A Few Important Quotes About Police Brutality

A Few Important Quotes About Police Brutality

Right now everyone is talking about police brutality and the issue in Ferguson, MO and the rest of America. At times like this, we take to the brilliant people who’ve summed up the issues of police brutality in smart, poignant ways. Take a look and get some guidance.

“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.”

― Malcolm X

“Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.”

― Benjamin Spock

“I know the police cause you trouble

They cause trouble everywhere

But when you die and go to heaven

You find no policeman there”

― Woody Guthrie

“[W]hile the use of non-lethal weapons such as tasers and LEDIs may not necessarily reduce the number of civilian casualties, they have been largely accepted as the humane alternative to deadly force because they make the use of force appear far less dramatic and violent than it has in the past.

Contrast, for instance, the image of police officers beating Rodney King with billy clubs as opposed to police officers continually shocking a person with a taser. Both are severe forms of abuse. However, because the act of pushing a button is far less dramatic and visually arresting than swinging a billy club, it can come across as much more humane to the general public. This, of course, draws much less media coverage and, thus, less bad public relations for the police.”

― John W. Whitehead, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State

“We’re not anti-police… we’re anti-police brutality.”

– Al Sharpton

“If I win and get the money, then the Oakland Police department is going to buy a boys’ home, me a house, my family a house, and a Stop Police Brutality Center.”

– Tupac Shakur

“So many able writers have shown that the unjust institutions which work so much misery and suffering to the masses have their root in governments, and owe their whole existence to the power derived from government we cannot help but believe that were every law, every title deed, every court, and every police officer or soldier abolished tomorrow with one sweep, we would be better off than now.”

– Lucy Parsons

“Brutality and insolence of policemen have increased greatly, and the Police Commissioners seldom, if ever, convict officers for these offenses. Humble citizens of all races today are in more danger from the policemen’s clubs than they are from the assaults of criminals.”- Frank Moss

“What happened to me should not happen to any human being, to my children, or to anyone else’s children,”

– Abner Louima

And more pictures of police brutality through the years…