4 ms·

Nice statistics. Just because an officer kills, doesn't mean it was a crime and it doesn't mean the officer overstepped his bounds.

anu_gupta 11y ago
> Nice statistics Yeah, it sucks when someone comes armed with facts, doesn't it?
antimagic 11y ago
So what, you're postulating that US citizens justly deserve to be killed by police 79 time more than their British counterparts? I mean the police is only supposed to kill to protect their, or a bystander's, life. We know from the few times that police-caused deaths have been caught on video in the US that this is often not at all the case. The guy shot down as he walks down the middle of the road. The guy who's neck gets broken in a police van, the young kid shot down in a park because he's playing with a toy gun. The guy that is choked to death because he's selling loose cigarettes in the street. Those are all recent cases that I am personally aware of, as a non-US citizen, living in Europe. I'm sure there have been plenty of others. So yes, not all police killings in the US are undeserved, but there sure are plenty that are, and that is what those statistics are showing.
nkoren 11y ago
If the US crime rate were 79 times higher than the British crime rate, then you'd be absolutely correct. However as far as homicides are concerned, it's only 3.8 times higher[1]. A 4-fold discrepancy would be completely understandable, and one could probably make a valid argument for a 10-fold discrepancy, based on a theory of necessary force multipliers or something like that, but a 79-fold discrepancy is utterly indefensible. Let me repeat: criminals in the US are 3.8 times more prevalent and/or violent than their UK counterparts, but police in the US are are 79 times more violent than their UK counterparts. (I'm using homicide as a proxy for overall crime, because the definition, record-keeping, and rate of reporting for other crimes varies wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, whereas homicide is defined relatively consistently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and is almost universally reported.) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
- Pinatubo 11y ago
  I think to get a complete picture we'd also need to consider the relative prevalence of firearms in the US versus the UK. There are fewer non-lethal options for dealing with someone armed with a guns as opposed to other weapons.

anu_gupta 11y ago

> Nice statistics Yeah, it sucks when someone comes armed with facts, doesn't it?

antimagic 11y ago

So what, you're postulating that US citizens justly deserve to be killed by police 79 time more than their British counterparts? I mean the police is only supposed to kill to protect their, or a bystander's, life. We know from the few times that police-caused deaths have been caught on video in the US that this is often not at all the case. The guy shot down as he walks down the middle of the road. The guy who's neck gets broken in a police van, the young kid shot down in a park because he's playing with a toy gun. The guy that is choked to death because he's selling loose cigarettes in the street. Those are all recent cases that I am personally aware of, as a non-US citizen, living in Europe. I'm sure there have been plenty of others. So yes, not all police killings in the US are undeserved, but there sure are plenty that are, and that is what those statistics are showing.

nkoren 11y ago

If the US crime rate were 79 times higher than the British crime rate, then you'd be absolutely correct. However as far as homicides are concerned, it's only 3.8 times higher[1]. A 4-fold discrepancy would be completely understandable, and one could probably make a valid argument for a 10-fold discrepancy, based on a theory of necessary force multipliers or something like that, but a 79-fold discrepancy is utterly indefensible. Let me repeat: criminals in the US are 3.8 times more prevalent and/or violent than their UK counterparts, but police in the US are are 79 times more violent than their UK counterparts. (I'm using homicide as a proxy for overall crime, because the definition, record-keeping, and rate of reporting for other crimes varies wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, whereas homicide is defined relatively consistently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and is almost universally reported.) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Pinatubo 11y ago
I think to get a complete picture we'd also need to consider the relative prevalence of firearms in the US versus the UK. There are fewer non-lethal options for dealing with someone armed with a guns as opposed to other weapons.