POLICE BRUTALITY

           Police brutality has been around since the 1800s when police departments were first formed.  Though it can be found in many different forms, it still has the same negative outcome.  During Reconstruction, the KKK was a terrorist group that had a strong influence despite the authority of and sometimes in collaboration with the police.  It was much easier for law enforcement to be racist and brutal during that time because there were not many laws against it.  As the years went on, many amendments were passed to ensure our safety and freedoms against police brutality, regardless of our race or gender.  Though we have made great advances in correcting this problem, it will never go away.

            Police brutality was at its worst during Reconstruction.  Once the 13^th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, injustices seemed to only get worse.  Freedmen were targeted and treated unjustly.  Police were charging them with crimes they never committed or making the punishment far worse than fit the crime.  However, during Reconstruction the government passed two more amendments.  The Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth (1870) Amendments helped protect the freedmen’s rights.  The 14^th Amendment stated that “No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.  This helped government officials realize that they eventually had to start treating African Americans at least fairly, if they were not willing to treat them equally.  The 15^th Amendment prohibited governments from using color, race, or previous slave status as a qualification for voting.  This was a huge step taken by the government because states were using Black Codes and scare tactics to keep the freedmen from voting, just because they feared the impact of the freedmen’s new rights.  Though these Amendments all came early on in Reconstruction, it took some time for them to finally be established and followed.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the law that solidified equal rights of African Americans.

            It is obvious that the freedmen were discriminated against and terrorized because their former owners were afraid of what they might do.  This fear turned to anger and terror because that was the only way they knew how to get what they wanted.  The whites knew that the freedmen were vulnerable in their newly “freed state” and they took advantage of that.  By no means should that have been tolerated, and it is encouraging to see that, though slowly, steps were taken to stop these terrible, childish acts. 

For more information on Police Brutality and the Laws that eventually addressed it, these sites will be helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Constitution#Bill_of_Rights

http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/film/fulltranscript.html