Police brutality has long been a topic of concern in American society. The police face a difficult and dangerous job in maintaining law and order on the streets. From time to time, deadly force is necessary in order to carry out that job. Nevertheless, most people agree that the use of deadly force must be controlled. Usually, an officer is expected to practice restraint so that the use of force is appropriate rather than excessive. The problems of excessive force made the national news on March 3, 1991, when a group of Los Angeles police were videotaped while beating a suspect. The suspect, Rodney King, was a black man who had given the police a high-speed chase before finally being stopped. Unbeknownst to the officers, a citizen videotaped the incident from a nearby home. The tape showed some of the officers repeatedly kicking King and beating him with clubs, while several other officers stood around watching. Later, it was discovered that taped communications between the officers and their dispatchers were filled with racist slurs and derisive laughter. The nation was shocked when the news media revealed this event. A number of questions were raised in the wake of the King beating. For example, people wondered if the incident was an isolated event or if the majority of the police are violent in their methods of apprehending suspects (Lacayo, 1991, p.18). Also, because King was black and all of his arresting officers were white, questions were raised regarding the extent to which racism can be found in American law enforcement practices.
Statistics pertaining to police brutality are generally taken from reports of citizen complaints. Unfortunately, the records showing such complaints are almost always incomplete. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that many cases go unreported, "especially in cities where complaints have to be filled out at the station house that is the home base of the very officers ag...