Dear future President,

Police brutality is an issue that is occurring around the entire U.S. and there has to be an end to it. In my opinion, police brutality in most cases is not necessary. It is wrong for someone to be killed because of the color of their skin or because they’re dressed a certain way. The main two races that are targeted are black Americans and Latinos. In order to fix this issue I think the first step is to make police training more organized and to have specific issues to work on, like the use of force and also the physical abuse of the accused. Innocent people shouldn’t have a gun pointed at them - in many cases this is an example of the police simply abusing their power.

The future president should make more rigorous punishments toward police officers and not only in cases when they kill or abuse someone of color but all races, they shouldn’t be able to abuse the fact that they are wearing a uniform and carry around a gun and a badge. Police brutality is not only affecting the trust between civilians and the police officers it is also changing the views and peoples' perspectives on police officers. As stated in the Guardian database, “32% of unarmed blacks were killed by police in 2015” and the big issue here is discrimination.

One case that shows discrimination is the Terence Crutcher case in which he was walking on the road with his hands in the air walking to his car. Police followed him and opened fire. The police officer who pulled the trigger states that she thought he was reaching for a firearm, but evidence shows that his window was rolled up, making it impossible for him to be reaching inside of his car. I see this case as full discrimination; they profiled him as being a black male who was reaching for a “firearm”.

Many say being a police officer is a difficult and dangerous job which stands behind the use of force or letting police officers abuse their power. In an article from the Journalist’s Resource, “well trained officers are not consistently able to fire their weapon in time before a suspect holding a gun can raise it and fire first this makes split second judgments even under “ideal” circumstances, exceptionally difficult.” Even though this is a valid point, this still doesn’t give police officers the right to go around shooting people, especially targeting specific races without getting a reasonable punishment. Being someone of color and having friends and family of color really scares me because their lives can be in danger just because of their skin color or maybe even the way they are dressed.

Police brutality is an issue that has been consistently increasing and social media is not one to keep shootings or any type of abuse a secret. Although there are opposing views of this situation their data is unreliable.  

Destiny Martinez