By: Allen G. Breed
The Huffington Post
In Missouri, New York, South Carolina and Ohio individuals that were all unarmed African Americans died at the hands of white policemen. "The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, for instance, track justifiable police homicides — there were 1,688 between 2010 and 2013 — but the statistics rely on voluntary reporting by local law enforcement agencies and are incomplete. Circumstances of the deaths, and other information such as age and race, also aren't required" (Breed,1). On July 17, 43-year-old Eric Garner died after officers tried to arrest him on suspicion of selling cigarettes on a New York City street. Cellphone video captured the scene as one officer wrapped his arm around Garner's neck, and the black man repeatedly pleaded, "I can't breathe." Tensions escalated on Aug. 9, when Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed, 18-year-old Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. On Nov. 22, a Cleveland officer shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice after responding to reports of an armed man at a city park. Rice was only holding a pellet gun. " 'Within the African-American community, there has been an experience of disrespect, offensive language, mistreatment in terms of stops and so on,' he says. 'And there's a sense that the police are out to get them'" (Breed,1). "African-American communities are tired of being over-policed, over-prosecuted, sent to prison, having men taken away from their communities, having families broken," says Chettiar, director of the center's Justice Program. "I think there's much more than just an instinctual sense that there is something amiss in these communities. I think people are tired of 'tough on crime.'"
