Written by Jada Dukes, Staff Writer

Police brutality is arguably one of the most heard phrases of 2015 and the same can be said for 2016. American citizens have been falling victim to assault, rape, and unjustifiable murder at the hands of local law enforcement for years and it seems like there is little being done to prevent these incidents from happening.

It is hard to believe that it has only been a little over a month since the sentencing of former police officer Daniel Holtzclaw and now there is yet another case of officers abusing their power and cause detriment to local residents.

According to Cosmopolitan Magazine, two LAPD officers have been taken into custody and charged with rape and sexual abuse while on duty. The officers, Luiz Valenezuela, and James Nichols reportedly threatened to send four women to jail if the women did not perform sexual acts on the officers.

Cosmopolitan also reported that the officers have faced similar accusations in the past and were put on leave as a result.  There was also a $575,000 lawsuit filed against the police station that also focused on these same officers.

It is truly ridiculous how police officers will work especially hard to protect other officers no matter the costs but it seems to take years before they try to do anything to help the innocent civilians. Valenzuela and Nichols have obviously been getting away with their disgusting antics for entirely too long and the police station they work for has no excuse for waiting this long before doing anything to stop them.

The fact that this is not the first time these two officers have had these kinds of allegations thrown at them shows that there has always been reason to suspect them of foul play but for some reason no one thought to do anything about it which is more than likely because their police buddies didn’t want to rat them out.

These two men deserve to be put in jail for their actions and their badges should be stripped from them permanently.  It is sad day in America when you realize that American citizens can’t even depend on the good ole boys in blue to protect them anymore.