There is a very clear physical impact from police brutality, and many victims wind up in the hospital. However, the overall epidemic of brutality can have a drastic mental and emotional impact on an entire community, even those who were not personality victimized themselves.
According to one report, for example, the African American community as a whole has seen an increase in stress and depression, along with related mental health issues, because of the rate at which members of that community get shot and killed by the police — even when they are unarmed. The mental health for this entire community is suffering because of how common these incidents have become.
In short, it’s hard to see those news stories so often without worrying that it could be you, if you’re part of that population group. After all, in cases where people are unarmed and not a threat to the police, but they get killed anyway, it shows that almost anyone could find themselves on the wrong end of that encounter.
Researchers also admitted that the history of race relations in the United States plays a role. They said that each shooting of an unarmed African American “carries with it the weight of historical injustices and current disparities in the use of state violence against black Americans.”
As you can see, it is impossible to understate the problems with police brutality. They stretch farther than individual news reports and reach far more individuals than a lot of people realize. If you have suffered from injustice at the hands of the police, make sure you know what legal rights you have.