Resolution: S-21-25: RECOGNIZING THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF POLICE BRUTALITY ON PUBLIC HEALTH

[Valerie Lile]

WHEREAS the term “police brutality” is used to refer to various human rights violations by police; including beatings, racial abuse, unlawful killings, torture, or indiscriminate use of riot control agents such as tear gas at protests¹; and

WHEREAS the risk of being subjected to police brutality is jointly patterned by one’s race, gender, and age²; and

WHEREAS police brutality is a leading cause of death among young men, particularly Black Americans²; and

WHEREAS police killings of unarmed Black Americans have adverse effects on their mental health³; and

WHEREAS chemical irritants in tear gas have been shown to cause respiratory, dermatological, and ocular injuries, complications in individuals with comorbidities, and even death, resulting in both temporary and permanent injuries and morbidity ^4,5,6,7; and

WHEREAS injuries from non-lethal or “less-lethal” crowd control munitions (e.g., rubber bullets and beanbags) at protests are documented to cause penetrating facial, thoracic, and ocular trauma; bone fractures and intracranial hemorrhages; conditions necessitating emergency intubation and surgical intervention; permanent disability, and even death^8,9,10; and

WHEREAS living in a context of aggressive policing is an important risk factor for men’s mental health especially Black Americans, who experience trauma of discriminatory systems of policing ^{11, 12, 13}; and

WHEREAS people who have negative experiences with the police are more likely to mistrust the medical system, ultimately leading to poor health outcomes for the community as a whole¹¹; and

WHEREAS physicians are in a unique position for having intimate access to firsthand information about the struggles and injustices that shape their patients’ health; advocating for system change on behalf of their patients might build trust¹⁴; and

WHEREAS SOMA previously acknowledged the public health crisis of disproportionate police violence against Black and African Americans through passing resolution F-19-22;

WHEREAS the civil rights events of 2020 have illuminated the crisis of disproportionate and unlawful violence by police against Black citizens and highlights the original call to advocacy and action from; now, therefore be it

RESOLVED that Student Osteopathic Medical Association (SOMA) publish a statement on police brutality’s harmful impact on public health, especially the lives, health and wellness of Black Americans; and be it further

RESOLVED that the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) publish a statement on police brutality’s harmful impact on public health, especially the lives, health and wellness of Black Americans.

Explanatory Statement

Police brutality exists in many forms in the United States, and leads to adverse mental and physical outcomes, particularly among Black American men. This has been shown to positively correlate with mistrust of the medical system. We resolve that the Student Osteopathic Medical Association (SOMA) work with the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) to expressly recognize, in statements and active advocacy, the physical and verbal violence that exists between police officers and the American public and the harm that this poses to public health, especially to the Black American community.

References:

1. What is police brutality? (n.d.). Amnesty International. Retrieved January 6, 2021, from https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/police-brutality/
2. Edwards, F., Lee, H., & Esposito, M. (2019). Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(34), 16793–16798. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821204116
3. Bor, J., Venkataramani, A. S., Williams, D. R., & Tsai, A. C. (2018). Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans: a population-based, quasi-experimental study. The Lancet, 392(10144), 302–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(18)31130-9
4. Haar, R.J., Iacopino, V., Ranadive, N. et al. Health impacts of chemical irritants used for crowd control: a systematic review of the injuries and deaths caused by tear gas and pepper spray. BMC Public Health 17, 831 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4814-6
5. Hu, H. (1989). Tear gas–harassing agent or toxic chemical weapon? JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 262(5), 660–663. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.262.5.660
6. Hout, J. J., White, D. W., Artino, A. R., & Knapik, J. J. (2014). o-Chlorobenzylidene Malononitrile (CS Riot Control Agent) Associated Acute Respiratory Illnesses in a U.S. Army Basic Combat Training Cohort. Military Medicine, 179(7), 793–798. https://doi.org/10.7205/milmed-d-13-00514
7. Rothenberg, C., Achanta, S., Svendsen, E. R., & Jordt, S. ‐. E. (2016). Tear gas: an epidemiological and mechanistic reassessment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1378(1), 96–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13141
8. Drazin, D., Shirzadi, A., Hanna, G., Jeswani, S., & Ozgur, B. (2012). Epidural Hematoma and Surgical Evacuation from a Bean Bag Weapon. The American Surgeon, 78(1), 33–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/000313481207800121
9. Olson, K. A., Haselden, L. E., Zaunbrecher, R. D., Weinfeld, A., Brown, L. H., Bradley, J. A., Cardenas, T. C. P., Trust, M. D., Coopwood, B., Teixeira, P. G., Brown, C. V. R., & Aydelotte, J. D. (2020). Penetrating Injuries from “Less Lethal” Beanbag Munitions. New England Journal of Medicine, 383(11), 1081–1083. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmc2025923
10. Haar, R. J., Iacopino, V., Ranadive, N., Dandu, M., & Weiser, S. D. (2017). Death, injury and disability from kinetic impact projectiles in crowd-control settings: a systematic review. BMJ Open, 7(12), e018154. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018154
11. Sewell, A. A., Jefferson, K. A., & Lee, H. (2016). Living under surveillance: Gender, psychological distress, and stop-question-and-frisk policing in New York City. Social Science & Medicine, 159, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.024
12. Aymer, S. R. (2016). “I can’t breathe”: A case study—Helping Black men cope with race-related trauma stemming from police killing and brutality. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 26(3–4), 367–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2015.1132828
13. A. Turner, E, Richardson, J. (2016, November 30). Racial Trauma is Real: The Impact of Police Shootings on African Americans. Psychology Benefits Society. https://psychologybenefits.org/2016/07/14/racial-trauma-police-shootings-on-african-americans
14. Alang, S., McAlpine, D. D., & Hardeman, R. (2020). Police Brutality and Mistrust in Medical Institutions. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 7(4), 760–768. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00706-w

 

Originally Submitted By:

Nadia Addasi, OMS I – NYITCOM
Veronia Fahmy, OMS I – NYITCOM
Georgianna Stoukides, OMS I – NYITCOM
Atif Farid, OMS I – NYITCOM
Scott Landman, OMS II – NYITCOM
Abdelrahman Abouelnas, OMS I – NYITCOM
Asad Sheikh, OMS I – NYITCOM
Yekaterina Okouneva, OMS II – NYITCOM

[Author]

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