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Addressing Police Brutality: Global Human Rights

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Published: Mar 25, 2024

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Introduction, 1. advocating for accountability, 2. raising awareness, 3. promoting policy reforms.

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USA: Rights experts call for reforms to end police brutality, systemic racism

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Independent UN human rights experts appealed on Friday for the new United States Government to adopt wide ranging reforms to end police violence and address systemic racism and racial discrimination. 

Affected communities must be included in shaping these reforms, which include diverting funding from policing to alternate safety measures, they added. 

🇺🇸 #UnitedStates: UN experts call on the Government to adopt wide ranging reforms to put an end to #PoliceBrutality, and to vigorously address systemic racism and racial discrimination.Learn more 👉 https://t.co/Y1hKbxuarr#StandUp4HumanRights #FightRacism pic.twitter.com/RID05ilaRj UN Special Procedures UN_SPExperts February 26, 2021

“We have repeatedly raised our concerns about the excessive force used by American police in the context of peaceful demonstrations, and the use of lethal force against individuals who did not present a threat to life at the time of the police intervention”, the experts said in a statement. 

“In this time of political change, the United States must initiate far-reaching reforms to address police brutality and systemic racism.” 

Excessive force used 

African American communities have long decried police brutality and racial profiling. 

The issue gained global attention last year when protests broke out across the US, some of them violent, following the death of George Floyd, the unarmed African American man whose death while in police custody was captured on video. 

The rights experts welcomed a recent report on protest response in the city of Philadelphia which found authorities failed to sufficiently plan for the demonstrations and that excessive force had been used. 

They urged other municipalities to assess their response and allegations of systemic racism. 

“In Philadelphia, as in other parts of the country where Black Lives Matter protests took place, law enforcement interventions were not limited to areas where lootings and vandalism had allegedly occurred”, they said. “Police officers fired tear gas, rubber bullets and used pepper spray from close range against protesters, residents and bystanders indiscriminately. Tear gas canisters even landed in home yards hurting children.” 

 Revise laws on use of lethal force 

The experts were also concerned that law enforcement officers in the US are allowed to use lethal force whenever it is deemed “reasonable”. They called for relevant legal and policy frameworks to be revised urgently to reflect established international human rights standards. 

“The use of potentially lethal force is an extreme measure, which may be resorted to only when strictly necessary to protect life or prevent serious injury from an imminent threat”, they said. “Likewise, less lethal weapons must be employed only subject to strict requirements of necessity and proportionality, in situations where less harmful measures would be ineffective.” 

Relatedly, they called for reform of laws and policies regarding the use of tear gas, pepper spray and other “so-called less-lethal weapons” during protests. 

“The expanding and improperly regulated use of less-lethal weapons raise serious and dramatic concerns for the respect of the right to life and the right to be free from torture and other ill-treatment”, the experts said. “They can kill and have killed; they can harm and wound horribly, leading to permanent disability.”  

Against ‘militarisation’ of policing 

Noting the increased “militarisation” of policing, the experts said the use of military equipment by law enforcement cannot be justified, adding that studies show military gear and armored vehicles do not reduce crime or increase officers’ safety. 

With misdemeanours accounting for some 80 per cent arrests in the US, the rights experts said reducing “unnecessary interactions” between the police and community members would lead to decreased violence and deaths. 

“We have witnessed many police killings that have resulted from police action related to petty offences. Instead, non-serious offenses, including minor traffic violations, should be addressed through mechanisms outside the criminal legal system”, they recommended. 

The experts said ensuring equality and justice in law enforcement will require the participation of affected communities, who must be involved in shaping policing and related reforms. 

 “Policing reforms must adopt genuine and substantive measures to dismantle systemic racism in policing, including against racial, ethnic and other minorities, by divestment from current policing budgets and reinvestment in alternative social and economic resources that are vital for the safety of these communities”, they stated. 

“We hope that the new US administration will be able to pursue the necessary reforms with resolve, determination, and a strong political and financial commitment.” 

The role of UN experts 

The 18 experts who issued the statement were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and report on specific thematic issues.  They include members of a Working Group studying racial discrimination faced by people of African descent globally. 

The experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid by the Organization. 

• United States
• Racial discrimination

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

The long, painful history of police brutality in the u.s..

A 1963 protest placard in the Smithsonian collections could almost be mistaken for any of the Black Lives Matter marches of today

Katie Nodjimbadem

Last month, hours after a jury acquitted former police officer Jeronimo Yanez of manslaughter in the shooting death of 32-year-old Philando Castile , protesters in St. Paul, Minnesota, shutdown Interstate 94. With signs that read: “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace,” the chant of “Philando, Philando” rang out as they marched down the highway in the dark of night.

The scene was familiar. A year earlier, massive protests had erupted when Yanez killed Castile, after pulling him over for a broken taillight. Dashcam footage shows Yanez firing through the open window of Castile’s car, seconds after Castile disclosed that he owned and was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.

A respected school nutritionist , Castile was one of 233 African-Americans shot and killed by police in 2016, a startling number when demographics are considered. African-Americans make up  13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 24 percent of people fatally shot by police. According to the Washington Post , blacks are "2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers."

Today's stories are anything but a recent phenomenon. A cardboard placard in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and on view in the new exhibition “ More Than a Picture ,” underscores that reality. 

The yellowing sign is a reminder of the continuous oppression and violence that has disproportionately shaken black communities for generations—“We Demand an End to Police Brutality Now!” is painted in red and white letters.

“The message after 50 years is still unresolved,” remarks Samuel Egerton, a college professor, who donated the poster to the museum. He carried it in protest during the 1963 March on Washington. Five decades later, the poster’s message rings alarmingly timely. Were it not for the yellowed edges, the placard could almost be mistaken for a sign from any of the Black Lives Matter  marches of the past three years.

"There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?" said Martin Luther King, Jr. in his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 march. His words continue to resonate today after a long history of violent confrontations between African-American citizens and the police. "We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality."

"This idea of police brutality was very much on people’s minds in 1963, following on the years, decades really, of police abuse of power and then centuries of oppression of African-Americans," says William Pretzer, senior history curator at the museum.

Modern policing  did not evolve into an organized institution until the 1830s and '40s when northern cities decided they needed better control over quickly growing populations. The first American police department  was established  in Boston in 1838. The communities most targeted by harsh tactics  were  recent European immigrants. But, as African-Americans fled the horrors of the Jim Crow south, they too  became  the victims of brutal and punitive policing in the northern cities where they sought refuge.

In 1929, the Illinois Association for Criminal Justice published the  Illinois Crime Survey . Conducted between 1927 and 1928, the survey sought to analyze causes of high crime rates in Chicago and Cook County, especially among criminals associated with Al Capone. But also the survey provided data on police activity—although African-Americans made up just five percent of the area's population, they constituted 30 percent of the victims of police killings, the survey revealed.

"There was a lot of one-on-one conflict between police and citizens and a lot of it was initiated by the police," says  Malcolm D. Holmes , a sociology professor at the University of Wyoming, who has researched and  written  about the topic of police brutality extensively.

That same year, President Herbert Hoover established the  National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement  to investigate crime related to prohibition in addition to policing tactics. Between 1931 and 1932, the commission published the findings of its investigation in 14 volumes, one of which was titled  “Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement.”  The realities of police brutality came to light, even though the commission did not address racial disparities outright.

During the Civil Rights Era, though many of the movement's leaders advocated for peaceful protests, the 1960s were fraught with violent and destructive riots.

Aggressive dispersion tactics, such as police dogs and fire hoses, against individuals in peaceful protests and sit-ins were the most widely publicized examples of police brutality in that era. But it was the pervasive violent policing in communities of color that built distrust at a local, everyday level.

One of the deadliest riots occurred in Newark in 1967 after police officers severely  beat  black cab driver John Smith during a traffic stop. Twenty-six people died and many others were injured during the four days of unrest. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson organized the  National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders  to investigate the causes of these major riots.

The origins of the unrest in Newark weren't unique in a police versus citizen incident. The commission  concluded  "police actions were 'final' incidents before the outbreak of violence in 12 of the 24 surveyed disorders.”

The commission identified  segregation  and poverty as indicators and published recommendations for reducing social inequalities,  recommending  an “expansion and reorientation of the urban renewal program to give priority to projects directly assisting low-income households to obtain adequate housing.” Johnson, however,  rejected  the commission’s recommendations. 

Black newspapers reported incidents of police brutality throughout the early and mid-20th century and the popularization of radio storytelling spread those stories even further. In 1991, following the beating of cab driver Rodney King, video footage vividly  told  the story of police brutality on television to a much wider audience. The police officers, who were acquitted of the crime, had hit King more than 50 times with their batons.

Today, live streaming, tweets and Facebook posts have blasted the incidents of police brutality, beyond the black community and into the mainstream media. Philando Castile’s fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the car with her daughter when he was shot, streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting on her phone using Facebook live.

"Modern technology allows, indeed insists, that the white community take notice of these kinds of situations and incidents," says Pretzer.

And as technology has evolved, so has the equipment of law enforcement. Police departments with military-grade equipment  have become  the norm in American cities.  Images  of police officers in helmets and body armor riding through neighborhoods in tanks accompany stories of protests whenever one of these incidents occurs.

"What we see is a continuation of an unequal relationship that has been exacerbated, made worse if you will, by the militarization and the increase in fire power of police forces around the country," says Pretzer.

The resolution to the problem, according to Pretzer, lies not only in improving these unbalanced police-community relationships, but, more importantly, in eradicating the social inequalities that perpetuate these relationships that sustain distrust and frustration on both sides.

'There’s a tendency to stereotype people as being more or less dangerous. There’s a reliance upon force that goes beyond what is necessary to accomplish police duty," says Holmes. "There’s a lot of this embedded in the police departments that helps foster this problem."

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Katie Nodjimbadem | | READ MORE

Katie was formerly the staff reporter for Smithsonian magazine.

Breonna Taylor, police brutality, and the importance of #SayHerName

Subscribe to how we rise, melissa brown and melissa brown assistant professor - santa clara university @blackfeminisms rashawn ray rashawn ray senior fellow - governance studies @sociologistray.

September 25, 2020

“Today is a good day to arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor.” This phrase started as a call for the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office to hold accountable the officers that shot and killed the 26-year-old Louisville resident in her home in March 2020. In the months after Taylor’s killing, social media influencers and celebrities adopted the phrase to draw attention to her death as a way to disrupt the picturesque and cavalier digital culture of platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok. Oprah Winfrey even gave up her coveted spot on the cover of O Magazine by putting a picture of Taylor, an emergency medical technician, on the cover. Winfrey also placed billboards around the city of Louisville (one of which were vandalized ) to demand the arrest of the officers involved.

For a moment, this attention seemed to bring attention to Breonna and by extension Black women who are victims of police brutality. Louisville’s police chief resigned, the city council voted to ban no-knock warrants (naming it Breonna’s Law ) and make body-worn cameras mandatory. The city also settled with Taylor’s family for $12 million for wrongful death.

Nonetheless, earlier this week, a Kentucky grand jury voted not to bring charges against the officers—Brent Hankison, Jonathan Mattingly, and Myles Cosgrove—accused of participating in Taylor’s killing. Instead, Hankison, a former Louisville detective fired after the incident, was charged with three counts of  “ wanton endangerment ” for his role in a botched no-knock warrant raid on Taylor’s home. What was most troubling about the grand jury announcement was that Hankison’s charges are not for what he did to Taylor. Instead, the grand jury indicted Hankinson because the bullets from his gun went through Taylor’s walls and into her neighbor’s apartment occupied by three people (none of whom were shot).

Once again, a Black woman’s fatal encounter with the police was minimized. Taylor’s neighbors’ mental anguish and property received more justice than her life.

It is exactly this privileging of property over the bodies of Black women that illuminates why the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) headed by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw created the #SayHerName campaign. According to the 2015 Say Her Name Report , Crenshaw and her team coined Say Her Name to shed “light on Black women’s experiences of police violence to support a gender-inclusive approach to racial justice that centers all Black lives equally.”

While the founders of Black Lives Matter intended the motto to encompass all Black people, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, a study we conducted with a team of researchers at the University of Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities found a gender discrepancy in how the message of Black Lives Matter played out when it became a hashtag on Twitter. We analyzed a collection of 31 million tweets generated between August 2014 and August 2015 on Ferguson after the killing of 17-year-old Missouri resident Michael Brown by Darren Wilson, an officer for the Ferguson Police Department at the time. Our findings indicate that opponents to police violence used hashtags for multiple reasons, one of which was to name Black people killed by police. However, of the nearly 300 phrases used as hashtags we collected, not even one named a Black woman or girl.

Though Black women are 13% of the women population in the United States, they represent 20% of women killed by police and nearly 30% who are killed while unarmed. About 36% of women killed by police since 2015 were killed in their homes , like Taylor. It is a troubling pattern of Black women’s killings being justified as “caught in crossfire.” Still, we have to wonder how a $12 million settlement leads to a justifiable police killing with none of the officers being held accountable for that killing. Instead, taxpayers’ money , including Taylor’s own, was used to pay her family for her death.

The results of this study demonstrate why #SayHerName is so necessary as a corrective to the erasure of the deaths of Black women in the narrative associated with the broader Movement for Black Lives. The Say Her Name report states that “Just as the officers who killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner escaped punishment for these homicides, officers who killed Black women and girls were not held accountable for their actions.” The Kentucky grand jury’s decision not to hold anyone accountable for Breonna Taylor’s death underscores this point.

It is also worth noting that, beyond the gender differences in tweets that we analyzed, the level of public outcry about Breonna Taylor’s murder also points to differences in how Black women’s encounters with the police are perceived by the public. The online activism in support of Breonna Taylor did not appear to motivate the same public outcry as the protest activity that continues following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. While some argue that video evidence makes the difference in the killings of Floyd and Taylor, the 2014 video in the beating of California resident Marlene Pinnock would seem to undercut that argument.

In a subsequent study conducted in 2016, we found that beyond the differences in public outcry for Black women, news outlets also mentioned male victims of police brutality more often than female victims of police brutality.  We analyzed over 460,000 tweets generated between January 2016 and October 2016 and explicitly included the phrase #SayHerName. While journalists or news organizations retweeted nearly 40% of user accounts that mentioned Ferguson, only 18% of the retweeted users that tweeted about #SayHerName fell into that category. Our results show how news outlets contribute to police violence against Black women receiving less attention.

Media outlets and journalists use social media to generate traffic for news websites. However, they also make choices about the narratives they amplify on Twitter and other mediums. Our findings suggest that the media often brings more awareness to #BlackLivesMatter and Black men’s experience with police violence relative to #SayHerName and the killings of Black women.

Therefore, hashtags like #SayHisName or #SayTheirNames “muddle the very reasoning behind the creation of the #SayHerName,” as Precious Fondren notes. Moreover, online activism for Black women should not be compromised or splintered due to how calls to action obfuscate their intersectional plight.  

Despite the grand jury’s failure to implicate anyone in Breonna Taylor’s death, the groundswell of online activism in her name means that more people now know how the justice system disempowers Black women victims of police brutality. Supporting the #SayHerName campaign means remaining steadfast in the struggle to upend how systemic racism and sexism intersect to disproportionately affect Black women.

Melissa Brown is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and an incoming Assistant Professor of Communication at Santa Clara University. Rashawn Ray is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland. 

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