A Literary Analysis of Michael Norwick's Police Brutality

In Michael Norwicks Police Brutality, he expressed the many ways police brutality has affected and changed many peoples lives and their families. But in this book real life stories of not only police brutality but racism as well, make up the entire book. Many of the controversies in Police Brutality, are about racism, not only in society, but also in Police Departments across the United States. But this book shows us that when police brutality occurs it isnit always racially motivated.

These time-life stories do not only show how society is corrupt, but the people we expect to protect us are surpassingly and frightfully corrupt as well. Police Brutality is usually thought of as most likely being done in metro cites like Los Angeles and New York. But in Police Brutality ,

Michael Norwick made it known that it could happen to anyone and anywhere. John Davis, a white farmer in rural Madison County Wash. thought he had little in common with Rodney King until he remembered that one summer afternoon in 1985 that would change his life forever.

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I That was when his horse got out of control when he heard the siren and he couldnit stop it, when he did the deputy drew his gun and beat, punched and stunned Davis with an electric stun gun(Norwick 16).1 After Davis remembered about his scary confrontation with a Washington Deputy, he realized he had more in common with Rodney King than he thought. John Davis would never look at the Rodent King video the same way again, realizing that black or white, it didn t matter.

In the book Police Brutality, Norwick didn't only show the pain felt by people who have been beaten by the police, but from good officers as well. Two LAPD officers expressed how they felt, its us against them, replied officer Patterson. When I see my fellow officer die on the scene of an accident and when the paramedic pronounces him dead and the crowd starts to cheer it makes you sick(Norwick 92). It showed that even though these men and women risk their lives everyday to protect them, they still get no respect by much of society. But it may be because minorities feel they are always targeted for harassment by cops. Let me tell you, I have been hassled by cops so many times that when I get stopped now, I shuffle, I shake, and I jive(Williams 92)!

Many Latinos and blacks feel the same way because they are pulled over so many times. When many people think of the Ku Klux Klan the last thing they picture them in is a police officer uniform. But now there is not just a few out there, there are thousands and many unite in police departments. In California black and Latin officers received threatening messages from the Aryan Police Officers. This shows that there is in fact corruption in police departments nation wide. Norwick showed that the operation of organized racist groups within police departments is symptomotive of the racism within their ranks that often lead to beatings and shootings. As you can see, Michael Norwick wrote how police brutality can happen to anyone, anywhere. He also wrote how innocent law abiding officers who do not show racial preference and do not discriminate could be hated just because of the reputations of many corrupt cops. But what was shocking was that many police officers know that they are hated by many ignorant people in society, but what they didn t know is that they are also hated by some of their fellow officers who often belong to groups with goals to target minorities on the streets and on the precinct.