Without overhaul of US criminal justice system, Black people say police brutality remains as dangerous a threat as ever
HOUSTON, US
George Floyd’s murder three years ago by police officers in the US state of Minnesota still haunts Black Americans, fueling deep skepticism and distrust of police.
“I believe anyone with a skin tone that resembles black or brown in the eyes of police officers can become a victim of police brutality,” said Alicia Jennings, a 39-year-old living in Houston.
“I could be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and skin tone could be the cause of the brutality.”
Jennings spoke to Anadolu as the US marks three years since George Floyd was killed by four Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020, a murder she said showed the world how police treat Black people differently than white people.
“The issues are mainly rooted in racism. It is very possible that some of the police officers have some form of internal racism or bias that causes the poor relationship with the Black community,” she said.
“I really don’t feel safe. When the police are around, they give me a sense of unpredictability.”
Jennings feels that the pandemic played a part in the attention that Floyd’s killing drew, because everyone was at home and saw it on television and websites in a constant loop.
“The only reason America was able to learn this lesson was because of the pandemic,” she continued.
“People had nothing else really to occupy their time, so seeing the police brutality against George Floyd, I believe, made people more aware of what has been going on for years.”
Long history of police brutality
The four officers involved in Floyd’s death have all been convicted and sentenced for their crimes.
Derek Chauvin, the white officer who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes until he died, was sentenced to over 22 years for murder and manslaughter in the state case, along with a concurrent 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights.
The other three officers – J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao – are serving federal sentences ranging between 2.5 years to 3.5 years.
In the state case, Kueng was handed another 3.5 years for manslaughter, Lane got three years for aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, and Thou is currently awaiting sentencing.
“There is this long history of police brutality towards Black people,” said Derek Handley, an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an affiliated faculty with the Departments of African and African Diaspora Studies and Urban Studies.
While Floyd’s killing brought the issue into the public eye for the younger generation, police brutality against Black people in America is nothing new, Handley, 52, told Anadolu.
“For my generation, it was the beating of Black motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers in 1991,” he said.
“There have been other beatings of Black men at the hands of police for generations prior, and race riots were touched off because of some police brutality event and the police not being held accountable.”
The mass social justice protests that ensued after Floyd’s death have helped change the way police conduct their operations, said Handley.
“You’re seeing an increase in body cams, and when footage is released, we’re seeing what events actually happened,” he said.
“I think police are being held more accountable, whether it being officers placed on administrative leave or losing their positions altogether.”
More than ‘just a few bad apples’
To ensure that incidents like Floyd’s murder are not repeated, Handley believes the criminal justice system, as a whole, needs to be overhauled.
“You’ve got to be careful about painting all police officers with a broad stroke. I do think there are institutional problems versus the idea that there are just a few bad apples,” he said.
“There has been a long history of seeing Black people as being criminals, so you have society thinking like that, then law enforcement or police are going to enact that. It doesn’t matter if the police are Black or white or other races,” Handley continued, pointing out that Thao and Kueng, two of the officers involved in Floyd’s killing, were Asian and Black.
Handley also cited the case of the five Memphis police officers who beat Black motorist Tyre Nichols to death on Jan. 7 this year.
All of them were Black, which reinforces the institutional conditioning of how police view Black people and how Black people must prepare themselves mentally when they get pulled over by police, he added.
“Every Black person gets a little nervous when a cop comes towards them or they get pulled over,” he said.
“My tactic is always the same. I’m trying to put the police officer at ease because you want to survive the encounter, so I’m going to act and react in a certain way: I roll all my windows down, I put my hands on the top of the steering wheel and don’t move them, ‘yes sir, no sir’ is how I respond, and if they want my license and registration, I tell them what I’m going to do so they don’t see any sudden movements from my hands.”
Handley feels societal stereotyping will not change anytime soon.
“Because you can’t change the color of your skin, and if you are confronted and they see the color of your skin, you’ve got to do everything you can to put that officer at ease,” he said.
“You can’t simply say ‘What did I do?’ or ‘You’re mistaken’ because that can easily be escalated. Absolutely, there’s an unfairness there, but that’s being Black in America to a certain degree.”
Handley believes the only way to break the cycle is to have a bipartisan effort to change the way the criminal justice system treats Black people.
“The problem can be fixed if society has a commitment to fix it,” he said.
“That’s the key. It’s a political argument in terms of how we deal with the funding and training of the police.”
Despite her skepticism of police, Jennings also believes the system can be fixed.
“Treat others with respect. We are all human beings and should be treated as such,” she said.
“Two things are for certain: we all bleed red blood and death is imminent in this life we live. There shouldn’t be differences based on skin color.”
