Dear President of the United States,

Close to my house, I saw a black man walking and a police car stopped right in front of him. They got out and stopped him and asked for ID. I don’t know what happened, but they took him away. In my mind, I thought, are they only stopping him because he is black? This made me feel bad because if my skin color was black too, maybe the police would do this to me too. I’m from Honduras, I live now in New York City, I’m in my last year of high school. I believe that all people need to be equal and the police need to protect the people and not treat them the bad way because of their race. The racism in the police is a big problem that you should address because many black people are dying at the hands of the police because they use too much force with people who are not doing anything wrong.

The use of racial profiling and the use of too much force by the police are affecting the majority of the black people. Many of them died in the hands of the police without them doing anything to anyone. According to Tim Jones of Bloomberg News, “Some people say profiling destroys trust in police. That trust is important. Right now, people are angry about police killings. In these cases, police killed black men who were not doing anything wrong. They were not carrying guns. But many of the policemen never got in trouble.” This shows how important is this issue of racism in the police. Black people are dying only because their skin color makes the police distrust them and kill them without doing anything wrong and many of the policemen don’t get any charge for killing a black person. According to Ken Armstrong, “It is important for police not to overreact to small problems. Alton Sterling was just selling CDs on the street. Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes. Yet, both of these African American men died at the hands of police. Both should have just received a ticket.” In other words, the police take advantage of their power. The death of these two African American men is unfair because they only were selling CDs on the street and loose cigarettes, they deserved only a little punishment or a ticket, but not death. According to St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “The Ferguson Police Department has treated black people unfairly, according to a government report released Wednesday. It found that police officers searched black people without a legal reason. They arrested people just for walking down the street. They used too much force and often ignored people's rights.” This means that black people have everything to lose. They are simply arrested for walking on the street without hurting anyone and without doing anything illegal. Also, the part that the police ignored the rights of the black people is unfair because the police need to respect the rights of the white people and black people equal.

Through my evidence, I show you how important is the issue of police brutality. The police need to treat everyone equal, without seeing the skin color because everyone has the same rights and freedom. While I was reading the articles I found three possible solutions to the problem of racism in the police. The first possible solution to this issue, according to the article "Issue Overview: Racial profiling" said, that give more jobs to minorities and holding classes for police to teach them to treat everyone equally will help the situation of racism in the police. The second possible solution was in the article, "Opinion: Groups offer ideas for fixing ties between police, black citizens" said, that all the states need to have the same rules about when the force can be used. There should be one set of rules for the whole country. This possible solution also can help this issue. The third possible solution that I found was in the article, "Report says Ferguson police treated blacks unfairly" said, training police to treat black and whites equally can be a good solution to stop this issue of racism in the police. After all the evidence I have shown you, I want you to take action to stop this issue as soon as possible. With your help, the injustice against black people can end.

Sincerely,

Flores

References

Armstrong, K. (2016, September 08). Opinion: Groups offer ideas for fixing ties between police, black citizens. Retrieved from https://newsela.com/articles/how-to-fix-american-policing/id/20244/

Deere, S., & Raasch, C. (2015, March 5). Report accuses Ferguson police, courts of targeting African-Americans. Retrieved from https://newsela.com/articles/ferguson-report/id/7822/

Jones, T. (n.d.). Issue Overview: Racial profiling. Retrieved from https://newsela.com/articles/overview-racial-profiling/id/20944/