What is the real purpose of the police? Is it to protect us? To enforce laws upon us? Or to racially discriminate in punishment? Recently, it seems to be the latter, as many black men have been the target of seemingly unjust white police. However, perhaps, just perhaps, the white police have been a target of public diatribe, causing the police be the wrongly accused. To answer the posed question, yes, the police do protect us; police may seem to exercise racial discrimination, but they judge fairly and without prior bias.

In the case of John Crawford, police were dispatched after people at a local Wal-Mart allegedly saw a man, later identified as John Crawford, holding a rifle and pointing it at miscellaneous people. Though the rifle was later discovered to be a fake, the policemen at the time had absolutely no idea that the gun in the man’s hands was not real. After the case took spotlight, bunches upon bunches of African-Americans and Whites began criticizing the efforts of police and the pattern of their accusations that hinted to white police being racist against blacks. However the situation, there was no racial injustice and thus police injustice. Even if John Crawford were white, the police would have had to shoot him down, because the rifleman was a danger to the community abutting him [1].

Furthermore, in the Eric Garner case, a man of African descent was caught in the midst of illegal action on a subway in New York. This may seem like a normal case, but what makes this case eccentric is that the officer who was involved in this situation, Daniel Pantaleo, choked the criminal, who later died in a hospital. After looking at this scenario, one may think that Pantaleo, who was white, was racist in his conduct of the choke-hold on Eric Garner. However, in retrospect, Garner was near the NYC subway selling illegal cigarettes, and when he was confronted by the officer, he resisted, thus further prompting officer Pantaleo to take action. Unfortunately, his “action” was a choke-hold on Eric Garner that eventually led to Garner’s death [2]. According to the New York Times, Pantaleo himself stated that he had no intention of harming Garner; he merely wanted to detain him so that Garner would not resist [2]. Though the police did not possess racial bias in the predicaments they were put in, it is highly possible that the police committed error in their misconduct.

An especially controversial case is the case of Ferguson, otherwise known as the shooting of Michael Brown. In this case, Officer Darren Wilson shot a completely unarmed black teenager by the name of Michael Brown. From the surface, it is almost certain that Wilson possessed some sort of racial dislike toward Brown, because Wilson was white and Michael Brown was black. However, according to numerous testimonies, Brown was approaching Darren Wilson when he was shot. This approachment likely caused Wilson to act erroneously, firing at someone who was unarmed. In no way, shape, or form was Officer Wilson attempting to harm the African-American teenager [3]. In the Ferguson case, the policeman was simply trying to protect himself and the community, He did not intentionally harm the victim who, in the end, was unfortunately put to death.

Backing up to the question of whether or not policemen protect the people, the police clearly attempts to protect people; of course, errors are commonplace in human conduct, and thus the police were also subject to this fallacy. People and protesters diatribing police need to vicariously view the perspective of policemen to fully understand the reasons behind their misconduct. Policemen do fully attempt to protect citizens and to judge solely based on acquired knowledge and not prior racial associations.

Works Cited:

Balko, Radley. "Mass Shooting Hysteria and the Death of John Crawford."Washington
  Post. The Washington Post. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

Goodman, J., and Al Baker. "Wave of Protests After Grand Jury Doesn’t Indict Officer in
  Eric Garner Chokehold Case."The New York Times. The New York Times, 3
  Dec. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

"Ferguson Jury Rules on Brown Death."BBC News. BBC, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 25 Feb.
  2015.