Isaac Davis
Few things are more disturbing than looking at the news each day to find yet another shocking case of American police officers using excessive brutality and belligerence against the public. There is no justification for this, and as the list of egregious rights violations by the police grows, more Americans may finally be waking up to what many of us have known for years: our nation is becoming a police state.
With the proliferation of portable handheld and dashboard video cameras, and with the ability to upload and share videos on the Web, people can see for themselves what police brutality really looks and feels like, and tension between police and American citizens is visible. A simple Google or YouTube search quickly reveals hundreds of unique cases of cops brutalizing people, often with insane cruelty and hubris, and the list of abuses grows daily.
Many of the most shocking incidents are against women, children, the elderly, the handicapped or the mentally ill. In addition to excessive violence, police are also abusing their powers and illegally stealing money and property from everyday people, while admittedly using traffic and drug laws as revenue generating schemes for government coffers. Most shockingly, though, the police are up-arming themselves with military weapons and equipment, seemingly preparing themselves for something apocalyptic, and are increasingly assuming confrontational and threatening postures when dealing with the public.
Is police brutality and misconduct actually getting worse, or are portable video recorders allowing us to just now see what’s been happening all along? More importantly, is this situation going to improve any time soon?
