Abdaly Perez
Ms. Tompkins
World Lit Honors 2
March 12, 2015
Not Against Police, But Afraid Of Police
Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, 18 and 17 years when they took their last breath. Reason of deaths? One shot by a police officer and the other by a neighborhood watch volunteer.
In South Africa, police brutality is a major issue that affects everyone. Within the past decade the amount of police brutality has tripled. In addition, most of the police officers who commit crimes are never punished.
Hundreds of people throughout only a year are beaten and murdered by police officers. Many of these cases, only lead to 1% of the police officers being penalized. People who are innocent are beaten by police officers. Protesters are being shot for “attacking“ police officers.
In South Africa there has been a crucial increase rate of police brutality cases. According to The Guardian, “Reports of police brutality in South Africa have soared by 313% in a decade…” (South). From 2001 to 2012, there has been an increase of 1,306 cases of police brutality (South). In August of 2012 in Marikana, 34 miners were killed by policemen because they had been protesting. 78 were injured. A protester, David Nkolisi, told BBC news, "We were killed for asking our employer to pay us a decent salary for hard work deep underground” (S African). As we can see, they weren't protesting against the police. They didn't fire at any policemen, they weren't threatening the policemen. 34 men who could have been a father, husband, brother, were shot dead for believing they deserved more money for their hard work.
Have any of the police officers that murdered these miners been convicted of murder? According to The Guardian, No police officer has been arrested, but many of the miners who were injured are facing criminal charges. Not only have policemen murdered people for no valid reason, but according to News24 they abuse people as well. In Cape Town, a police officer assaulted a disabled man. He said, “ He pulled me, tearing my shirt and pushed me up against the police van where he smacked me twice across the side of my head by my ear and started hitting me in the ribs...” (disabled). As we can see, not only are police killing people, they are committing different crimes, against people who are incapable of defending themselves. Even though the rate crime tripled in a decade, only 100 cases have a result of police officers being convicted.
As we see, South Africa has gone through many issues with police brutality. They have had an increase rate of 313% cases within ten years. Including the fact that a majority of these cases lead to the victim being charged of a crime instead of the criminal.
Work Cited
- "Disabled Cape Town Man: Cop Told Me to 'voetsek'" News24. N.p., 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Disabled-Cape-Town-man-Cop-told-me-to-voetsek-20150216>.
- "South Africa Reports of Police Brutality More than Tripled in the Last Decade." The Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/south-africa-police-brutality-increase>.
"S African Mining Clash Killed 34." BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-19292909>
Good Job Abdaly ! I liked your hook i think it was really nice how you connected your issue to something mostly everyone can connect with. Also nice evidence !
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Really powerful article. I like the use of repetition you have when you state facts because they are really shocking facts. I also really like the quote you chose form one of the miners. I feel that your point there would not have been as strong if you chose to leave it out. Great article.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you pulled examples and quoted the people who had been victims of police brutality. As stated in the first paragraph, police brutality is an issue as well for the United States. What are the causes for the sudden spike in police brutality? In the US, it is blamed on racism; is it the same case for modern South Africa?
ReplyDeleteVery powerful and emotional, I had no idea that the problem of police brutality happened all over the world. I think your article really showed the issue and why it was the issue. I love how you related it to the cases of police brutality in the United States. Your information and statistics really helped your argument I really think that the overall article was very well written. Well done!
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