Police Shooting Essay

The claim that the NYPD is becoming trigger-happy usher outnot unfeignedly be said conclusively without comparing it to other large metropolitan areas in the United States and when doing so it seems that the answer is, at the pre displace time, no.  In 1999, 11 people died at the hand of an officer in new-fangled York, in 2000 it was 41.  1993 had 23 people killed by police that was the same yr that David Dinkins was mayor. Now if you compare this to Chicago last year, 2001, 13 people were killed by police with only 10 in 2000.LAPD was the only U.S. city to imbibe the death rates from police shootings fall lower than New York, checkmate from 39 to 6 in between 2000-2001.  But LAPDs criminal offense reduction still did not match New York, which was drastically lower.  heretofore with demonstrations and poor poll rating, the number of civilian complaints about the police aviate to 4,903 in 1999, the lowest since 1994.  Even though the NYPD is not perfect th e social movement still telephones that improvement is still continueing.            Some attri scarcee the decline to political economy such(prenominal) as lower unemployment or demographics, fewer criminal youths.  No one wants to believe that it could possibly be tougher policing.  A new computerized agreement that maps the criminality in the city has been given credit by most.  along with this system and weekly brainstorming meetings among senior police and precinct captains NYPD has been able to predict and locate new outbreaks of crime quickly and find better ways of cracking down on them.Some point to the focal point on quality of life crimes wish well littering and graffiti painting.  Enforcing these types of crime has shown the community that integrity will be enforced and this has given a clear message.  The ever-changing of how police officers are rewarded for performance has also made a really huge d ifference.  It switched from rewards for number of arrests to rewards for lower reported crimes.Only until an incident with Patrick Dorismond, who was shaft by police in March of 2000 by the street crimes unit, did the NYPD take in a more critical look into if they are trigger-happy.  The unit is a plain clothed police squad that can be sent anytime anywhere.  At the time they were investigating an outbreak of cab drivers who were being murdered.  other function of this unit is to find illegal weapons.  In New York metropolis it is quite frequent that individuals can pay back stopped and frisked, but many a(prenominal) an(prenominal) residents do not like this fact.  It seems that this activity focuses on many blacks and Hispanics.Dorismond was approached by officers from the street crimes unit but because they were in street clothing Dorismond did not realize they were officers and a scuffle began with the result of Dorismonds fatal shooting.  He w as unarmed and the family is searching for answers.  What really hurt the department was when the mayors office decided to make habitual Dorismonds juvenile record, attempt to portray the man as no Altar boy did not go over well with the community and became nationwide news well-favored the police as being very insensitive.Racial Profiling seems to be at the heart of this problem, the mayor points to studies that the disproportionate number of people impeach of crimes come from ethnic minorities and that is the reason why more of those minorities get stopped.  A recent study by Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute points to the tactics of this policing unit as the problem.  They point out that it is unconstitutional and makes shooting like Dorismonds a predictable result.  It gives the police the mind-set of a soldier training the unit as soldiers.  Some have said that legalizing guns for citizens and legalizing any(prenominal) drugs could be a solution to e liminate the need for this unit.As you can see on that point are many openings for improvement in the NYPD and opus researching this topic I have found that it is obvious that improvements have been made, but they are slow in coming and in implementing.  Media has played a very important role in keeping this in the public arena, where it needs to be.  It was difficult when the changing of the way departmental review of rewards, such as being rewarded for reduction in crime reports, was implement and there was much debate on if this would really work.  But now since it has been implemented it has shown great improvement in community safety.Now a focus on racism should be examined closely to fix what is really, in my opinion, at the heart of this controversy.  I think if officers of tomorrow were educated in multicultural terms racism will fade away, like time.  America has had many dark moments in history and hopefully racism will become just a dark moment in t he past.  I entert think that we can actually say that NYPD is trigger-happy, but I do think that acts of racism could be behind the shootings that have happen between the NYPD and its citizens.ReferenceAnonymous (2000, May 6).  United States The Thin grisly Line.  The Economist,        London Ed. Vol. 355, Issue 8169, pg.32.