Dear Future President,

In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in police abusing their power. This has lead to the shooting of many unarmed black lives. Every day a black mother worries about the safety of her children. We should be able to trust police officers to protect us instead of killing us.

There were over 346 black people killed in the year 2015. According to Mapping Police Violence, so far in 2016 the police have murdered 230 black lives. Police killed at least 102 unarmed black people in 2015. 37% of unarmed people killed by police were black in 2015 even though only 13% of the U.S. population are African American. Police brutality continues to become a growing issue in America. Only 10 of the 102 cases in 2015 where an unarmed black person was killed by police ended in the officer or officers to be charged with murder.

Police officers claim to have felt threatened in response to killing an innocent person. Or the officer would claim that the victim was armed but there is no evidence to support it. I believe that if a person felt threatened they shouldn’t shoot to kill. Instead the officer should just use their taser instead. Why are officers so inclined to use their gun instead of their taser? I believe that one of the problems is the arrangement of the police belt. The gun is in an easy place for the officer to have access to. While the taser and handcuffs are closer to the back of the belt. I believe that if we change to arrangement of the belt there would be less of a chance for the victim to be killed.

There will be no easy way to end police brutality. But we can take small steps like these to come closer to ending the violence. With the right ideas and mindset we can end police brutality. Thank you for taking your time to listen.

Sincerely,

Michayla and Tiarra