4 ms·

You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist. Is anyone talking about that?

richmarr 11y ago
I agree, more people should be talking about that, but... (a) MI5's budget isn't based on how well it supervises the police, because it doesn't, and (b) MI5 is based in a country where that "8 times more likely" statistic is completely reversed. "According to data collected by the UK advocacy group Inquest, there have been 55 fatal police shootings – total – in England and Wales from 1990 to 2014." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-p... And this list broadly supports that figure (adding deaths from Scotland and Northern Ireland): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Multiple problems with that statistic. (1) you quote England and Wales, what about Scotland and Northern Ireland? (2) The police in the UK do not generally carry firearms and most people that die in/at the hands of the police do not get shot in the UK.
  - richmarr 11y ago
    Uh huh. (1) I already made that point, and linked to data on the UK including Scotland and Northern Ireland. But, it broadly matches up. If you have better data please share it. (2) The full-UK list I linked to is "people who died directly or indirectly because of the actions of law enforcement officers, regardless of the manner of death". Again, if you have better data feel free to share it. I have to wonder what point you're trying to make. The relevant point I made to the parent comment was that the "police kill 8 times more than terrorists" statistic quoted doesn't apply in the context of the UK. Even if manage to quibble the "55 people" stat up to 100 it's still an order of magnitude short of "8x". Are you saying that UK police do kill 8x more than terrorists?
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      No I'm saying that your statistics are flawed/selective. The OPs clearly don't apply to the UK at all.
      - richmarr 11y ago
        > The OPs clearly don't apply to the UK at all. Bingo. The actual article is about a UK agency making a statement about terrorism, and the parent commenter, danlindley, quoted a statistic implying police killings are what MI5 should be talking about instead of cyberterrorism. You could argue that he wasn't implying MI5 should talk about police killings... but that would remove the last fragile connection between his comment and the actual topic: MI5 & terrorism. I replied to him to point out why a UK intelligence agency would not be interested in making a statement about the topic he implied they should... that the UK has negligible incidence of police killing civilians and that even if we did MI5 would have no incentive to discuss it. You can argue my statistics aren't perfect if you like, but to do that would be missing the point.

I agree, more people should be talking about that, but... (a) MI5's budget isn't based on how well it supervises the police, because it doesn't, and (b) MI5 is based in a country where that "8 times more likely" statistic is completely reversed. "According to data collected by the UK advocacy group Inquest, there have been 55 fatal police shootings – total – in England and Wales from 1990 to 2014." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-p... And this list broadly supports that figure (adding deaths from Scotland and Northern Ireland): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...

JupiterMoon 11y ago
Multiple problems with that statistic. (1) you quote England and Wales, what about Scotland and Northern Ireland? (2) The police in the UK do not generally carry firearms and most people that die in/at the hands of the police do not get shot in the UK.
- richmarr 11y ago
  Uh huh. (1) I already made that point, and linked to data on the UK including Scotland and Northern Ireland. But, it broadly matches up. If you have better data please share it. (2) The full-UK list I linked to is "people who died directly or indirectly because of the actions of law enforcement officers, regardless of the manner of death". Again, if you have better data feel free to share it. I have to wonder what point you're trying to make. The relevant point I made to the parent comment was that the "police kill 8 times more than terrorists" statistic quoted doesn't apply in the context of the UK. Even if manage to quibble the "55 people" stat up to 100 it's still an order of magnitude short of "8x". Are you saying that UK police do kill 8x more than terrorists?
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    No I'm saying that your statistics are flawed/selective. The OPs clearly don't apply to the UK at all.
    - richmarr 11y ago
      > The OPs clearly don't apply to the UK at all. Bingo. The actual article is about a UK agency making a statement about terrorism, and the parent commenter, danlindley, quoted a statistic implying police killings are what MI5 should be talking about instead of cyberterrorism. You could argue that he wasn't implying MI5 should talk about police killings... but that would remove the last fragile connection between his comment and the actual topic: MI5 & terrorism. I replied to him to point out why a UK intelligence agency would not be interested in making a statement about the topic he implied they should... that the UK has negligible incidence of police killing civilians and that even if we did MI5 would have no incentive to discuss it. You can argue my statistics aren't perfect if you like, but to do that would be missing the point.