Dominique Roper

Eng 100
Prof. Mangini
I-Search Paper
How much is too much?

Outrage spread across New York on July 2014 after the death of Eric garner
due to a chokehold used by a nypd police officer but it doesn't end there. Just a
month later a similar case happened out ferguson, Missouri the shooting of Michael
Brown. In Cleveland Ohio 12-year-old tamir rice was shot because an officer
mistakenly thought his toy gun was a real pistol. April 4, 2015 in North Charleston
South Carolina Walter L. Scott was pulled over by Officer performing routine traffic
stop when things went south. Officer Michael T. Slager lost control of the situation
and during his attempt to gain control he shot several rounds at Walter Scott. All of
these cases mentioned ended in blood resulting in death but how many more cases
like these were left in the dark. Out of the four cases I mentioned only one officer
was convicted of committing a crime, which was murder. Officer Michael Slager was
convicted of murder after using unnecessary lethal force. Is Michael Slager a murder
or was he performing the duties of officer that was in danger? The next question I
think we can all it is "Was all this really worth it?" Or were these cases examples of
police brutality. Some argue that officers use reasonable force but in other cases
some argue that this all could have been prevented. The real question I often
wonder is "How much is too much?"

Is Officer Michael Slager a murder or was he using reasonable force? Before I

could take one side or another I had to know what reasonable force actually was.
The word reasonable means, (1) being in accordance with reason, and (2) not
extreme or excessive. The court determines if an officers had used reasonable force
by the following: what was the severity of the crime, if the suspect posed as a
threat or if the suspect was resisting arrest and made an attempt to flee. Even
though after reading this it seems like officer Slager had the right to use force but
NOT lethal force in my eyes it was uncalled for and a clear form of excessive force.
Watching the video several times during the process of writing my paper also help
defend my argument. Legal force should only be used as a last resort but a police
officer has the right to determine whether it is necessary or if they feel that they are
in serious danger. PACE, the police and criminal evidence act of 1984 states that an
officer using force must honestly believe that it is justified, not excessive.

Project manager for the national police use of force database project at the
international association of chiefs of police, Mark Henriquez says that every few
incidents of force result in charges of police brutality or excessive force. During this
project he reported 147,362 cases of excessive force and 6,163 of that number
complaints were reported. Even though many complaints were filed only 654 of
those were reviewed by the board. But Allison Collins begs to differ. She wrote a
report on police brutality in the United States for the group human rights watch and
her research differed from Mark Henriquez. She reported that there has been 12,000
complaints every year due to police brutality and less than 50 percent of that has

resulted in the conviction of an officer. The people that are being paid to protect us
are the same people that have the power to hurt us. Is this a job or a commitment?
Everyone is human so what makes a cop any different?

Police are trained to keep their head cool says James powers, Chief of police
in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Even though officers receive this training there still
human and they still have the same emotions as everyone else. It's hard keeping
your head on during every situation that they may face but at the same time they
are trained to face these different obstacles. If a suspect flees from being arrested
the officer has to be prepared for a chase. during the post-