not available or have been exhausted. New York City Police Department guidelines set out the following five stages through which force can progress: (1) verbal persuasion; (2) unarmed physical force; (3) force using non-lethal weapons (e.g. pepper spray or mace); (4) force using impact weapons (e.g. police batons); and (5) deadly force, which may be used only when an officer or another person’s life is in direct danger. The guidelines also state that flashlights, radios and handguns are not designed as impact weapons and make clear that they should not be used as such in most circumstances. Police regulations also state that any officer at the scene of a police incident has an obligation to ensure that the law and regulations are complied with, and to intervene if the use of force against a subject becomes excessive. The guidelines note that failure to do so constitutes an offence under the law as well as departmental policy (Chevigny 66).

Although reports of police brutality are not new, the number of people bringing claims for police misconduct against the City of New York has increased substantially in recent years, from 977 in 1987 to more than 2,000 in 1994. The amount paid out by the city each year in settlements or judgments awarded to plaintiffs in police abuse cases has also risen, from $13.5 million in 1992 to more than $24m in 1994. However, there remains a problem of police brutality and excessive force in the department (Dudley 17).

There have been many allegations of excessive force which include people being repeatedly struck with fists, batons or other instruments, often after very minor disputes with officers on the street; deaths in police custody; and shootings in apparent violation of the NYPD’s own very stringent guidelines. The victims include men and women, juveniles and people from a variety of social, racial and ethnic backgrounds. However, the evidence suggests that the large majority of the victims of police abuses are racial minorities, particularly African-Americans and people of Latin American or Asian descent. While there has been an increase in prosecutions for police corruption in recent years, prosecutions for on-duty excessive force remain relatively rare and convictions even rarer. In most of the cases examined police officers were not disciplined or received only minor sanctions. The code of silence in which police officers refuse to testify against their colleagues appears to have contributed to impunity in many cases (Geller and Toch 2-10).

According to the 1990 census, the general population of New York City was 43.2% white; 28.7% black; 24.4% Latino (Hispanic); and 7.7% other , including Asian. However, the large majority of NYPD officers are white. A study conducted in 1992 found that New York ranked last in a 50-city survey of how well United States police departments reflected the racial makeup of their populations. In 1995 the racial distribution of the NYPD was 72.2% white; 15.2% Latino; 11.5% African-American and 1.1% other including Asian. Most NYPD officers live in the suburbs outside the city, and some critics of the department allege that this has contributed to a sense of alienation and tension between the police and inner city communities when they work (Collins uspo101.htm).

There is often a racial or ethnic component to police abuse cases in New York City, with many incidents also fueled by language barriers and miscommunication in the diverse city. In the CCRB’s January – June 1997 report, African-Americans and Latinos filed more than 78 percent of complaints against the police, while 67 percent of the subject officers were white.

Statistics published by the Civilian Complaint Review Board in its biannual reports also indicate that minorities are disproportionately the victims of police abuse compared to the overall racial composition of New York City. Three-quarters (75.9%) of the people who lodged complaints with the CCRB from January to June 1995 were African-American (50.3%) and Latino (25.6%), while the remainder were either white (21.2%) or other (2.8%), including Asian (Collins uspo1015.htm).

Although most major inquiries into the NYPD have involved corruption, police brutality has also been a recurrent concern. There were calls for an inquiry into police brutality in the mid 1980s, following a series of highly publicized cases in which black people died or were ill-treated in custody. Of these, included the cases of Michael Stewart, a young African American who died in September 1983. Thirteen days after being taken to hospital hog-tied, bruised and in a coma following his arrest by eleven officers from the New York City Transit Police Department because he was spraying graffiti in a Manhattan subway. Eleanor Bumpers, an elderly, mentally disturbed woman, was shot dead in October 1984 by armed police who had broke into her Bronx apartment to evict her after she had fallen behind with her rent. In both cases officers were acquitted of criminal wrongdoing after trials, although some officers’ tactics were later criticized by intern