Breaking Olds: Police Brutality Is Systemic
At this point, it‘a difficult to deny that there’s something seriously awry deep within the personality of many of those who chose to become police officers in America. Many cops are just developmentally stunted boys who have deep rooted feelings of inadequacy, and in turn they subscribe to a militarized form of masculinity that leads them to sadistically need to hurt others to feel powerful. Change my mind.
If the protests over George Floyd’s murder have shown us anything, it’s that police brutality is not a problem caused by a handful of bad apples, it’s something that plagues law enforcement agencies all over the country.
See:
An officer approaches a protestor (whose hands are raised) and pulls down his face mask to spray pepper spray in his face.
An officer shoving a man with his hands raised to the ground.
Two men being shot by cops at the end of the street.
A group of officers repeatedly punching a protestor.
An officer shoving a man to the ground without provocation.
Officers shooting paint canisters at citizens on their own property.
Ohio police officers spraying a woman with mace from behind as she walks away from them.
Some officers looting and destroying protestors’ stock of bottled water and milk.
Some cops in Utah shoving and old man with a cane to the ground.
NYPD officers ramming a car into a crowd of protestors.
A two minute compilation that includes some of the above clips and a few others.
As it stands, exerting physical force over citizens is a fundamental and existentially important aspect of policing in our country, and it disproportionately affects black men. That must change.