and appropriate decision by officer Darren Wilson to respond with lethal force to a situation in which he determined Michael Brown to be in the commission of an act of defiance to law enforcement. The African American viewpoint, on the other hand, focuses on the history of racial bias and racial profiling of blacks, ←3 | 4→particularly of young black males, by law enforcement that often result in their frequent incarcerations and deaths.
On May 4, 2015, the United States Department of Justice issued a report in regard to predatory police practices. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is a high-ranking, government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws and the administration of justice in the United States. The DOJ has significant investigative resources, and executive authority, and is one of the most powerful agencies within the American federal government. The DOJ’s investigation into the Michael Brown case resulted in the agency’s release of the following statements: “Police supervisors and leadership do too little to ensure that officers act in accordance with law and policy, and rarely respond meaningfully to civilian complaints of officer misconduct. The result is a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment; infringement on free expression, as well as retaliation for protected expression, in violation of the First Amendment; and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment (5).”
In clear discourse, the DOJ cites evidence of predatory police behavior by the Ferguson Police Department. The DOJ’s report itself lists specific circumstances and examples of both negligent and unlawful policing practices. Page three of the report refers to a case in which an African American woman, known to occasionally be homeless and unemployed, was arrested by Ferguson police officers for parking illegally, and was subsequently incarcerated for six days in the county jail. Take note of the comment below, quoted from page five of the DOJ’s report. “We have found substantial evidence of racial bias among police and court staff in Ferguson. For example, we discovered emails circulated by police supervisors and court staff that stereotype racial minorities as criminals, including one email that joked about an abortion by an African-American woman being a means of crime control (5).”
In 2019, broadcasting agencies InJustice Watch in collaboration with Buzzfeed, published an article revealing abhorrent and racist social media practices of active duty police officers. The article exposes dozens of social media posts on Facebook and other media sites by police officers from cities such as Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, and North Charleston, South Carolina, making disturbing comments along with frightening photos and videos.
Despite escalating racial tensions, a controversial president in power, and growing distrust between communities of color and their governing law enforcement agencies, police officers continue making bold public racial comments unbecoming of common police officer ethics in the United States. These officers ←4 | 5→display no filter, exercise no caution, and boldly exhibit their often aggressively prejudical viewpoints on social media.
You would think that common sense, discretion, and professional ethics training within American police departments would elicit far more careful discretion for officers in their social media posts especially during such an electrifying political and racially sensitive time as these. Emily Hoerner and Rick Tulsky from InJustice Watch report that “local law enforcement departments across the country have grappled with officers’ use of social media, often struggling to create and enforce policies that restrict offensive speech. The North Charleston, South Carolina, police department fired an officer for posting a photo of himself wearing a Confederate flag underwear days after a white supremacist killed nine black worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church just miles away. He later settled a wrongful termination suit (2).”
There are several factors that make this situation both atrocious and detrimental to the black community. First, the mass shooting of African American Christians by a white supremacist had just recently occurred. Instead of exercising discretion and sorrow for the community that lost several members, this officer disregarded it. Second, the officer was fired for his actions, yet instead of embracing the values of law enforcement training, which include taking responsibility for their actions, he fights the termination legally and won a mild victory through a settlement. Last, while black-white tensions are under tremendous pressure, this officer’s actions make it tremendously difficult for the community to regain trust with the police and to dissuade retaliatory attacks. Light punishment could be responsible for encouraging other officers to commit these types of racially motivated behaviors.
This officer’s actions are far from isolated and regional. They are actually frequent and national. The Plain View research organization reported that “of the pages of officers whom the Plain View researchers could positively identify, about 1 in 5 of the current officers, and 2 in 5 of the retired officers, made public posts or comments that met that threshold typically by displaying bias, applauding violence, scoffing at due process, or using dehumanizing language. The officers mocked Mexicans, women, and black people, celebrated the Confederate flag, and showed a man wearing a kaffiyeh scarf in the crosshairs of a gun (2).”
In the city of Philadelphia, America’s sixth largest urban area, approximately 43% of the population are African American. Nonetheless, the Plain View Project discovered the following alarming facts. “In Philadelphia, which has roughly 6,600 officers, the Plain View Project identified 1,073 on Facebook, about a third of whom had made troubling posts or comments.
←5 | 6→
The Plain View Project shared its research with Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom, which discovered many officers who made offensive posts were also accused of brutality or civil rights violations. Of 327 officers in Philadelphia who posted troubling content, more than a third (138 officers) appeared to have had one or more federal civil rights lawsuits filed against them, based on name, badge number, and other corroborating details. Of that group, 99 ended in settlements or verdicts against them or the city (2).” It is substantially arduous for a city with nearly half of its population of African American descent to rebuild a spoiled relationship between the black community and their local police force when nearly a third of its officers are posting incredibly offensive, racist, and other inappropriate comments, photos, and videos on their social media pages.
In any large American city, there will always be outliers of officer abuse, negligence, and unethical behavior. However, with ethics training provided in the police academy followed by continual officer training while on active duty, these types of improper incidents should be few and far between. In the case of the city of Philadelphia, nearly one-third of its officers were involved with inappropriate behavior. This is absurd and represents a symptom of a much larger and deeper systemic problem.
Since approximately one-third of the city’s police officers have been boldly posting this type of material on Facebook and other social media pages, one can only imagine the type of discussion of racial bigotry, sexist, and/or Homophobic banter that is occurring in police agency locker rooms, break rooms, squad cars, and other close quarters environments. These factors present a major monumental barrier in the rebuilding of the black American community.
Naturally, proponents of this behavior and/or those that attempt to validate such generalized labels have their reason for doing so. It is a well-documented fact that African Americans have historically been responsible for committing heinous crimes to their own people in their own communities. This is referred to as “black on black” crime. Both Black and Hispanic communities have high rates of violence and poverty.
Teenage pregnancy rates have also been habitually high in black communities. African Americans also make up a disproportionate amount of
