Tanisha Redding
Policing
Topic: Abuse of Authority
September 26, 2013

The topic that I have chosen for my policing research paper is abuse of authority. I believe this would be a good topic in private security because abuse of authority happens every day.
1. The approach I attend to take on this topic would be giving different examples and different cases on how the abuse of authority is used
2. I attend to have my main focus on the Rodney King case because it is well known and a very good example of abuse of authority. I believe that this case would also give a good outlook on the topic of my choice because of the brutality and nature of the crime that was committed
3. I will explain what abuse of authority is and what it is considered not to be in the policing field and I will make sure to give a good understanding about how abuse of authority is an ongoing problem in the criminal justice field

Police officers use their power to the extreme to where they are abusing their authority. Abuse of authority is an ongoing problem in the policing field and needs more recognition by the public. I attend to give different examples and different cases on how the abuse of authority is used in the policing field.
In September 2008 Brooklyn police were called to a scene of a naked and emotionally disturbed mentally ill man standing on a window ledge. In situations like this one the officer’s job are to try and talk the man down from the ledge to avoid a unreasonable death. Instead a lieutenant ordered for an officer to shoot the man with a taser. When the officer shot the man he falls from the ledge and dies. This is an example of abuse of authority because the officers could have found a different solution rather than shooting the man while he was standing on the ledge of a window. In April 2009 Prospero Lassi was suffering from a diabetic seizure at his home. His roommate called 911 and both the EMTs and the police responded. The EMTs asked police officers to help remove Lassi from the home and by Lassi going in and out of seizures he stroke one of the officers and when he did so the officers tasered Lassi 11 times for a whole minute. The force that the officers used on Lassi hospitalized him five days and out of work for three months because of the taser injuries he received that day. The use of force in this situation was not necessary at all stating that the man was already disabled to cause any harm to anyone. In February 2005 a young teenager at group home was acting out and the Chicago police were called to scene. By the time the police arrived the boy had calmed down and was sitting on the couch when the police arrived. The police tasered the young boy because they said he had lunged at them and by tasering him it sent him into cardiac arrest. The abuse of authority used on this young boy was not necessary at all. The officers could have done something other than using a taser gun on the teenager. The officers should’ve talked with the teenager to see what the issues where with him and solved it that way instead of using force on him. In 2011 there was a group of protesters on the University of California Berkeley campus. The protesters were not disturbing the students just simply having a peaceful protest. The protesters were attacked by the police, they were pepper- sprayed in the face, hit with batons, gripped by their hair, and assaulted in different ways by the police. There was an image taken of an officer walking down the line of the seated and arrested students and pepper-spraying them all in the face. The officer was using unnecessary force on the students who were clearly harmful by sitting on the ground being compliant. In 2006, a young man was driving home from work and was pulled over by police because he fitted the description of a suspect. The officers gave the man orders in English and