Fox News announced on April 06, 2014 “Authorities Arrest about 100 People when Southern California College Party turns into Brawl”. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff office, from the beachside community of Isla Vista, presumed what apparently started out as the annual spring break party; known as Deltopia, in Southern California revolved from a nonviolent gathering into a street brawl around 9:30 p.m. Saturday.
An angry mob of 15,000 people used rocks, bricks and bottles as weapons against the established order of authority. An out of control crowd began lighting fires; in addition to causing destruction to law enforcement vehicles. Seized video recordings revealed people destroying stop signs, swaying cars, and smashing windows. The Ventura County Sheriff’s office, the Oxnard Police Department, and the Ventura office of the California Highway Patrol were among the local agencies that responded to the scene to provide assistance. It was stated by the Ventura County Star that, “things escalated after a University of California, Santa Barbara police officer was hit in the head with a b...
Consolidated with authentic research, Twilight provides an important examination of the hidden reasons for the Los Angeles riots. A more drawn out chronicled see additionally uncovers the bigger class strains and the gigantic change of ethnic structure of Los Angeles from 1970 to 1990 that added to the atmosphere that could deliver such a huge scale riot.
In the movie, La Misma Luna, immigration officers stormed a tomato picking workshop and asked everyone for their papers. They showed no warrant for being there, but assumed that all were illegal immigrants. When some of the workers saw what was happening, they ran and yelled a warning to everyone. The police saw that some were getting away so they used forceful action to keep who they could there. They grabbed people by the neck or by the shirt or whatever they could get a hold of; then they would throw them to the ground and brutally beat them with their police batons. In the police training handbook it describes the use of less than lethal force by saying, “The application of any less than lethal force or device should be managed and monitored in the same way as if that force could cause serious injury or death.” (http://www.justice.gov/archive/crs/pubs/pdexcess.pdf). In the situation presented in the movie, La Misma Luna, the police did not manage or monitor their use of lethal weapons carefully because they beat random people until they couldn’t move. If it had caused serious injury or death, than those particular policemen...
Even though many of the protesters were severely beaten, they still stood their stance and got the message out. What is a Riot? According to Encyclopedia.gov a riot “is a social occasion involving relatively spontaneous collective violence directed at property, persons, or authority.” There are five main
...series of meeting set up by, U.S. Attorney David M. Satz. According to police the riots took 26 lives, 24 of them were African American. The two white victims were a police detective, who was reportedly shot by a sniper, and a fireman, who was killed by gunfire while responding to an alarm on Central Avenue. Eighteen of the 26 people killed during the riot were shot by police or National Guard troops. Several people, like Eloise Spellman, and Elizabeth Artis, were fatally wounded in their own homes by a combination of National Guard/Police bullets aimed at suspected snipers. According to New Jersey state police reported 725 injuries (according to Newark City Hospital over 1000), 1500 arrest, and $10 million in property damage. After the riots Newark tried to encourage racial equality. However, today, housing, employment, and education are remaining huge problems.
There has been controversy in the world about police brutality and whether police have used excessive force to apprehend a subject is increasing. Police brutality has been around for a long time, but it just now televised. In the late 19th century, the issue of police brutality was often tied to business owners’ efforts to break up strikes by workers attempting to organize and form labor unions, also on a day known as Bloody Sunday where a group of peaceful protesters were literally beaten to the ground, sprayed with tear gas, and water hose by the police (“Police Brutality”). Even in 2015 in Baltimore Freddie Gray, 25-year-old African-American male, died while in police custody due to injuries in the spine and in some parts of Baltimore the
“April 26th, 1992, there was a riot on the streets, tell me where were you!? You were sittin' home watchin' your TV, while I was paticipatin' in some anarchy,” these are the lyrics Sublime uses in their song ‘April 26, 1992’ to describe what happened during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. “First spot we hit it was my liquor store. I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford. With red lights flashin' time to retire, And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire,” people ,running through the streets, had no pity when demolishing small businesses and taking what ever they may want from them. The streets, neighborhoods, businesses were destroyed by angry protesters. Their reasons were clear, all they wanted was some justice. A video tape of four L.A.P.D police officers brutally beating a male (Rodney King) without any sympathy was made public, which started the bomb track. “Let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna wanna let it burn,” says the song when describing the riots. Throughout these days there was an estimate of more than 50 killed, over 4 thousand injured, and 12,000 people arrested. The damage caused in the city was about one billion dollars, damage that is believed was never fully repaired. The riots and destruction that went on for about a week that showed the people’s rage and that they were not going to tolerate the injustices committed by the authorities.
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
On New Year’s Day 2009, the police were called because a fight broke out on a train in Oakland, California. Oscar Grant and some of his friends were pulled off the train by former cop Johannes Mehserle. Grant struggled some with the officers while being arrested, but then he was restrained. Oscar Grant was lying on the platform when Johannes Mehserle shot him around 2 am. Granted had both hands behind his back and he was also unarmed when he was shot (Bulwa). The shooting made national headlines because bystanders videotaped it. These videos went viral and they made their way to the news (Cater).
The mass of protestors gathered back in Castro Street, still fuming and unyielding. A cluster of bitter police officers, some off-duty, decided to take matters into their own hands. The officers raided Castro Street, assaulting protestors and vandalizing small businesses. “They shouted anti-gay slurs at the victims, and eventually turned their attention to attacking anyone that happened to be out on Castro Street” (Stezano). The violence continued for hours before the police chief was made aware of the officers’ rogue raid. However, none of the officers involved were ever reprimanded for their actions.
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots was a series of riots and civil disturbances that include lootings, arsons, and racial attacks. The acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Deparment officers who excessively beat an African-American male on film and the murder of a teenage African-American girl ignited the riots. The aftermath of the Los Angeles Riots resulted in 55 deaths and approximately $1 billion in property damage.1
Everyday law enforcement personal have the possibility to face dangerous events in their daily duties. In performing such duties a police officer could come by a seemingly ordinary task, and in a blink of an eye the event can turn threatening and possible deadly. When or if this happens to an officer they won’t have
Jim Jones and his infamous cult entitled, “The People’s Temple,” holds an interesting value to social psychology. Jonestown is a topic that can relate back to many sociology terms and ideas. Jonestown can be related to social deviance, the effect of American culture on social groups, labelling theory, charismatic authority, and even shows how societal history often repeats itself. American society during the late 60’s-70’s is what led to the creation of Jonestown. Jonestowns downfall provided a lot of insight to the American public of how society needed to change, proving that the deaths of about 900 people weren’t for nothing.
Police violence remains a dire human right violation, especially in the United States. Over the last decade, police have applied force and aggression in ways that leave people wondering if they are discharging their duties. Recently, law enforcement seems to have taken a different turn characterized by aggression and violence when dealing with the public. Cases of unjustified shootings, physical assault, fatal chokings and violent treatment have contributed to the ongoing problem of police brutality in the America. Worse still is the fact that a greater proportion of these cases go unreported and undetected. This has partially encouraged violent police officers to continue applying force when dealing with the public. This new law enforcement
The police department does not reflect the demographics of the town’s residents which has three black officers out of a 53 officer department. The people in the community lost trust and respect for an organization that was put in place to protect and serve their people. Instead they have lost complete control of their society. The Rodney King case is another case that was a problem relating to police brutality. Rodney King was severely beaten in 1991 by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. He was severely beaten with batons and kicked and punched by a group of officers. He was also hit with a stun gun, received over fifty baton blows, and kicked several times (Walter, 2014). The officers were acquitted in state court on excessive force charges which led to riots in the city causing multiple deaths and injuries. Researchers have discredited the idea that police brutality is simply an individual problem, which is certain officers are just bad cops, while others are good cops. The videotaped beaten of Rodney King was not a tragic enough lesson for the police departments across the country, police beatings and killings of African
There were several causes which led to this riot and the immediate cause was racial tension. Racism tends to persist most readily when there are obvious physical differences among groups e.g. “Black” and “white” differences. This no doubt results in attempts to limit economic opportunities, to preserve status, to deny equal protection under law and to maintain cheap labor. Discrimination was represented ...