Police Brutality Must End
Police killings have a devastating impact on marginalized communities, particularly Black and Indigenous people of color. These communities already face significant challenges, including poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to healthcare and education. Police violence exacerbates these issues, creating a cycle of trauma and grief. Families who have lost loved ones at the hands of the police are left to grapple with the emotional and psychological toll of their loss while also navigating the legal and financial consequences. In many cases, the victims were the primary breadwinners for their families, leaving them struggling to make ends meet in the wake of their death. The impact of police killings is felt by individual families and entire communities. The loss of a community member can have ripple effects that are felt for years to come.
Understanding the Impact on Marginalized Communities
Even though there has been more transparency into this issue in recent years, police officers continue to kill civilians at a shocking rate. The Washington Post’s database has highlighted the racial disparities among U.S. citizens who have been killed by police since 2015. The statistics show that police killed white Americans at a rate of 15 per 1 million, Hispanic Americans at 28 per 1 million, and Black Americans at 38 per 1 million. This means that Hispanic Americans were almost two times as likely as white Americans to be killed by police, and Black Americans were more than 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police than white Americans. Additionally, according to the 2021 Police Violence report from the Mapping Police Violence team, Black Americans were not only more likely to be killed by police than other races but also more likely to be unarmed and less likely to be threatening someone when killed.