Police shooting innocent people: How is the community affected by this?

Police shooting innocent people: How is the community affected by this?

By: Stephanie Perez
Date: 12-20-16




Taking lives of innocent people nowadays is little by little affecting our community in some way. The type of violence that's happening in this world is cruel and gruesome. The way policemen take lives of innocent people.Some of the people are frightened to even go to the store to get themselves some munchies. And some are even scared to put up there hoodie. When will this end?

The shootings yet haven't even stopped and for some people out there it's an everyday thing hearing about someone that just got shot. The problem here is the police officers taking lives of innocent people. But how does this affect our community?

According to a survey that was taken by a our community they each had something to say about this problem. It was asked if they were affected by the shootings and one stated “Yes because innocent people and especially my family, are at risk of being shot. An incident happened to me about a family member and I couldn't believe the police are harassing people because of their looks or clothing.” this person had said that they were affected by the police and they didn’t feel safe. I think this has a great meaning and that is that police are affecting our community and they are scared because of it. Many people that took the survey said they did not feel safe with the police 60 percent  said they didn’t and 40 percent said they did.


The shooting of Laquan Mcdonald occurred October 20, 2014 at 4100 South Pulaski Road, Chicago. The young teen had been shot by a police officer approximately 16 times. The young man had been shot because he was carrying a 3 inch knife. But that gave no right for the officer to shoot him as much as 16 times.

Then from a different perspective the teacher of Laquan had commented he was very respectful and not aggressive. Jason Van Dyke was the police officer who had shot Laquan. Although Jason Van Dyke was fired from the police department and never can get a badge. That doesn’t change the fact that also people were helping him get out of jail and bailed him out. What was the justice there but later on this week he was arrested for first degree murder.

But nothing less that is just a small portion of what’s happening in the nation did you know 1,026 people were killed by the police only this year. The year isn’t even over yet what’s happening to our rights and justice.

The solution to this would have to train the police with a longer amount of time. They need to be trained more and that's what our community also wants. Not only that they also need to be watching over the police more. The Laquan Mcdonald shooting has caused the community not to trust the police and the effect of this was people not feeling safe with the police.

All in all this does affect our community and our nation but no one seems to put a stop to this now with more people that read this article they will have to open their eyes.


Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police- killings-us-database

http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/Who-Was-LaQuan-McDonald-Chicago-Teen-353098181.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-van-dyke-firing-glanton-20160901-column.html