Cops are there to protect, but in recent news they're shown doing more harm than anything. All cops want power and to have control. Their greed for power and respect has pushed them to do harm to the community. More recently people have had the fear of what a cop could do to them. Cops are seen abusing their power all the time. Whether it's something small like running a red light or something more serious like getting aggressive/beating those that they feel talk back or disagree with them. This is all part of them maintaining their position of power. Cops demand all the respect but don't give the same respect back. The ultimate form of respect is fear and I feel that is why cops always approach people in an intimating manner.
I came across this article about a man in Maryland that was on trail for many false charges two cops had on him. The only reason he got out of these charges was because the cop was forced to release his dash cam footage. Basically the cops pulled the man over for "speeding". These police officers came up to the mans car, one holding a baseball bat and the other holding a gun. If this man was pulled over for this reason, why would the cops approach him like this? The cops indeed put fear in this man. He was so scared when they told him to get out his car, he didn't. Eventually the man reached over to unfasten his seatbelt and the officers immediately started attacking him. Their excuse was that they thought he was going to pull out a weapon. Cops are monstrous because they are so hungry for power and respect, they do things to get people to fear them.
I think a lot of what cops do is meant to protect the citizens, but as you stated, a lot of them take their power seriously. I think if we look at cops through the lens of how a lot of African American citizens feel, we could definitely see cops as monstrous. Much of what they do is racially motivated and there is enough police brutality and what not to say that there is a lot of discrimination against those of color. Think of the videos that we've all seen where the person under questioning with cops has no idea what they've even done and the cops continuously provoke them and end up finding something or other to get a person in trouble for. Instead of finding help with cops a lot of us are taught to be afraid of them.
ReplyDelete