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ABSTRACT
This Essay explores how Graham v. Connor and the policies it codified contribute to multiple and interacting levels of health inequities caused by police violence in African American communities. First, police violence leads to higher rates of deaths, physical injuries, and psychological harm among affected individuals. Second, police violence contributes to a general climate of fear, chronic stress, and lowered resistance to diseases in communities even among those not directly harmed by police. In addition, use of excessive force and hyperpolicing in African American communities reduce opportunities for employment, education, housing, and social integration for residents in those areas. The socioeconomic marginalization of these communities makes them breeding grounds for crime, which increases levels of policing and related violence. Finally, Graham illustrates how African Americans and other marginalized groups suffer from police violence through framing black health problems as crimes needing policing and punishment instead of as illnesses requiring treatment and other forms of public health interventions. From this perspective, African Americans with mental health problems, drug problems, and chronic diseases such as diabetes, as in the case of Dethorne Graham, are targets of police violence in communities with few health resources and high levels of policing.
Introduction
In 1984, Charlotte police officer M.S. Connor stopped diabetic Dethome Graham for "unusual" behavior while Graham was leaving a convenience store. The police officer prevented Graham, who was in the process of seeking relief from severe insulin imbalance, from showing his diabetic identification card and from drinking orange juice to alleviate his symptoms because the officer believed he was merely drunk. The police arrested Graham on grounds that he was acting suspiciously despite being unarmed and without any report or indication of a crime being committed. While he was in custody, the police severely injured Graham, who sustained a broken foot, cuts on his forehead and wrists, and an injured shoulder. Graham also stated that he developed a ringing in his right ear.1
To address his treatment at the hands of police, Graham sued five police officers and the City of Charlotte, arguing that the police violated his civil rights and subjected him to excessive force.2 Graham did not prevail, and the Supreme Court not only affirmed the legitimacy of the police use of force...