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Paula Olive
Mr. Tobler
U.S History, 2R
22 November 2016
The Police are Americas Terrorists
The police are Americas terrorists. This statement, while very bold and controversial, has

a sense of truth in it. Many cases across the nation are obvious evidence, such as the events that

sparked the Baltimore riots, while some are somewhat subtle. We entice ourselves to face the

media and believe that law enforcement was built to protect us while other instances show

otherwise. If terrorism is defined as using violence to obtain political gain, it seems that many

police officers are using their authority in unorthodox ways to place fear in the hearts of one

group of people: the minorities.

One Saturday morning in April, Walter Scott was driving his Mercedes in North

Charleston, S.C., when he was pulled over by police officer Michael Slager for driving with a

broken taillight. By instinct, Scott fled from the scene with the police officer trailing nearby. A

man who noticed the chaos pulled out his smartphone and recorded the exact moment that Slager

gunned down Scott in an abandoned area. Instead of pursuing, though, Slager draws his handgun

and fires seven times. After a brief pause, Slager shoots once more. This decision sparked a

controversy because the officer could have easily used his Taser or utilized a less violent method

to stop him.
In another case, Eric Garner, an adult black father, was choked to death by NJPD for

doing what appeared to be drug dealing. When the officers approached, he talked very calmly

and didnt put up a fight. They yelled at him and told him to get down. Upon this, one officer

thought it would be effective if he operated a trained takedown, by choking Garner from the

back. Garner, who didnt show any sign of rebellion, died that day. The video that captured this

aroused a question around the nation: are the police becoming murderers? The officer that killed

Garner was never sentenced to any time and never convicted for murder.
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The killings of minorities by police are instructive in this regard, not because all

policemen are violent racists or murderers or because they are personally responsible for killing

large numbers of black and brown people, but because they are agents of the state, and so their

actions, and the consequences they face, serve as a sort of index of the public will.
Witnessing all these shootings and killings creates a constant state of terror within

minorities, not altogether different from the effect larger populations feel witnessing passenger

planes flying into buildings, or gunmen cutting their way through schools and shopping malls, or

children blowing themselves up in cramped bazaars. The issue doesn't involve absolute numbers;

it involves the effect of knowing that at any time, your number could come up.
The difference is that when the Boston Marathon is bombed, or people fly planes into

buildings, or an aggrieved loner goes on a killing spree, we, as a society, pursue justice to the

very ends of the earth, if only to sleep better at night. When killer cops rarely, if ever, even step

foot in court, let alone get convicted, the absence of immediate justice or punishment leads to an

unaddressed fear. It's a fear. Fear that the carnage can be easily replicated, virtually anywhere, by

virtually anyone; a fear that our lives don't matter. The police are Americas terrorists and will

continue to be unless something is done by the minorities.