The term "Police Brutality"

On Friday October 16, 2015 America Blog posted a blog titled Why I Don’t use the term“Police Brutality.” The blog was written by Raghav Sharma, he is a writer, filmmaker, and political activist studying at the University of Pittsburgh. He writes on electoral and campaign finance issues, foreign policy, and economic affairs. Sharma talks about how police violence might be a tired topic that is important and must be discussed.

There are many examples in the readings that Sharma gives to show the effect of police brutality on citizens. There is a video included that is very graphic showing a man being tased while he is restrained in a chair slowly dying. Another example Sharma shows us is the Chicago Police department who hid detainees captive for no good reasons in a warehouse, similar to the CIA black site, illegally.

Sharma mentions many times that those wearing blue (Police officers) are here to serve and protect. But, Sharma makes a good statement once he starts talking about a pattern of violence towards a disadvantaged minority group (Black Americans).  An organization called, “Black Lives Matter” has been put together to help protect this minority group from being beaten by police officers for most the time having no good reasoning.

Sharma says, “Americans must confront the fact that what we call police brutality has a more appropriate name: state-sanctioned terror.” This is the sad truth, we should not be afraid of the people who are suppose to help us by protecting not only our country but every citizen with in it.

Sharma’s concluded his blog by stating that our legal system is controlled to protect the criminals, we should expect to see more of these “state-sanctioned terrors” on those at home; though this is sad to hear it is correct.