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Essential Questions:
1. How does pop culture, media, and literature portray the issue of police brutality?
2. Is raising social awareness of police brutality through pop culture, media, and literature an effective way to bring about positive change?

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Something Happened in Our Town Picture Book

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Something Happened in Our Town Picture Book

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This picture book discusses the issue of police brutality in a manner that younger children could better understand. The book follows the story of both a white family and a black family discussing the recent murder of a black man at the hands of a police officer in their town.

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In this young adult novel, twelve year old Jerome is murdered by a police officer. He then becomes a ghost and learns from other "ghost boys" about the generations of young black boys who have been killed at the hands of the police.

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Article: Murders committed by police officers are often unreported

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Article: Murders committed by police officers are often unreported

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This article exposes the frightening reality that a significant number of murders committed by police officers are unreported and no justice is served. The author also discusses the reality that people of color are significantly more likely to be victims of police violence and murder.

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A new study on fatal police violence shows more than half of killings by police were left unreported in the last 40 years, and that Black Americans were estimated to be 3.5 times more likely to die from police violence than white Americans.

Researchers compared data from the National Vital Statistics System -- a federal tracker of deaths in the United States -- with three independent, non-government, open-source databases: Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence and The Counted.

From 1980 to 2019, there were 30,800 deaths from police violence, which is 17,100 more deaths than the NVSS reported, according to the study by researchers from the University of Washington and published in the Lancet.

The study found that the NVSS underreported 55.5% of these deaths overall, but that percentage rose to 59.1% when reporting deaths among Black Americans.

A police officer holds a baton during a protest over the Minneapolis death of George Floyd, May 29, 2020, in Atlanta.

Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

"Police violence and racism is really a public health problem," senior author Mohsen Naghavi told ABC News.

The NVSS did not respond to ABC news' request for comment.

The rate of police killings for non-Hispanic Black victims was about 3.5 times higher than that of non-Hispanic white people, and Hispanics were 1.8 times more likely to be killed by police violence than non-Hispanic white people.

The study confirms a pattern of systemic racism in policing, predominantly burdening communities of color, the study's co-author Eve Wool says.

"Even when unarmed, Black Americans experienced disproportionately high levels of police contact, even for crimes that Black and white folks committed at the same rates," Wool told ABC News.

Open-source data, which is compiled from open access sources, like news articles and public records, are typically more comprehensive when it comes to tracking these kinds of incidences, according to Neghavi and Wool.

Even with more comprehensive data, they say, there is a lot more research to be done on police violence.

The study didn't take into account the non-fatal victims or incidences of police brutality, and the binary gender identifiers in the data didn't allow for analysis of gender-based discrimination against people of transgender or nonbinary identities.

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More than half of US killings by police go unreported: Study

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Black Americans were estimated to be 3.5 times more likely to die from police violence than white Americans.

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Police Brutality and Racial Profiling Cartoon

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Police Brutality and Racial Profiling Cartoon

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This cartoon depicts two police officers aiming their guns at a young baby of color who is holding a rattle and telling them to "drop the weapon". This is bringing attention to the fact that starting from an early age, people of color are often racially profiled by police and deemed "threats" when they are not doing anything wrong. This cartoon has a very close relation to the novel Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes.

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"What the Dead Know by Heart" Poem by Donte Collins

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"What the Dead Know by Heart" Poem by Donte Collins

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This 1996 poem addresses the issue of police brutality through the form of a free verse poem. Collins discusses his experience as a black man in relation to the police and the unfair discrimination he is subjected due to his race.

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Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award

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what the dead know by heart - lately, when asked how are you, i

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In March of 2020, twenty-six year old Breonna Taylor was murdered by police in a botched "no-knock" raid of her apartment. Taylor was shot five times while sleeping in her bed due to police blindly firing into her apartment. Unfortunately, as of March of 2022, her murderers have not been convicted of her death.

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What to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death

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Fury over her killing by the police in Louisville, Ky., fueled protests, and questions persist about how the botched raid unfolded.

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This film, which is based on the award-winning young adult novel The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, depicts sixteen-year-old Starr's firsthand experience with police brutality. This movie shows the devastation caused by racial profiling, police violence, and systemic oppression in a society that often fails to recognize the injustices so many face every day.

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This young adult novel is about the experience of seventeen year old Justyce, who is college bound and incredibly intelligent. However, due to his race, he is profiled by police and unfortunately becomes a victim of police brutality. To cope with this trauma, he writes letters to Martin Luther King where he asks for advice and vents about the oppression that still exists decades after the Civil Rights Movement.

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TedTalk: Social Media's Impact on Cases of Police Brutality

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TedTalk: Social Media's Impact on Cases of Police Brutality

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In this Tedtalk, Isabella Robinson shares her personal experience with police brutality and racial profiling. Robinson explains how she believes that through social media, the younger generations of today can bring about awareness and positive change regarding the issue of police brutality.

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Isabella Robinson: Social Media's Impact on Cases of Police Brutality

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Racial bias and police brutality are personal to Isabella Robinson, but she believes that young people of her generation can affect positive social change through the power of digital messaging and social media.

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Medina's YA graphic novel addresses the issues of police brutality and racial profiling. Through the story and the experiences of the main character Alfonso, the author attempts to also show how broken our justice system is.

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All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

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All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

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This young adult novel follows the lives of two teenage boys after a firsthand encounter with police brutality. Rashad, a black teenager, was the victim of the violence while Quinn, a white teenager, was a bystander of the attack. Throughout the novel, the boys try to make sense of what happened and challenge those around them to stand up against police brutality too.

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This Saturday Night Live skit calls attention to the ever-present issue of racial profiling by police, especially of black men. The police officer "Blazer" is seen intentionally going out of his way to punch black men and profile them, referring to them as "thugs".