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Violent Policing in America: An Explanatory Analysis

California State University Monterey Bay

Division of Social, Behavioral, and Global Studies:

Social and Behavioral Sciences Department,

Social History Concentration

Senior Capstone

Eduardo Flores

Dr. Rebecca Bales

Spring 2017

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Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Literature Review ....................................................................................................................................................... 3

Theory ......................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Findings ...................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 13

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................................... 15

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Introduction

The objective of this paper is to explore the relationship between police and the community in

the United States.

During the 1950’s through 1960’s, the phenomenon known as white flight was occurring

throughout the United States. The end resulted in a massive population shift of white people

from the inner cities to the suburbs, effectively leaving behind minorities in the inner cities in an

updated, harder to recognize, institutionalized form of segregation. The inner cities were left

behind to face overpopulation and an increasing crime rate due to extreme poverty all while

facing systemic and institutionalized racism at the hands of cities, law policies and police. Fast

forward to the 2000s through 2010s and it has become increasingly common knowledge that

Police-citizen interactions have been turning more violent and more publicized and as a result of

ubiquitous cameras; police overuse, overreach, or abuses of force have been increasingly visible

as of late branches of law enforcement have been facing heavy scrutiny and criticism by citizens.

There has been heavy backlash against police brutality and the year 2012 has seen the rise of

movements such as Black Lives Matter, a movement which began after the slaying of Trayvon

Martin, a black teenager whose killer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted and remained free;

which is not an isolated incident. Events like these which are being publicized and made visible

at a higher rate than ever before are bringing the blue line to question. State sponsored killings

have been increasingly visible and as a result, protests against continued police abuse of force

have been met with militarized and highly aggressive police response. The issue that I am

looking at is why the police have developed an “us versus them” mentality. Why has police

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patrolling become more aggressive and what are the underlying factors both contemporary and

historical behind this disturbing new trend? I seek to explain these issues.

This topic is very important to me as I intent to join the police force after my academic

career at California State Monterey Bay and would like to see changes from the current system in

which aggressive patrolling and reactionary policing are prevalent. I have personally had

negative experiences with police during one of which an overtly aggressive language and tone

was taken place against my uncle, who was seemingly stopped for no reason. Another time me

and my friends, who were around twelve at the time were stopped and made to sit without hands

behind our backs at a busy intersection for the crime of riding our bikes too fast. Personally I

take issue with events such as the slaying of Trayvon Martin, in which he was the only witness

and the only one to face consequences that day. In other instances of police brutality there has

been a reluctance to punish police and the presence of a very noticeable code of silence amongst

officers to not oust one another. Such cases of the reinforcement of police killings have been

those of the case against George Zimmerman, the police officer responsible for the slaying of

Trayvon Martin, who was acquitted of all charges despite the evidence. I believe there needs to

be a reform to the current police institution and there needs to be a reevaluation of not only

policing methods but of police culture.

Literature Review

Throughout my readings, I was able to identify three themes that remained consistent in

the discussion of police overuse of force. These were that the use of force, or strength cannot be

measured properly and it becomes a matter of subjectivity. The next was that race plays a role in

the way police-civilian interactions pan out. The third is the lack of engagement police have with

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the communities they patrol and the negative effect this has on the communities in which police

patrol.

The issue that came up in my readings was defining and gauging strength or force used

by police officers during interactions with civilians. The main reason strength is an issue is

because it is not clearly defined. In one of my readings, Andrew Fisher argues that the issue of

legality is brought up. This blurs the line when it comes to policing. The legal perspective on

force is looked at by what “objective reasonableness” which essentially means that police have

the discretion to gauge how much force to use. This becomes problematic because police have

discretion and can theoretically have the ability to engage in what is called “’lawfully awful”

force by essentially abusing a citizen to coerce them to resist arrest granting the police the ability

to use force as they gauge to be appropriate. We can apply conflict theory here and explain that

this is a conflict between the police, who are in power, upholding systemic oppression of

disadvantaged minority groups. D. Marvin Jones asserts that from a historical perspective

throughout which unreasonable force has been used to maintain white supremacy, the act of

lynching for petty crimes was a common sight, crimes such as being black and prideful, or

talking to a white woman, sometimes just for acting suspicious. Jones refers to contemporary

police slayings of black people for petty crimes, and sometimes no crimes at all, as modern day

lynching1. To impose fear and maintain the black populations under control by sending out

messages, sometimes in the form of corpses. As lynch mobs would leave corpses of innocent

men hanging, modern police leave bodies on the streets. Such as that of Michael Brown, who

was shot twelve times at 12:02pm by police and was left on the street for hours before being

finally taken to the morgue at 4:37pm2. Rachel Harmon asserts that both the vagueness of force 1 Jones, D. M. (2016). Dangerous spaces: Beyond the Racial Profile. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.2 Hunn, D., & Bell, K. (2014, September 14). Why was Michael Brown's body left there for hours? | Law ... Retrieved April 13, 2017, from http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/why-was-michael-brown-s-body-left-

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and its implications play a role in police overuse of force. Force is justifiable and defendable

when it is used to “facilitate arrest lawfully, protect the public, and to protect the officer(s) in

question.” This means that how much force can be used is debatable. Harmon expands on this by

building a parameter based on purpose, timing, and necessity. This is important because it helps

define force and gauge its appropriateness when it is used. The issue of force and the discretion

to use it is also discussed in Robert Bernasconi and takes into consideration the factors that go

into policing and argues that police seem to be more prone to violence now than ever.

Essentially, he paints the police in a human light while acknowledging abuses that they commit.

Bernasconi discusses that police feel anxiety and are fearful for their lives so they push back with

tougher policing. This is where conflict theory can be used to explain what is happening when

police and their surrounding communities do not work together; it is essentially the people in

positions of power feeling backlash from the oppressed communities which they patrol but do

not protect.

Race relations plays a role in police interactions with the community, Andrew Fisher

places historical context to race relations and interactions between police and citizens. White

flight which came about to reinforce segregation which led to the concentration of poverty and

other social issues such as crime which led to the creation of racialized policing towards what is

identified by police as a “dangerous class” which tells us that poverty and race are

interdependent on police-community relations. Race relations become a systemic issue when

police as a governmental institution is put into context as an invader of these communities.

Robert Bernasconi argues that the legitimization of police overuse of force is backed by our law

system. Stop and frisk police methods are problematic because it is racially based policing. There

is no actual way to determine reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk and it allows for the

there-for-hours/article_0b73ec58-c6a1-516e-882f-74d18a4246e0.html

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continued harassment of minority groups. Ronald Weitzer asserts that reasonable suspicion

places a historical precedent on race relations and reasonable suspicion when he discusses the

1986 case Terry v. Ohio which looks at a routine stop turned Supreme Court case and ultimately

defined reasonable suspicion. The decision from Terry v. Ohio allowed for the continuation of

stop and frisks under the premise of reasonable suspicion. D. Marvin Jones argues that this is

where the problem lies because reasonable suspicion translates into reasonable racism, such as, x

community is more likely to commit a crime so it is safe to assume that a member of x

community is likely to be committing or is about to commit a crime. The use of marijuana, a

common crime for marginalized youth and the damage that the war on drugs has caused to these

communities stems from reasonable suspicion. Even when there is no evidence that one ethnicity

is more likely to do drugs than another. Although both blacks and white are likely to do drugs at

the same frequency, reasonable suspicion, or reasonable racism, is to blame for the disparity

between the conviction rates between blacks and whites.3

Police have disengagement from the communities they patrol. In Brian Martin argues that

after the beating of Rodney King, the way police handled negative press affected the way people

interact with the police. After this incident police went out of their way to cover up the incident

and perform damage control but ended up causing mistrust from the public. There is a clear

message that police are separate from the people they police. This major historical event as it

gave insight into police mentality. When discussing police disengagement from the communities

they police it is important to look at why there is disengagement to begin. Kevin Barret analyzes

a study performed on three diverse types of police departments, rural, suburban and urban. It was

found that the rural and the urban police behaved very differently with the suburban being closer

to the rural police in terms of style. The cause of policing disparity must do with the involvement 3 . Jones, D. M. (2016). Dangerous spaces: Beyond the Racial Profile. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

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police have within communities in rural towns as they usually live in the towns they patrol and

are known not just by their neighbors but by their communities, churches, grocery stores. This is

a stark difference urban police, who usually live outside the communities they patrol and do not

integrate into the communities.4 This is dangerous due to a heavy lack of communication from

the communities is often compounded by reasonable racism.

Theory

I will be using two variants of conflict theory, class and racial to explain the factors

regarding police brutality. Conflict theory, by Karl Marx, who lived from 1818 to 1883, lived

through the industrial revolution, developed the concept of class struggle which is defined by

constant power struggle between the ruling class and everyone else. This is applicable to my

topic when you take into consideration that police violence and fear stems from class struggle,

and racial conflict5. When using class struggle to explain the constant conflict between police

and citizens we must take economic disparity into consideration, which translates to the poor

being seen as suspicious by police due to various reasons such as the appearance of a person to

the racial makeup of a neighborhood, the physical appearance of a neighborhood, type of dress

and even attitudes or styles that police officers may deem to be unsavory or even condemn6. The

issue is further compounded when race and racial conflict is taken into consideration and police

treatment is altered by it. Racial conflict stems from the idea that minorities are a threat due to

systemic and institutionalized racism. To refer to my introduction again, white flight in the

4 Barrett, K. , Haberfeld, M. , & Walker, M. (2009). A comparative study of the attitudes of urban, suburban and rural police officers in New Jersey regarding the use of force. Crime, Law and Social Change.5 Fisher, A. , Oddsson, G. , & Wada, T. (2013). Policing Class and Race in Urban America. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy6 Fridell, L. (2005). Racially Biased Policing: Guidance for Analyzing Race Data from Vehicle Stops. [Washington, D.C.]: United States Dept. of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services.

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1950s-1960s era meant that white people moved out in mass from the inner cities to the suburbs7,

which meant that issues that stem from overpopulation such as crime were compounded by

police and systemic racism8. The issue was increased even further when these disadvantaged

neighborhoods provided a greater opportunity for crime. As people of color came to be more and

more disproportionately arrested by white police officers, the more racist stereotypes and

prejudices set in, thus leaving the historical image of minorities as threatening or more

dangerous. Race and class are intersectional when discussing police overreach of force as law

enforcement has been shown to be more about race, with more stop and frisks being performed

on historically economically disparaged minority groups than on others leaving whites under a

veil of pre-conceived innocence9. The issue further increases when unwarranted police stops, or

stop and frisks have become less based on enforcing the law and more based on dealing with the

perceived threat of an increasing minority group. This is called group position theory which

stems from conflict theory but is about white fear of minority groups as they grow in numbers

and gain status although they were historically disadvantaged10. This is social conflict as it places

the interests of the dominant group, white people against the disadvantaged, people of color. This

type of law enforcement is to protect the interest of the ruling class against the perceived power

threat. The racial conflict is present on the side of the disadvantaged as well, who are aware of

their socioeconomic and racially disadvantaged position. The issue is compounded when people

of color, share many vicarious negative experiences with police officers as many have been

7 Fisher, A. , Oddsson, G. , & Wada, T. (2013). Policing Class and Race in Urban America. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy8 Harmon, R. (2008). When is Police Violence Justified? Northwestern University Law Review, 102(3), 1119.9 Kuhns, J. B., & Knutsson, J. (Eds.). (2010) Non-Lethal Force by Police in the United States: The Various Lenses through Which Appropriateness is examined in Police Use of Force: A Global Perspective. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.10 Weitzer, R. J., & Tuch, S. A. (2006). Section One in Race and Policing in America: Conflict and Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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personally victimized or know someone who has11. This in turn means that more people share

these experiences and the distrust for police multiplies among a community.

Findings

Three major court cases which stemmed from generations of unfair racially based

aggressive policing are 1968 Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S.1 justified reasonable doubt when the courts

decided that when an officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks, otherwise known as a Terry

Frisk, the officer in question is not in violation of the Fourth Amendment.12 This case allows for

police to perform frisks when there is reasonable doubt. Once again this becomes difficult as

reasonable doubt is subjective. A latent effect of the ability to perform frisks on the spot is the

humiliation and the outward signals that this act sends out to the community at large. The

negative experiences experienced by the community are compounded and only further the gap

between the police and the communities they patrol. 1989 Graham v. Connor 490 U.S.386

asserted that an objectiveness reasonableness standard should apply when making an arrest, stop

or other seizure based on three factors: was a warrant issued or not, was the plaintiff armed of

resisted and was there more than one arrestee or officer involved.13 This objective reasonableness

standard allowed for a way to attempt to make a clear standard for officers when they are

involved in a stop. 1996 Whren v. United States established that any traffic offense is legitimate

basis for a stop. This affects the way police interact with citizens and is primarily used to justify

racial profiling. This case opens a multi-faceted issue between police and the community.

Everything is coded, not just clothes, cars houses and even the decorations on the front lawn are

coded. So this becomes difficult to uphold as subjective when you have a person of color in thug-

11 Martin, B. (2005). The Beating of Rodney King: The Dynamics of Backfire. Critical Criminology12 Jones, D. M. (2016). Dangerous spaces: Beyond the Racial Profile. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.13 Jones, D. M. (2016). Dangerous spaces: Beyond the Racial Profile. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

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coded clothing driving either a: car that is seemingly too expensive for them, raising suspicion or

a beat down car that still raises suspicion. These three court cases have their bases in history and

are still applicable.

In the southern states during the 1840s early police began as volunteers but were part of a

slave patrol. This patrol hunted down runaway slaves, they terrorized the slave population to

suppress them and enforced the rules of the plantations14. These slave patrols worked to protect

the interests of the dominant group which consisted of white males. They were not just vigilantes

but also regular people, and they were backed by the law. So much so that the United States

allowed for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to pass, this act actually penalized officials who did

not arrest runaway slaves for up to 1,000 or six months in jail.15 This ensured that law

enforcement was required by law to arrest runaway slave and rewarded officers who captures

slaves with bonuses and promotions. It went so far as to make it a crime also punishable by up to

1,000 dollars and up six months in jail to house or provide food to runaway slaves. This backing

of the law is important as it maintained the dominant position of the white man and ensured

police compliance by reducing people into bonuses and promotions. It allows for the

perpetuation of the normalization of symbolic violence towards this group of people. The

symbolism behind the monetary reward for the capture of fugitive slaves was that of a

reinforcement of the racist system in place.

During the Industrial Revolution police served as strikebreakers, they dispersed the

protesters with violence and performed public arrests to intimidate strikers. They were backed by

the law, the “Tramp Acts” allowed them to arrest union organized and unemployed workers.16

14 Potter, G., Dr. (n.d.). The History of Policing. Retrieved December 01, 2016, from http://policestudies.eku.edu/15 "Fugitive Slave Act - 1850." Fugitive Slave Act - 1850. Accessed December 16, 2016. http://www.nationalcenter.org/FugitiveSlaveAct.html.16 Potter, G., Dr. (n.d.). The History of Policing. Retrieved December 01, 2016, from http://policestudies.eku.edu/

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They targeted people who seemed to have a lack of labor or means of support. This was an act of

symbolic violence against the worker intended to send the message that they were not safe and

are wrong to expect sympathy from the law or its upholders. While not as explicit, modern police

still perform the reinforcement of the Tramp acts by stopping and frisking random citizens of

color who according to law enforcement fit the description of criminal.

During the Women’s suffrage movement police were present. Not to maintain order but

to, once again, protect the interests of the dominant group and ensure the protection of

patriarchal rule. Alice Paul, a leader, was incarcerated, and at the hands of police, faced forced

feedings17. She was not the only one in 1917, when demonstrating outside the White House, ex-

President Woodrow Wilson had them arrested for obstructing traffic. Sixty middle-class women

chose jail time rather than pay the fine18 The arrests were a clear move to intimidate women from

further demonstrating and to suppress the impact they were having on the American public. The

forced feedings of Paul were made to send outward a signal, a means of intimidation. In 1913, in

Washington D.C., Alice Paul led a march on Washington, a pageant with an estimated 5,000

marchers pushed and fought through a crowd of about 100,000 anti-suffragists and a police force

who was unwilling to protect the marchers or subdue the crowd19 The situation escalated to the

point that the Calvary was called in to disperse the crowd and bring order. The upholding of

patriarchy by police was all too evident and that it was not right. The police did not face

repercussion; the police chief was not fired. In the eyes of the law the police, in doing nothing,

did nothing wrong.

17 Zahniser, J.D. 2015. "'How Long Must We Wait?'." American History 50, no. 5: 51-59. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2016).18 Baker, Jean H. "Placards at the White House." American Heritage 59, no. 4 (Winter2010 2010): 74-75. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2016).19 Moore, Sarah J. 1997. "Making a spectacle of suffrage: The National Women Suffrage." Journal of American Culture (01911813) 20, no. 1: 89. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2016).

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I believe that the current police culture and the police code of silence stemmed from race

and class conflict with the communities they police. While this has always been the case it is

more so now than ever as the communities which exist in spaces deemed dangerous by police

face suspicion and are more likely to have negative experiences with police. If we deconstruct

the case of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was slain by being in an upper class white

neighborhood by an off-duty officer who saw him as suspicious due to the color of his skin and

the clothing he was wearing, a hoodie and baggy pants, black coded clothing or as law

enforcement put it, “thug wear”. D. Marvin Jones argues that if Trayvon Martin was either white,

or dressed white-coded, he would still be alive. Zimmerman’s reasoning is not isolated or

unique, the combination of being a person of color, wearing coded clothing, such as hoodies and

baggy pants, are compounded by the communities in which they live. The argument boils down

to that it is reasonable to assume that a person who is of color, dressed in a certain way and

living within a certain community is more likely to break the law than someone who is not of

color, dresses a different way and does not live within a marginalized community. Broken

Windows by James Q. Wilson allows us to explain the phenomena that occurs when a broken

window is not just a broken window but symbolic for a broken home, a broken community. The

visual manifestation of shattered glass left unattended gives the outside viewer, a police officer,

the impression that the neighborhood is unsafe because the people living in them simply do not

care about the appearance of a home, and if left unkempt more windows will be eventually be

broken and small crimes add up to greater crimes with broken windows on a building leading up

to breaking into the building and the expansion of crime from there on20. When looking through

20 Engel, C. , Beckenkamp, M. , Glöckner, A. , Irlenbusch, B. , Hennig-Schmidt, H. , et al. (2014). First impressions are more important than early intervention: Qualifying broken windows theory in the lab. International Review of Law & Economics, 37, 126-136.

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broken windows we need to make sure to not confuse this with respectability politics. In

respectability politics, we have members of the own marginalized groups self-policing or

otherwise policing other marginalized people to fit in with the mainstream white values and

society.

Conclusion

To conclude, there are multiple factors that make this ongoing event a very relevant and polemic

marker of our times. If left untreated we are dooming future generations to exist in this system

that perpetuates symbolic violence and a message that they are not part of mainstream America.

In the years from the United States of America’s inception until 1920 and beyond, police were

created to and continue to serve the ruling governments interests. As unfair and dehumanizing

these interests where they were the law and the law enforcement agencies at the time were

following orders. The police were a tool used by the dominant group to maintain control and

domination over disenfranchised groups of people. Law enforcement served the government to

hunt down slaves. Law enforcement served to uphold the patriarchy and did nothing to protect

suffragists. Law enforcement broke picket lines and turned a blind eye to abuse. It is important to

learn this because even though we see the problems of the past as something embarrassing,

something that’s surprising that it even happened, the original role of police and their role in

protecting the interests of the dominant group remains. The police still intimidate, still practice

racialized policing, the police still protect the interests of corporations by breaking up protests

with violence and arrests. The information presented only serves as a wakeup call for police

departments that have yet to acknowledge their shortcomings and implement community

oriented police programs such as Police Athletic League, PAL, a program through which police

coach and tutor students. Through the presentation of information such as this poses the

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opportunity for police to implement more programs that work towards dismantling preset

prejudices, histories of oppression and allow for healing and for a meaningful system in which

there is respect for marginalized communities’ right to live peacefully.

Bibliography

Baker, Jean H. "Placards at the White House." American Heritage 59, no. 4 (Winter2010 2010): 74-75. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2016).

Barrett, K. , Haberfeld, M. , & Walker, M. (2009). A comparative study of the attitudes of urban, suburban and rural police officers in New Jersey regarding the use of force. Crime, Law and Social Change.

15

Bernasconi, R. (2014). When Police Violence is More Than Violent Policing. CR: The New Centennial Review.

Community Oriented Policing: Background and Issues. (2010). New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Fisher, A. , Oddsson, G. , & Wada, T. (2013). Policing Class and Race in Urban America. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy.

Fridell, L. (2005). Racially Biased Policing: Guidance for Analyzing Race Data from Vehicle Stops. [Washington, D.C.]: United States Dept. of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services.

"Fugitive Slave Act - 1850." Fugitive Slave Act - 1850. Accessed December 16, 2016. http://www.nationalcenter.org/FugitiveSlaveAct.html.

Harmon, R. (2008). When is Police Violence Justified? Northwestern University Law Review.

Jones, D. M. (2016). Dangerous spaces: Beyond the Racial Profile. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Kuhns, J. B., & Knutsson, J. (Eds.). (2010) Non-Lethal Force by Police in the United States: The Various Lenses through Which Appropriateness is examined in Police Use of Force: A Global Perspective. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Martin, B. (2005). The Beating of Rodney King: The Dynamics of Backfire. Critical Criminology.

Moore, Sarah J. 1997. "Making a spectacle of suffrage: The National Women Suffrage." Journal of American Culture (01911813) 20, no. 1: 89. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2016).

Oliver, W. M. (1998). Community-Oriented Policing: A Systemic Approach to Policing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Potter, G., Dr. (n.d.). The History of Policing. Retrieved December 01, 2016, from http://policestudies.eku.edu/

Weitzer, R. J., & Tuch, S. A. (2006). Section One in Race and Policing in America: Conflict and

Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Zahniser, J.D. 2015. "'How Long Must We Wait?'." American History 50, no. 5: 51-59. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2016).