The Johnny Gammage case was a recent case in the news. One of the only reasons that this case made the news is because Gammage is the cousin of Pittsburgh Steeler Ray Seals. The outcome of this case angered many people. On October twelfth, 1995, Johnny Gammage the 31-year-old black male was pulled over. Gammage committed no crime. After an altercation with the police he was brutally beaten. Over the course of seven minutes he was beaten and suffocated by five police officers. An autopsy showed that Gammage was suffocated by pressure applied to his neck and chest when the officers were trying to restrain him.

On November third, 1995 a six-member coroner's jury recommended that criminal homicide charges be filed against the police officers. District Attorney Bob Colville said tha

Many others have found video and audio taping useful. T. Brett Swab, a former prosecutor says that "It will shore up our case at trial: if there is any doubt about an investigator's ethics, we can say 'Hey let's look at the video tape','" (New York Times p. A17).

A problem in reviewing police behavior is a resistance by the police themselves. They do not want to be investigated by regular citizens who do not understand the demands of police work. The review boards made up of officers don't work well. The police have a code of silence, which is that they do not testify against each other.

Allegheny county judge James R. McGregor ordered the three officers to stand trial for the misdemeanor charge of involuntary manslaughter. This is the lowest form of homicide. He dropped the third degree murder and official oppression charges against Mulholland and Vojtas.

This is proof that police can get away with murder. You can not suffocate somebody to death by accident. When the officer was restraining Gammage, he knew that he was using too strong of a force.

There is even video surveillance in the patrol cars now. Since the Rodney King beating cameras have been installed into many patrol cars. This way the police will think twice before trying to abuse their power.

Another issue that concerns police brutality is that innocent people forced into confessing to crimes that they did not commit Robert Moore had confessed to killing a New York City taxi cab driver with two other acquaintances. Three weeks later prosecutors had revealed that they had caught the real killers. The real killers possessed the murder weapon and had never heard of Robert Moore. More said that he had falsely confessed to the murder because investigators interrogated him for 22 hours. They had threatened him with the death penalty and brought his cousin in to urge him to confess. Robert Moore was tired, lonely and scared. He stated that "I just wanted to go home." (New York Times p. A1& A17).

t he would only charge three out of the five officers involved in the beating. He charged Lt. Milton Mulholland and Patrolman John Vojtas with 3rd degree murder, official oppression, and involuntary manslaughter. He charged Patrolman Michael G. Albert with involuntary manslaughter.

Review boards started up in the 1960's. They were formed because there was a lot of police brutality caught on the news because of the anti-war demonstrations. Many cities around the country set up review boards in the 1960's to provide a forum for citizen complaints. Local police unions almost always opposed these boards. Many of these boards lacked any real authority and soon went out of existence.

Another incident that shows that police think that they can get away with anything is the Abner Louima case. Abner Louima is a 30-year-old Haitian immigrant, who was arrested. At the police station he was brutally assaulted. The police, our protectors, sodimized Mr. Louima with a toilet plunger. They then shoved the pl

Some common words found in the essay are:
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