8 ms·

Umm... https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2016/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo... > 963 people hav

Umm... https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2016/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo... > 963 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016 And that is just shootings, never mind other methods of murder.

agumonkey 10y ago
How else could a cop kill someone ? suffocating ? Don't downvote blindly, I was really wondering how "lawful" death could occur without gun in self defense.
- runako 10y ago
  Now that you mention it, yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner
- rbcgerard 10y ago
  Google Freddie Gray or Eric Garner
- ant6n 10y ago
  It happens surprisingly often. This incident is from last month: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged-and-smothered-a-man-to-death-then-fist-bumped.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged...
- sp332 10y ago
  Lots of cops have batons. It's surprisingly easy to crack some ribs with those things. I guess they could also just hit people with cars - car accidents are pretty common overall, so it might just blend into the noise.
- wott 10y ago
  It often happens. And they generally try to hide it by claiming it is some sudden fatal illness that appeared right at that moment.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >How else could a cop kill someone ? suffocating ? That's also a not entirely uncommon occurence. USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged-and-smothered-a-man-to-death-then-fist-bumped.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged... Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semira_Adamu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semira_Adamu South Africa http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/south-african-police-suffocates-nigerian-death/ http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/south-african-police-suff... Sweden http://filmingcops.com/witnesses-horrified-as-cop-beats-and-suffocates-9-yr-old-child/ http://filmingcops.com/witnesses-horrified-as-cop-beats-and-...
- gregshap 10y ago
  some other ways that deaths occur in police custody: suffocating, heart attacks induced by tasing, beating, denying/delaying medical treatment for existing injuries, denying access to prescription medications, leaving someone handcuffed on the floor of a van and driving around recklessly until they break their neck
- yellowstuff 10y ago
  I don't think it's rare for people in police custody to die from a combination of rough treatment and neglect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray
jerf 10y ago
"Shot and killed" is not "murder"; murder by shooting is a subset of those. However unfortunate it may be, the base rate of police shootings isn't ever going to be zero in a diverse country of 300 million or so.
- dbingham 10y ago
  Australia had 94 fatal police shootings in the 19 years from 1992 to 2011. That's about 5 per year. Australia didn't institute significant gun control until the gun buy back in 1996, so for at least 4 of those years Australia was a heavily armed country - a good analog for the US. Germany has a small handful of police shootings per year (6 - 8 on average). Many years that number is zero. England & Wales managed to go 24 years with only 54 police shootings total. So roughly 2 per year. Germany, the UK, and Australia are all plenty diverse.[1] Furthermore statements like that -- "the base rate is never going to be zero" -- show an unwillingness to even try to do better. It's excusing terrible performance rather than demanding accountability. The US currently has 1000 - 2000 police involved shootings per year. Every year. We may not be able to get to zero, but we can definitely do better than that. A lot of those shootings can be traced back to police hiring and training practices which can unquestionably be improved. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...
  - jerf 10y ago
    "Furthermore statements like that -- "the base rate is never going to be zero" -- show an unwillingness to even try to do better." No, it doesn't, and that's a hostile attitude to take. "We may not be able to get to zero, but we can definitely do better than that." Exactly how much better? Or are you demonstrating an unwillingness to address the issue concretely? Or do you perhaps not like that excessively hostile attitude on my part? The situation is complicated, and people like to fling around statistics with the apparent intent to simply inflame passions with no regard for the result it produces. So the US has been talking all about this for the last year or so... has it improved the situation any, or has the inflammatory rhetoric actually made things worse? I look to results, not words, and I can make a far better case for the latter than the former. So I'm pretty unimpressed by the attempt to socially shame me into accepting a line of rhetoric that from my point of view has killed more than it has helped. (My current estimate is in the mid-hundreds at a minimum, just to put some numbers on it.) Whatever the solution is, this doesn't appear to be it. I also consider the fact that it is visibly not working to trump any other vague arguments, such as, say, "but it's raising awareness". So what? It's not working. Awareness is not the end goal some people seem to think it is, it's as best a method to attain some goal, and that goal is not being attained. This rhetoric line is killing more people and corroding social fabric. Concrete results don't get changed by hypothesizing about how they could have possibly been good maybe sorta in an alternate universe. Do we care about reducing the violence, or do we just want to feel brief moments of emotional catharsis by blaming everything on cops? Because if it's the former, a change in approach is needed.
icantdrive55 10y ago
I looked at the data collection methodology. It looks like they are just web scraping news sites? Right now, when a police officer kills someone, there's no national database to report the incident. I was told the problem is every state, city, town, providence has their own protocol. They all have their own Police Squad, and ways of handling events. So basically, we have a bunch of Public Servants with high school diplomas, and not much training. Since there's no national standards/licensing who knows what they are trained to do? Why isn't their a national registry that all law enforcement personnel should have to report to? I'm not just concerned about killings either. I want a full account of what that officer/anyone with a gun and the authority to ruin someone's life does during their shift. I want details of every stop. Every call. It seems like it wouldn't be much of a problem with our current technology? We could fire the bad cops? We could promote the good cops? We could identify speed traps? We could cut down on the abuses I see daily? And we could get the money to the areas that actually need extra police presence?(federal grants, etc.). The time has come for change, and strict accountability. I'm a white guy, live in a upper income area, but for as long as I can remember these cops are allowed to do pretty much whatever they like. I have lost track of the times I was pulled over for no reason. I can't imagine what minorites have to go through.
at-fates-hands 10y ago
> 963 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016 And please outline every one of those situations. Because those are just numbers, nothing else. - How many of those were suspects who threatened a cop with a gun or some other weapon? - How many of those were a suspect was assaulting a cop and he drew his weapon to save his own life? - How many of those where a suspect refused the orders of the cops to put down a dangerous weapon and surrender? In fact, all you have is numbers. Without any context, those numbers are useless. By comparison, in Chicago this year, there were 762 homicides. That's ONE CITY which nearly equals the entire country's worth of people being killed by police in the same time frame.
- moomin 10y ago
  An important distinction: many of those who killed someone in Chicago ended up in jail. Mike Brown's, Eric Garner's and Tamir Rice's killers are all walking free. There's some context for you, but I'm guessing that's not what you were after.
  - at-fates-hands 10y ago
    I'm not saying that cops were in the right in every one of those situations. It just means there's no context in a majority of those incidents - which is critical to determine if the cop was justified in what he did. Likewise, the context is critical for each of the examples you listed. . . Mike Brown - So much evidence that contradicted the whole "hand up, don't shoot" narrative: In summary, the DOJ report concluded: There are no witnesses who could testify credibly that Wilson shot Brown while Brown was clearly attempting to surrender. The accounts of the witnesses who have claimed that Brown raised his hands above his head to surrender and said “I don’t have a gun,” or “OK, OK, OK” are inconsistent with the physical evidence.” http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/why-did-justice-department-conclude-hands-dont-shoot-was-myth#stream/0 http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/why-did-justice-departme... The whole incident took place after Brown had just committed a strong arm robbery and assaulted the owner of a shop. There's a mountain of evidence that proves officer Wilson was well within his rights to shoot Brown but I won't go down that rabbit hole at this point. Eric Garner - I would agree the cops acted callously in arresting Garner. That should have been a standard arrest. Take him to the ground, cuff him and put in the car. The cops were wrong in this scenario, and should have done a better job of simply cuffing Garner and getting him in the car - especially when he kept saying he couldn't breathe. There is however, still some responsibility on Garner's part that he resisted arrest in the first place, which then resulted in the officers putting him in the choke hold that eventually killed him. Had he simply allowed the officers to arrest him without incident, he'd probably still be alive today. Tamir Rice - This was an egregious act on the cops part. Not only did the callers mention that the gun was probably fake, the dispatcher didn't rely that to the cops who showed up. The cop also acted way too fast in drawing his gun and shooting Tamir immediately without hesitation or warning. A $6 million settlement probably confirms this was the case. Not to mention the officer in question had also been deemed "unsuitable and emotionally unstable" in his last position in a different county and shouldn't even been allowed to be a cop again.

agumonkey 10y ago

How else could a cop kill someone ? suffocating ? Don't downvote blindly, I was really wondering how "lawful" death could occur without gun in self defense.

runako 10y ago
Now that you mention it, yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner
rbcgerard 10y ago
Google Freddie Gray or Eric Garner
ant6n 10y ago
It happens surprisingly often. This incident is from last month: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged-and-smothered-a-man-to-death-then-fist-bumped.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged...
sp332 10y ago
Lots of cops have batons. It's surprisingly easy to crack some ribs with those things. I guess they could also just hit people with cars - car accidents are pretty common overall, so it might just blend into the noise.
wott 10y ago
It often happens. And they generally try to hide it by claiming it is some sudden fatal illness that appeared right at that moment.
coldtea 10y ago
>How else could a cop kill someone ? suffocating ? That's also a not entirely uncommon occurence. USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged-and-smothered-a-man-to-death-then-fist-bumped.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged... Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semira_Adamu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semira_Adamu South Africa http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/south-african-police-suffocates-nigerian-death/ http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/south-african-police-suff... Sweden http://filmingcops.com/witnesses-horrified-as-cop-beats-and-suffocates-9-yr-old-child/ http://filmingcops.com/witnesses-horrified-as-cop-beats-and-...
gregshap 10y ago
some other ways that deaths occur in police custody: suffocating, heart attacks induced by tasing, beating, denying/delaying medical treatment for existing injuries, denying access to prescription medications, leaving someone handcuffed on the floor of a van and driving around recklessly until they break their neck
yellowstuff 10y ago
I don't think it's rare for people in police custody to die from a combination of rough treatment and neglect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray

jerf 10y ago

"Shot and killed" is not "murder"; murder by shooting is a subset of those. However unfortunate it may be, the base rate of police shootings isn't ever going to be zero in a diverse country of 300 million or so.

dbingham 10y ago
Australia had 94 fatal police shootings in the 19 years from 1992 to 2011. That's about 5 per year. Australia didn't institute significant gun control until the gun buy back in 1996, so for at least 4 of those years Australia was a heavily armed country - a good analog for the US. Germany has a small handful of police shootings per year (6 - 8 on average). Many years that number is zero. England & Wales managed to go 24 years with only 54 police shootings total. So roughly 2 per year. Germany, the UK, and Australia are all plenty diverse.[1] Furthermore statements like that -- "the base rate is never going to be zero" -- show an unwillingness to even try to do better. It's excusing terrible performance rather than demanding accountability. The US currently has 1000 - 2000 police involved shootings per year. Every year. We may not be able to get to zero, but we can definitely do better than that. A lot of those shootings can be traced back to police hiring and training practices which can unquestionably be improved. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...
- jerf 10y ago
  "Furthermore statements like that -- "the base rate is never going to be zero" -- show an unwillingness to even try to do better." No, it doesn't, and that's a hostile attitude to take. "We may not be able to get to zero, but we can definitely do better than that." Exactly how much better? Or are you demonstrating an unwillingness to address the issue concretely? Or do you perhaps not like that excessively hostile attitude on my part? The situation is complicated, and people like to fling around statistics with the apparent intent to simply inflame passions with no regard for the result it produces. So the US has been talking all about this for the last year or so... has it improved the situation any, or has the inflammatory rhetoric actually made things worse? I look to results, not words, and I can make a far better case for the latter than the former. So I'm pretty unimpressed by the attempt to socially shame me into accepting a line of rhetoric that from my point of view has killed more than it has helped. (My current estimate is in the mid-hundreds at a minimum, just to put some numbers on it.) Whatever the solution is, this doesn't appear to be it. I also consider the fact that it is visibly not working to trump any other vague arguments, such as, say, "but it's raising awareness". So what? It's not working. Awareness is not the end goal some people seem to think it is, it's as best a method to attain some goal, and that goal is not being attained. This rhetoric line is killing more people and corroding social fabric. Concrete results don't get changed by hypothesizing about how they could have possibly been good maybe sorta in an alternate universe. Do we care about reducing the violence, or do we just want to feel brief moments of emotional catharsis by blaming everything on cops? Because if it's the former, a change in approach is needed.

icantdrive55 10y ago

I looked at the data collection methodology. It looks like they are just web scraping news sites? Right now, when a police officer kills someone, there's no national database to report the incident. I was told the problem is every state, city, town, providence has their own protocol. They all have their own Police Squad, and ways of handling events. So basically, we have a bunch of Public Servants with high school diplomas, and not much training. Since there's no national standards/licensing who knows what they are trained to do? Why isn't their a national registry that all law enforcement personnel should have to report to? I'm not just concerned about killings either. I want a full account of what that officer/anyone with a gun and the authority to ruin someone's life does during their shift. I want details of every stop. Every call. It seems like it wouldn't be much of a problem with our current technology? We could fire the bad cops? We could promote the good cops? We could identify speed traps? We could cut down on the abuses I see daily? And we could get the money to the areas that actually need extra police presence?(federal grants, etc.). The time has come for change, and strict accountability. I'm a white guy, live in a upper income area, but for as long as I can remember these cops are allowed to do pretty much whatever they like. I have lost track of the times I was pulled over for no reason. I can't imagine what minorites have to go through.

at-fates-hands 10y ago

> 963 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016 And please outline every one of those situations. Because those are just numbers, nothing else. - How many of those were suspects who threatened a cop with a gun or some other weapon? - How many of those were a suspect was assaulting a cop and he drew his weapon to save his own life? - How many of those where a suspect refused the orders of the cops to put down a dangerous weapon and surrender? In fact, all you have is numbers. Without any context, those numbers are useless. By comparison, in Chicago this year, there were 762 homicides. That's ONE CITY which nearly equals the entire country's worth of people being killed by police in the same time frame.

moomin 10y ago
An important distinction: many of those who killed someone in Chicago ended up in jail. Mike Brown's, Eric Garner's and Tamir Rice's killers are all walking free. There's some context for you, but I'm guessing that's not what you were after.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  I'm not saying that cops were in the right in every one of those situations. It just means there's no context in a majority of those incidents - which is critical to determine if the cop was justified in what he did. Likewise, the context is critical for each of the examples you listed. . . Mike Brown - So much evidence that contradicted the whole "hand up, don't shoot" narrative: In summary, the DOJ report concluded: There are no witnesses who could testify credibly that Wilson shot Brown while Brown was clearly attempting to surrender. The accounts of the witnesses who have claimed that Brown raised his hands above his head to surrender and said “I don’t have a gun,” or “OK, OK, OK” are inconsistent with the physical evidence.” http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/why-did-justice-department-conclude-hands-dont-shoot-was-myth#stream/0 http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/why-did-justice-departme... The whole incident took place after Brown had just committed a strong arm robbery and assaulted the owner of a shop. There's a mountain of evidence that proves officer Wilson was well within his rights to shoot Brown but I won't go down that rabbit hole at this point. Eric Garner - I would agree the cops acted callously in arresting Garner. That should have been a standard arrest. Take him to the ground, cuff him and put in the car. The cops were wrong in this scenario, and should have done a better job of simply cuffing Garner and getting him in the car - especially when he kept saying he couldn't breathe. There is however, still some responsibility on Garner's part that he resisted arrest in the first place, which then resulted in the officers putting him in the choke hold that eventually killed him. Had he simply allowed the officers to arrest him without incident, he'd probably still be alive today. Tamir Rice - This was an egregious act on the cops part. Not only did the callers mention that the gun was probably fake, the dispatcher didn't rely that to the cops who showed up. The cop also acted way too fast in drawing his gun and shooting Tamir immediately without hesitation or warning. A $6 million settlement probably confirms this was the case. Not to mention the officer in question had also been deemed "unsuitable and emotionally unstable" in his last position in a different county and shouldn't even been allowed to be a cop again.