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Even if you added deaths by police and deaths by terrorists together, it would probably still not be in the top 50 leading causes of death (I'm still trying to

Even if you added deaths by police and deaths by terrorists together, it would probably still not be in the top 50 leading causes of death (I'm still trying to find data with all causes of deaths in the US).

ncallaway 11y ago
The CDC has a relatively comprehensive data set here: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm It's definitely not everything, but I don't know of a better data source...
kristopolous 11y ago
death by police is tracked here (1051): http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ ... cancer kills about 580,000 and automobiles get about 32,500 for comparison.
- joering2 11y ago
  Wow, wonder what cops think about this page and if ever tried to shut it down. Someone is doing extensive work organizing all this on a daily basis. Too bad we don't know how many were bad guys and how many innocent, but that would be hard to followup and monitor.
  - kristopolous 11y ago
    It's a spectrum. Some, like this 6 year old (http://theadvocate.com/news/13907799-176/few-details-emerging-in-officer-involved http://theadvocate.com/news/13907799-176/few-details-emergin...) leave the officer in greater culpability than this active shootout with police (http://www.pe.com/articles/riverside-784400-officers-stop.html http://www.pe.com/articles/riverside-784400-officers-stop.ht...) where the driver sped away and died in a car crash against a barrier. If you scroll through and read the stories, most of them seem to be either terrible car crashes or violent criminals. Presuming that officers work 2080 hours a year and there are 765,000 with arresting power, you are 1755 times more likely to interface with a not-a-cop than a cop on the job. Therefore, you are 160 times more likely to be killed X minutes with a police officer than X minutes with some stranger. 15 seconds with 1 cop is as dangerous as 15 seconds with 160 random people. My friends in south LA from different backgrounds have a mantra to never call the cops under any condition. The idea is that however bad a situation can get, introduction of the police will incontrovertibly make it a de facto worse situation. Whether true or not, this seems to be a gut intuition to many (search google for "never call the police" to see people express this view). The crux of the question is two-fold: 1. Does bringing police into any situation generally lead to worse consequences than avoiding them? 2. If we believe that violence is always an inferior solution that lacks efficacy, then why should we invite state-sanctioned violence into our lives voluntarily? Stated another way, why is the government provided service to someone with psychological distress two people with firearms locking them in a cage? Shouldn't we provide a more appropriate government service for this?
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      That first link is absolutely horrific.
- swombat 11y ago
  Comparing it to Cancer is not really fair. Compare it to other violent murders for a fair comparison. Do the police kill more or less than regular criminals who aren't wearing uniforms?
  - kristopolous 11y ago
    It was strictly in reply to "it would probably still not be in the top 50 leading causes of death". It may be in there depending on how you count. Police deaths account for 0.34 per 100,000, greater than war (0.30) and less than tetanus (0.38).
simplify 11y ago
True, but people fear terrorism because it's something they can't control. Police are also something people can't control, so comparing police deaths to terrorism deaths is a great comparison.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  And that's sadly because people have an illusion they can control the things from the CDC list. They can't control them either.
  - adventured 11y ago
    Ah, the radical majority of Americans can't control their likelihood of getting diabetes? That's obviously false, easily proven by countless other nations that don't have the same problems the US does with diabetes (or by going back in time a few decades, when Americans also did not). Let's you and I both smoke six packs of cigarettes per day for 20 years as an experiment and see whether we can control getting lung cancer and or emphysema to a very large degree. Is it complete control? No, it's very near that. Obesity? (which causes numerous other diseases) Yep, we can control that too.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      If you mean control as in choice between "little less likely" and "little more likely" then yes, everyone can control diabetes and obesity. But in fact, you can control your risk of dying in a terror attack much more than risk of getting diabetes! Just never visit big malls, never attend mass events, never use public transport. Better yet, move to a village far away from city and always travel by your car. There, you've reduced your risk of dying in a terror attack to pretty much zero. > Is it complete control? No, it's very near that. It's definitely nowhere near that, especially in terms of things like diabetes (partially genetically determined) or heart attacks. You'd have to go to absurd lengths to control those near-completely. For instance, we know of one good way of controlling obesity, and that is to lock everyone in Nazi-style death camps. You won't get obese if you're fed 1500 kcal a day. You also won't be very happy. The widespread belief that we have so much personal control over those diseases is probably one of the biggest reasons why they haven't been solved yet.
BurningFrog 11y ago
Yeah, but cancer doesn't have an agenda.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I think you're missing the point of the comment. It's not about the leading causes of death or where best to invest our money.
- privacy101 11y ago
  Sorry if I didn't address civil forfeiture... of course that is wrong. My comment was posted in relation to "... kill more people than any terrorist ..." which I don't think has anything to do with civil forfeiture.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    The overall gist of it was that police are one of the top threats to civilians in the U.S. whether innocent or guilty. I didn't even bring up eminent domain although someone suggested I should. All these discussions around surveillance are tied to how increases in their power protect us. Yet, that can't be true if they consistently use their power to abuse, rob, or murder us without cause. And what they get away with now suggests we should be extra skeptical of adding security or immunity.
    - privacy101 11y ago
      That is very true and you might think that my next point is off-topic but too much surveillance power (or lack of privacy) is also a treat to democracy.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Nah that's consistent with my point. Plus leads one to think of even more issues that exist. :)
allworknoplay 11y ago
Yeah, but the rest are predominantly either a) disease we're trying to control, or b) tradeoffs we make ourselves (e.g. car accidents because we individually accept the risk of driving). Governments are there to protect citizens -- the burden of proof is on them as to whether the use of force is necessary, and ours in the US doesn't default to protecting citizens at all.

ncallaway 11y ago

The CDC has a relatively comprehensive data set here: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm It's definitely not everything, but I don't know of a better data source...

kristopolous 11y ago

death by police is tracked here (1051): http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ ... cancer kills about 580,000 and automobiles get about 32,500 for comparison.

joering2 11y ago
Wow, wonder what cops think about this page and if ever tried to shut it down. Someone is doing extensive work organizing all this on a daily basis. Too bad we don't know how many were bad guys and how many innocent, but that would be hard to followup and monitor.
- kristopolous 11y ago
  It's a spectrum. Some, like this 6 year old (http://theadvocate.com/news/13907799-176/few-details-emerging-in-officer-involved http://theadvocate.com/news/13907799-176/few-details-emergin...) leave the officer in greater culpability than this active shootout with police (http://www.pe.com/articles/riverside-784400-officers-stop.html http://www.pe.com/articles/riverside-784400-officers-stop.ht...) where the driver sped away and died in a car crash against a barrier. If you scroll through and read the stories, most of them seem to be either terrible car crashes or violent criminals. Presuming that officers work 2080 hours a year and there are 765,000 with arresting power, you are 1755 times more likely to interface with a not-a-cop than a cop on the job. Therefore, you are 160 times more likely to be killed X minutes with a police officer than X minutes with some stranger. 15 seconds with 1 cop is as dangerous as 15 seconds with 160 random people. My friends in south LA from different backgrounds have a mantra to never call the cops under any condition. The idea is that however bad a situation can get, introduction of the police will incontrovertibly make it a de facto worse situation. Whether true or not, this seems to be a gut intuition to many (search google for "never call the police" to see people express this view). The crux of the question is two-fold: 1. Does bringing police into any situation generally lead to worse consequences than avoiding them? 2. If we believe that violence is always an inferior solution that lacks efficacy, then why should we invite state-sanctioned violence into our lives voluntarily? Stated another way, why is the government provided service to someone with psychological distress two people with firearms locking them in a cage? Shouldn't we provide a more appropriate government service for this?
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    That first link is absolutely horrific.
swombat 11y ago
Comparing it to Cancer is not really fair. Compare it to other violent murders for a fair comparison. Do the police kill more or less than regular criminals who aren't wearing uniforms?
- kristopolous 11y ago
  It was strictly in reply to "it would probably still not be in the top 50 leading causes of death". It may be in there depending on how you count. Police deaths account for 0.34 per 100,000, greater than war (0.30) and less than tetanus (0.38).

simplify 11y ago

True, but people fear terrorism because it's something they can't control. Police are also something people can't control, so comparing police deaths to terrorism deaths is a great comparison.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
And that's sadly because people have an illusion they can control the things from the CDC list. They can't control them either.
- adventured 11y ago
  Ah, the radical majority of Americans can't control their likelihood of getting diabetes? That's obviously false, easily proven by countless other nations that don't have the same problems the US does with diabetes (or by going back in time a few decades, when Americans also did not). Let's you and I both smoke six packs of cigarettes per day for 20 years as an experiment and see whether we can control getting lung cancer and or emphysema to a very large degree. Is it complete control? No, it's very near that. Obesity? (which causes numerous other diseases) Yep, we can control that too.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    If you mean control as in choice between "little less likely" and "little more likely" then yes, everyone can control diabetes and obesity. But in fact, you can control your risk of dying in a terror attack much more than risk of getting diabetes! Just never visit big malls, never attend mass events, never use public transport. Better yet, move to a village far away from city and always travel by your car. There, you've reduced your risk of dying in a terror attack to pretty much zero. > Is it complete control? No, it's very near that. It's definitely nowhere near that, especially in terms of things like diabetes (partially genetically determined) or heart attacks. You'd have to go to absurd lengths to control those near-completely. For instance, we know of one good way of controlling obesity, and that is to lock everyone in Nazi-style death camps. You won't get obese if you're fed 1500 kcal a day. You also won't be very happy. The widespread belief that we have so much personal control over those diseases is probably one of the biggest reasons why they haven't been solved yet.

BurningFrog 11y ago

Yeah, but cancer doesn't have an agenda.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I think you're missing the point of the comment. It's not about the leading causes of death or where best to invest our money.

privacy101 11y ago
Sorry if I didn't address civil forfeiture... of course that is wrong. My comment was posted in relation to "... kill more people than any terrorist ..." which I don't think has anything to do with civil forfeiture.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  The overall gist of it was that police are one of the top threats to civilians in the U.S. whether innocent or guilty. I didn't even bring up eminent domain although someone suggested I should. All these discussions around surveillance are tied to how increases in their power protect us. Yet, that can't be true if they consistently use their power to abuse, rob, or murder us without cause. And what they get away with now suggests we should be extra skeptical of adding security or immunity.
  - privacy101 11y ago
    That is very true and you might think that my next point is off-topic but too much surveillance power (or lack of privacy) is also a treat to democracy.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      Nah that's consistent with my point. Plus leads one to think of even more issues that exist. :)

allworknoplay 11y ago

Yeah, but the rest are predominantly either a) disease we're trying to control, or b) tradeoffs we make ourselves (e.g. car accidents because we individually accept the risk of driving). Governments are there to protect citizens -- the burden of proof is on them as to whether the use of force is necessary, and ours in the US doesn't default to protecting citizens at all.