12 ms·

Mapping Police Violence

211 points by deathgrips 6y ago

tasubotadas 6y ago
I don't live in the US and I think the behavior of the police is rather... unsettling but even to me, this looks biased and sensationalist. 6x more black guys killed than white? That does not mean anything. What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime? "27 days without killing anybody" - if the country were to be 600M or 1B big, it would probably have just 1 day - it doesn't mean anything really. 99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies. Why do people mess up good ideas, with cheap sensationalism?
- deathgrips 6y ago
  >What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime? There's a difference between x12 black guys committing a crime and x12 black guys convicted of a crime. >99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies. Yes, America presumes innocence.
  - tasubotadas 6y ago
    >Yes, America presumes innocence. Does the USA do trials for the dead people?
    - deathgrips 6y ago
      Presumption of innocence is a principle, not computer code.
- eirini1 6y ago
  >6x more black guys killed than white? That does not mean anything. What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime? this is adressed on the page, where it is noted that the rate of black people murdered does not correlate with crime rates in that area. >99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies. Its an interesting number at least because it shows that regardless of what cops actually do, the justice system rarely/never holds them accountable for it. Perhaps you could say that 99% of the times that cops kill someone its "justified" but that number is very, very unlikely to be up there. Regardless, I think this is more than simply sensationalism and presents some very interesting facts on a topic that is very relevant today.
- teddyh 6y ago
  > Why do people mess up good ideas, with cheap sensationalism? Because it works. It also increases the likelihood than someone will be “engaged” enough to forward the link into virality, and thereby increasing traffic. Those which does not do this will be ignored and replaced by those who do. The data used in this project have been available to everyone, and many have undoubtedly done presentations about it. Have we seen those more reasonable versions here on HN or as viral features on social media? No. Because they’re not interesting enough. In order to be noticed, you have to crank your interestingness factor to the max.
paganel 6y ago
That's really cool, especially as I think one of the first map mashups was Chicago Crime [1], which was followed soon enough by countless others (I know I did one for my city back in 2007-ish). It would have been interesting for us to have had this type of map alongside the original "crime" maps from the very beginning, but I think relevant data was hard to come by. [1] http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/ http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
asdkljas 6y ago
1
- docdeek 6y ago
  In what way is the amount of tax a person pays relevant to a discussion about that person being killed by a police officer?
- Pungsnigel 6y ago
  What does tax contribution have to do with it?
  - tudorw 6y ago
    I guess this is getting too political, we've been here before, let's just say you cannot have a link in the top 3 and not accept that that act alone has political meaning, life is political.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kypro 6y ago
This is useful because it highlights how black people are not the only, or even primary victims of police violence. I think it's a real shame that what should be racially blind protest about police brutality that affects all communities has turned racial when the statistics for doing so really don't make much sense. Especially considering how many police forces in the US are headed by minorities and how much of the police force consists of minorities.
- ppcdeveloper 6y ago
  A police force headed by a minority means nothing if the racism before that person joined is still there and he or she does not do anything to help change. It's like getting a Black president and saying racism and lynching was abolished by voting this person in office. The statistics show that the murders of unarmed people of color at the hands of police officers is disproportionately higher than that of the white people. And the is specifically true for back men. Out of every 100K black people 8 of the men of that population will die, unarmed, at the hands of the police force that happen to be white. These statistics enable the "seeing" process. Sources for the statistics are given in the article. You are free to calculate your own conclusions.
  - sfj 6y ago
    > These statistics enable the "seeing" process. I'd argue, you aren't really "seeing" the whole picture without also knowing that blacks in the USA are 13% of the population, yet commit 52% of the crimes.
    - andarleen 6y ago
      Great, now let's look into why they commit so much crime - perhaps because they have been marginalised for generations, depicted as criminals, denied education, pushed towards the edge of society? Your statement is like saying Jews in Germany didn't contribute tax, while they were "living" in concentration camps. It is time for the US to pull out of the middle ages and become a modern country. A society belongs to everyone, regardless of "race", "religion", and so on.
longtermdd 6y ago
I really love how, in 2020, with every bigger news event there are 100s of startups or mapping tools trying to squeeze in. It's great!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lysp 6y ago
Here is an exert from one state in Australia's police force review from 1994. This took place _26_ years ago. Even though it was so long ago, it seems to directly reflect solutions mentioned on the site. For the TLDR crowd: * Too much force was being used by police * Mental illness was a factor in some shootings / use of force (4%) * Standardised training for all police members * Safety first approach taken: * - Safety of offender is included in that approach (officers first, public next, offender third) * - Contain first, avoid confrontation, avoid force * - If needed, only use minimum force required * - Forced property entry only as last resort * All police undertake mandatory 5 day mental health training * Police to take refresher mental health training every 6 months * Any use of force - from minor (forced fingerprinting/cuffing) through to major (riots) - to be placed on register for tracking * Increased trends noticed in force register will be addressed in 6 monthly training ------------------------- 3. Project Beacon The establishment of Project Beacon followed a number of shooting incidents involving the use of firearms by the Victoria police. Between 1987 and 1994, officers were involved in operational incidents which resulted in the deaths of 29 offenders or suspects. Police were required to attend 15 to 20 incidents per day where use of force was employed and up to three "critical incidents" per week. A critical incident is defined as "any incident requiring police management which involves violence or a threat of violence and is, or is potentially, life-threatening". By mid-1994 this trend became the catalyst for fundamental change in operational safety tactics and training within the Victoria police. Expert analysis revealed that a number of factors may have contributed to this increase; namely, a feeling of vulnerability within the police force, a desire on the part of the community for instant solutions and a belief within the force that "there was no one else to solve these problems". It was also felt that this trend was in part contributed to by the de-institutionalisation of patients with mental illness in Victoria in the early 1990s. Six of nine fatal shooting incidents in 1994 by police (and one in 1995) involved persons with a mental illness. Statistics revealed that such persons were involved in 44% of all critical incidents reported to Project Beacon between October, 1994 and December, 1995. It was further noted that persons with mental illness were involved in approximately 4% of all "use of force" incidents, i.e., where force is used or threatened by or against the police. Emotionally disturbed persons attempting suicide and/or self-mutilation constituted a further 3.5% of use of force incidents. In general, a significant number of emotionally disturbed persons and people with behavioural problems, who may not have had histories of mental illness, regularly came to the police attention. A number of reviews, both internal and with the assistance of international policing experts, were undertaken in an attempt to identify solutions. On 6th April, 1994, the Commissioner of the Victoria police, Mr. Neil Comrie, wrote to all commissioned officers emphasising the philosophy that "the success of an operation will primarily be judged by the extent to which the use of force is avoided or minimised". On 19th September, 1994, Project Beacon was established and involved the standardisation of training so that all officers were trained to the same level of competence. The core principles of Project Beacon inform the response to every incident and the planning of operations which may involve any potential use of force. These core principles may be summarised as follows: * "Safety First — the safety of police, the public and the offender or suspect is paramount. * Risk Assessment — is to be applied to all incidents and operations. * Take Charge — effective command and control must be exercised. * Planned Response — every opportunity should be taken to convert an unplanned response into a planned operation. * Cordon and Containment — unless impractical, a cordon and containment approach is to be adopted. * Avoid Confrontation — a violent confrontation is to be avoided. * Avoid Force — the use of force is to be avoided. * Minimum Force — where the use of force is to be avoided, only the minimum amount reasonably necessary is to be used. * Forced Entry Searches — are to be used only as a last resort. * Resources — it is accepted that the "safety first" principle may require the deployment of more resources, more complex planning and more time to complete". The primary principle of Project Beacon is "safety first". The safety of the police officer is paramount, followed by the safety of the public and the safety of the subject. Mr. Shuey utilised the example of a doctor attending a collision to treat a patient: "the doctor wouldn’t stand in the middle of the road to do the treatment of the patient because he would be exposing himself to the risk of being run over by a car". If the police officer is in a position of security, he or she will be more competent and capable of handling the situation. If a police officer is not involved in anything which is unsafe, he will have a clearer perspective of what is happening and be able to deal with the situation accordingly. If you expose a police officer to a "kill or be killed" situation, the risk of a fatal confrontation increases. A significant objective of Project Beacon was to assist police in dealing with persons with mental illness, emotionally disturbed individuals and persons with behavioural problems. Project Beacon, in collaboration with the Victoria Department of Health and Community Services, developed a comprehensive integrated approach for dealing with such persons which was incorporated into police training courses. The training involved video scenarios and role-playing and in December, 1995, a video called "Similar Expectations" was produced. It offered a range of methods for dealing with persons with mental illness, and provided advice from mental health experts. The video received widespread acceptance in law enforcement and mental health agencies and was automatically incorporated into every police officer’s training; it was not confined to the training of those who participated in dedicated negotiators courses. Further training programmes were developed by persons with expertise in psychiatric mental health with the assistance of a police psychologist. 8,500 police officers, student and operational, were placed on an initial, five day training course complemented by mandatory two-day refresher training every six months. It is now part of ongoing training of police officers in the state of Victoria. Training for the Special Operations Group is rigorous and ongoing, taking place on most occasions when its members are not involved in operational response duties. A "use of force register" is now maintained by the Victoria Police. Use of force incidents range from the forcible obtainment of fingerprints and handcuffing, through to riot situations. All such incidents are recorded in the register. This enables the police force in Victoria to track the number of incidents where force is a factor, and enables trend analysis in relation to the type of force and weapons that are used. This acts as a "catalyst" for the next six months of training. The information is analysed and if there is an excessive increase in crimes involving firearms or knives etc., the training in the following six months will be highlighted in that direction.
throwwwaway 6y ago
It doesn't make sense to compare absolute number of deaths across different cities. You need to normalise against number of police interactions with the public (approximated by population size * crime rate).
- Gwypaas 6y ago
  Scroll down a bit for the graph contrasting violent crime rate per 1K population (according to some metric) to police killings per 1M population. Really interesting seeing absolutely no correlation.
- sideshowb 6y ago
  With my geographer hat on - and not being from the US, so I don't instinctively know where all the cities are - I was disappointed not to see a static display of deaths on a map. Ideally with the option to normalize at the users choice, both by population size alone, and by the crime rate suggestion above. The best sort of display would probably be circles for each city or state that scale in size, as choropleth maps tend to under-represent small areas. I don't mean to criticize the animated map, as it's impactful, just not very good for understanding the geography of the problem. e.g. are all US cities like this, or is it disproportionately a few of them? is the problem clustered spatially in particular regions?
M4v3R 6y ago
Not sure I agree with the premise behind this map. The title says "Mapping Police Violence" and then "Police killed 1,099 people in 2019", which to me implies, that it shows cases where police killed that many innocent people/killed without any real reason. Then it also goes to say that "There is no accountability" and "99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime" which further underlines that these killings were something that the officers should be charged/convicted for. And yet when I was clicking through the cases most of them seemed to be armed suspects that were shooting at other people and/or at the officers arriving at the scene. In which case I don't see how shooting at the suspect should be condemned in any way. Maybe I'm missing something here? I'm all in for charging and convicting unlawful use of violence and firearms by the police but this website seems a bit misleading to me because it misrepresents the scope of the problem. It would be much more useful to prove its point if it only showed cases where the suspect was not armed and dangerous.
- deathgrips 6y ago
  Until someone is convicted of a crime in America, they are presumed innocent. I don't see why that should change just because a suspect was killed before they could be tried. All police killings should be thoroughly investigated. The statistic that 99% of them do not lead to legal punishment is extremely suspicious.
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    To simplify, if someone shoots at the police first, and police shoots back, and kills him.... what's the point of the whole trial, if the suspect is already dead? Should they be on trial for the thing they were suspected to be doing? Or for the shooting at the police? Both? If you're a store owner that called the police on the suspect, because the suspect robbed your store, what good would it be, if you had to go to court and testify for a full robbery case (apart from the shooting case, where you're just a possible witness), if either way, the suspect is already dead? Edit: to clarify, i'm talking about the suspected "original" crime, eg. a robbery, and not the shooting part. The shooting should of course be investigated, but i see no point in holding a full trial for the robbery part, if the suspect is already dead, and if there is no actual benefit for anyone.
VSerge 6y ago
It's interesting to read about accountability (just scroll down a bit on the page). 99% of the officers involved in a killing are not held accountable. It could mean that 99% of killings were lawful, or it could mean impunity, and that while there are lawful killings (when facing armed criminal posing a threat), there are cases where officers are quite literally getting away with murder. The lack of correlation between killings and violent crime rates (also on this page) makes it likely unlawful killings do not result in the prosecution they require.
- grey-area 6y ago
  That a police officer is willing to choke a man to death in public over 10 minutes, and the illegal attacks on press over the last few days, even while being filmed, tells you how accountable they feel.
  - andarleen 6y ago
    It sucks watching these 3rd world countries harassing the press and citizens. From Europe, we are pretty shocked at the true state of affairs in the US.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Police killed 1,099 people in 2019. As a contrast 3 people died at the hands of the police in the UK in 2019.
- carlob 6y ago
  2019 was a bit of a bad year for the UK: the 2010-2019 average was 2.2...
- yummybear 6y ago
  But is is due to prevalence of guns in criminals, militarization of police, outright executions of criminals or simply violent culture - either among criminals or police (or both).
  - jopsen 6y ago
    There are many reasons for this... In the UK ordinary police don't carry firearms, this naturally reduces number of people shot :) But there are many things that could be improved by changing training, guidelines and accountability. In Denmark it's a use-of-force to draw a weapon or even more your hand into position to draw (or even signaling the ability to do so). Such events have to be counted, and officers held accountable. In the US police often draw or move hand into position as routine procedure on a traffic stop. You are right, it can't be fixed purely through police training and policies, but you could make inroads.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  Stupid example, but how many people in the UK shot at the police?
- ur-whale 6y ago
  Absolute numbers are meaningless.
  - shawabawa3 6y ago
    Controlled for population size that would be 15 people in the USA
bresqa 6y ago
I always struggle with racial (and religious) topics - everything about it is so emotionally charged and a lot of the time I find that data is presented superficially and can support any claim you'd like it to support. I'd like to imagine that we're living in 2020 and that race is not as much as of a problem as for example economic inequality. For example - to me, a more plausible hypothesis in this "modern world" would be that people from poor neighbourhoods suffer from police violence more. Has anyone correlated those police departments with median income? Even statistical claims on this website seem charged to me sometimes - for example this is the first sentence on the site "Black people were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population." - however upon (superficial) research - in 2016[1] of all crimes committed 26.9% were by black perpetrators. So in relation to that statistic - the other percentage doesn't seem that surprising any more. But without that extra piece of info the whole sentence (any maybe the whole site) exhibits bias because the correlation is skewed. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- stonogo 6y ago
  This sort of comparison is unacceptable. For one thing, "committing a crime" is insufficent justification for onsite execution by a police officer. For another thing, the table you linked is arrests -- not convictions, not even charges filed. You have, in other words constructed exactly the sort of thinly-supported narrative that you complained about in your opening salvo. We do live in 2020 and racism -- not "race" -- is in fact a problem, no matter what you'd like to imagine. Of course class-related analyses are available, but I'm not sure how much value there is to be had in continuing to engage on this topic before you take an opportunity to consider deeply what conclusions you are comfortable accepting and which ones you are merely interested in rendering less "surprising." I apologize if this comment comes across as hostile; I find your assessment here to be highly offensive. It's one thing to attempt to maintain objectivity; it's another to speak with such detachment and lack of self-awareness as to make it extremely difficult to accept your text at face value.
  - bresqa 6y ago
utopcell 6y ago
A couple of interesting points: - "Compare Places" -> "Compare States" shows consequences for officers involved. - The 10 highest rated police departments in CA are in Tracy, San Mateo, Carlsbad, Palo Alto, Tustin, Escondido, Alameda, Mountain View, Chula Vista and Salinas. It is interesting to note that East Palo Alto (once the crime capital of the US) is in San Mateo.
- utopcell 6y ago
  although on second thought, this refers to San Mateo the city, not the county..
samdamsamm 6y ago
As usual, the most reliable correlate is completely ignored: poverty. That is not a mistake. The ruling class wants race war to distract from their class war. https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-...
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  And to make it worse, it takes focus off solutions that would work and increases the racism by making identity politics a good thing. If you made $180,000 a day since the birth of christ, Jeff Bezos would still have more money than you and that guys children is going to inherit it because of the system. Having your kids not working a day in their life with inheritance money might be ok but grandkids?
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Social media isn't about sharing or exposing truth - it is about the contagion of emotions.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  Racial injustice is a smell people can either deal with or not but it’s all over the air. What does Black 2030 smell like? Optimistic? When will being black in America no longer “correlate” with poverty and pessimism? If Americans want to focus on poverty and move past matters of racial cruelty, ought they not deal with the odor in the air? What does Black 2030 mean in America?
  - softawre 6y ago
    Of course we don't want to deal with poverty. We just want it as a scapegoat.
ajuc 6y ago
Looking from outside USA seems to be on a verge of a revolution, and not because of these particular riots, it's just a symptom of lots of systematic failures. Crazy high incarceration levels for a developed country, high crime levels, huge number of healthcare-related bankrupcies, low level of higher education and inescapable student's debt gating higher class jobs, huge inequalities, decreasing standards of living for the middle class. Basically it looks like either the system will change or fail altogether. I'm not even sure these riots are about race.
- samdamsamm 6y ago
  You’re correct. Contrary to characteristically similar protest efforts in the US during the past decade, the protesters on the ground this time care very little about race. That is only the media narrative. Class consciousness is increasing fast.
- adontz 6y ago
  It seems, but it's not true. There is no well defined organization or any other structure behind these protests, no funding and no force. Revolution is always about army, and I don't think U.S. army will go against U.S. police or at least stay neutral. From another side, in my country, when a few people were hurt (but not killed) by police, during police operation, it ended with months of protests. And also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure people would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up to pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation. Don;t get me wrong, we respect police. But we are not afraid of police. They serve us, we are not their cattle. From perspective of my culture, which I'm not stating is the best, U.S. people with all their amendments look like voiceless lambs. Police officer drives into crowd and crowd lets that car through. They do not break glass, do not cut tires, do not pull that officer off the car to describe with expressive gestures how upset they are by his actions.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    > And also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure people would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up to pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation. For a comparison here's an intervention from my city that got viral a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw Everybody involved is white, but here everybody is white, it's just not a factor.
kenneth 6y ago
Most of the time, the complaint is that black people are being killed by police disproportionally. It's not often explicitly said what they are killed disproportionally to, but it is usually implied as compared to demographics. This chart says a black man is 3x more likely to be killed by police than a white man. The uncomfortable fact is that black people also commit a disproportionate amount of the crime in the USA. I was curious to see whether these police killings are disproportionate to the amount of crime being committed. Is a black criminal 3x more likely to get killed than a white criminal? Digging into the numbers, on this database there were 3,379 killings of white people by police, and 1,945 black people. In 2018 there were 589k property crimes committed by white people, vs. 264k by black people. [1] For each black crime, there were 2.2 white crimes. For each black killing, there were 1.7 white killings. So, yes, the data does support that black crime leads to a disproportionate amount of killings at the hand of the police, even accounting for higher rates of crime. A black criminal is 30% more likely to die at the hands of the police than a white criminal. Not 3x, however. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-property-crimes-in-the-us-by-type-and-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-propert... EDIT: dead comment below points to some other statistics from the FBI: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... If we look at the rates of violent crime categories only (murder, robbery, and aggravated assault), the data actually indicates that a greater proportion of these crimes are committed by black perpetrators. There are 1.6 white perpetrators of aggravated assault per black perpetrator, 0.8 white robbers per black robber, and 0.85 white murderers per black murderer. This suggest that in this category, the police killings are actually disproportionate in that more white people are killed by police than the rates of violent crime committed would warrant.
- pyritefan 6y ago
  It seems that black criminals are more likely to be armed. Comparing the number of crimes alone vs. killings by police means nothing if you do not look at the types of crimes. Police are not as likely to kill a vandal or unarmed burglar as they are killing an armed criminal, especially one that has committed a violent crime. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... In all crime categories which are more likely to be violent, blacks are over-represented.
peter_retief 6y ago
What a load of nonsense. Police are in the front line against violent criminals and need to be respected and supported. This childish graphic is highly offensive and should be removed.
- Jataman606 6y ago
  If you would read it you would see that killings have little correlation to violent crimes.
  - peter_retief 6y ago
    What are you talking about? Killings have little correlation to violent crimes?
air7 6y ago
I dislike websites like this and their agenda. They are fueling the racial war instead of trying to fight it. It makes it seem like this is a white against black thing and it most surely isn't (or at the very least not primarily). For one, they add "Hispanic" in to the mix just to hint how Whites discriminate against them too, but less. However "Asian" is usually left out because they are killed and persecuted even less than "White" so that doesn't go well with the narrative. Also, a good portion of the police force is non-white, but the front cover stories are always of a white cop killing a black man. Police deal with criminal activity which is correlated with skin color (through poverty most likely), so it's harder to prove that the numbers are even higher than they're expected to be. Of course apparent atrocities like George Floyd are terrible and the officers involved should be prosecuted and the rage is understandable, but the race card shouldn't be played too easily otherwise the situation is just perpetuated.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  Where did you get "white against black thing"? This "agenda" is entirely in your head since the website is quite clearly a "police against black thing". The fact that you are associating police with "white" in your head and getting upset about it is a huge part of this problem.
  - air7 6y ago
    From this quote "Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police than white people". Perhaps the interpretation is indeed only in my head but it seems that a white cop killing a black perpetrator will generate substantially more attention and rage than any other racial combination. This in turn fuels the confirmation bias that make it seem that (white) police are just shooting unarmed black people left and right. The same site shows that black people are "only" 1.3x times more likely to be unarmed compared to white meaning that it happens a lot yet how many stories of unarmed white deaths caused mass riots? A quote such as above implies causation, yet the numbers while technically true, don't. For example "White people are 3x times more likely to be killed by police than Asian/Pacific Islanders" is also true [0]. Also, the same source shows that "Men are 20x times more likely to be killed by police than women". All these quotes have the same structure yet only cause outrage (and imply causation) when the race/genders are in an order that confirms an implicit agenda such as white>black or men>women. My point is that police brutality, like most things, is complicated and has many factors in play and allowing it to be hijacked to a racial discussion as "police against black thing" isn't doing anyone any good. [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793
hkai 6y ago
It seems weirdly specific to create a map of only police brutality, like creating a map of murders by white people below the age 25. I am also not sure why it needs to have a geographic component. Perhaps you don't really care on which block the police brutality occurred as much as the outcome of the case.
tracymanson2019 6y ago
It's disgusting
fareesh 6y ago
In the context of US society, with all its socioeconomic and cultural baggage: - Is it possible to design a system with zero unjustified killings / violence? - Can you program 100% of policemen to be 100% lawful all the time? If not, what is the expected failure rate of the system, and how far is the US from that number? Obligatory disclaimer, I am one of those people who think it is justified to use violence against violent criminals, and shoot criminals who imminently endanger anyone. From what I read on social media, this does not seem to be a universally held view. Incidentally I find that this whole topic is so emotionally charged that people tend to speak in absolutes and frankly that is just not something you can honestly engage with because there is no agreement on first principles, if at all there are any to begin with. Most of the talk I see surrounding the topic seems to be rooted in idealism and moral posturing with very little to offer in terms of solutions. Here in my country India, the general public often welcomes it when the police beat up criminals. It is common for the criminal to receive their first set of beatings from the mob that captures them, and then another round during interrogation. Police shootings (colloquially referred to as "encounter-killings") happen quite often as well, and are generally assumed to be staged. Apart from a few activists, most of the country does not really care about this issue. It is incredibly privileged for American society to even be having a national conversation about police violence or police reform to begin with. The third world has largely accepted this to be a fact of life for anyone remotely involved in criminal activities, or people who dare to to stand up to corruption. Also the race angle of police violence seems to be entirely manufactured by the media. I have yet to see a single statistic that shows a disproportionate degree of violence towards a particular race. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and from the videos I am watching online, it looks like a large number of people have removed this from their minds completely because it is not in the "news-cycle" anymore, which to me just reinforces my earlier claim that the race angle is a complete fiction invented by the media to sell advertisements, because the society at large seems to be programmable by what the news tells them. That being said, I am 100% sure that that the many of the police across countries and cultures are biased against certain ethnicities, because that's how human brains work (pattern recognition) - is this a solvable problem either?
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... it appears that encounter-killings occur almost 30 times more frequently in the US than in India. Indian encounter-killings occur at rates similar to German or Taiwanese. US encounter-killings occur at rates similar to Pakistani or Rwandese.
xlii 6y ago
After downloading the DB and deselecting "Allegedly Armed" there are 281 records so only 1/4th. Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun availability. Just few weeks back I was listening to a podcast where one of the guys went to US for couple weeks for vacations. They discussed the difference of the approach of the police. Where I am, it's usually silly, when cop stops my car he salutes in overly formal way and in really angry tone (like really really angry) described what I have done and if I comply if not. Probably 99% of the danger for the cop him/herself is that I'm going to curse him and his family 3 generations back. Whereas in US, it's all about police-safety first. They will scan back of the car, will ask (demand even) absolute compliance. This makes sense (to some degree, as police person is protecting their own life) since I could have a weapon and be a criminal or maybe even insane enough to try to pull this stunt. After living with this possibility for a while and having to estimate situation dozen if not hundreds time each day it's not surprising that police killings do happen. 613 of those 1089 killings in 2019 (56%) were gun related. And that's 75% of the "victim armed" cases. In contrary only 119 victims were confirmed to be unarmed. That's probably something completely different than the authors wanted to communicate, but I think it shows how complex the matter is and undoubtedly can't be attributed to only single class of the issues.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I also grabbed the data - the majority of them are in counties where guns are very hard to come by. Of course, there is some bleed over from adjacent counties, but I'd suspect (guess) many of them are holding other types of weapons.
- deathgrips 6y ago
  >Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun availability Almost no effect. I live in a state where over 2/3 of people own guns (usually multiple guns) and we have one of the lowest murder rates in America and a very low rate of police killing.

211 points by deathgrips 6y ago

I don't live in the US and I think the behavior of the police is rather... unsettling but even to me, this looks biased and sensationalist. 6x more black guys killed than white? That does not mean anything. What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime? "27 days without killing anybody" - if the country were to be 600M or 1B big, it would probably have just 1 day - it doesn't mean anything really. 99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies. Why do people mess up good ideas, with cheap sensationalism?

deathgrips 6y ago
>What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime? There's a difference between x12 black guys committing a crime and x12 black guys convicted of a crime. >99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies. Yes, America presumes innocence.
- tasubotadas 6y ago
  >Yes, America presumes innocence. Does the USA do trials for the dead people?
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    Presumption of innocence is a principle, not computer code.
eirini1 6y ago
>6x more black guys killed than white? That does not mean anything. What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime? this is adressed on the page, where it is noted that the rate of black people murdered does not correlate with crime rates in that area. >99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies. Its an interesting number at least because it shows that regardless of what cops actually do, the justice system rarely/never holds them accountable for it. Perhaps you could say that 99% of the times that cops kill someone its "justified" but that number is very, very unlikely to be up there. Regardless, I think this is more than simply sensationalism and presents some very interesting facts on a topic that is very relevant today.
teddyh 6y ago
> Why do people mess up good ideas, with cheap sensationalism? Because it works. It also increases the likelihood than someone will be “engaged” enough to forward the link into virality, and thereby increasing traffic. Those which does not do this will be ignored and replaced by those who do. The data used in this project have been available to everyone, and many have undoubtedly done presentations about it. Have we seen those more reasonable versions here on HN or as viral features on social media? No. Because they’re not interesting enough. In order to be noticed, you have to crank your interestingness factor to the max.

paganel 6y ago

That's really cool, especially as I think one of the first map mashups was Chicago Crime [1], which was followed soon enough by countless others (I know I did one for my city back in 2007-ish). It would have been interesting for us to have had this type of map alongside the original "crime" maps from the very beginning, but I think relevant data was hard to come by. [1] http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/ http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

asdkljas 6y ago

docdeek 6y ago
In what way is the amount of tax a person pays relevant to a discussion about that person being killed by a police officer?
Pungsnigel 6y ago
What does tax contribution have to do with it?
- tudorw 6y ago
  I guess this is getting too political, we've been here before, let's just say you cannot have a link in the top 3 and not accept that that act alone has political meaning, life is political.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kypro 6y ago

This is useful because it highlights how black people are not the only, or even primary victims of police violence. I think it's a real shame that what should be racially blind protest about police brutality that affects all communities has turned racial when the statistics for doing so really don't make much sense. Especially considering how many police forces in the US are headed by minorities and how much of the police force consists of minorities.

ppcdeveloper 6y ago
A police force headed by a minority means nothing if the racism before that person joined is still there and he or she does not do anything to help change. It's like getting a Black president and saying racism and lynching was abolished by voting this person in office. The statistics show that the murders of unarmed people of color at the hands of police officers is disproportionately higher than that of the white people. And the is specifically true for back men. Out of every 100K black people 8 of the men of that population will die, unarmed, at the hands of the police force that happen to be white. These statistics enable the "seeing" process. Sources for the statistics are given in the article. You are free to calculate your own conclusions.
- sfj 6y ago
  > These statistics enable the "seeing" process. I'd argue, you aren't really "seeing" the whole picture without also knowing that blacks in the USA are 13% of the population, yet commit 52% of the crimes.
  - andarleen 6y ago
    Great, now let's look into why they commit so much crime - perhaps because they have been marginalised for generations, depicted as criminals, denied education, pushed towards the edge of society? Your statement is like saying Jews in Germany didn't contribute tax, while they were "living" in concentration camps. It is time for the US to pull out of the middle ages and become a modern country. A society belongs to everyone, regardless of "race", "religion", and so on.

longtermdd 6y ago

I really love how, in 2020, with every bigger news event there are 100s of startups or mapping tools trying to squeeze in. It's great!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

lysp 6y ago

Here is an exert from one state in Australia's police force review from 1994. This took place _26_ years ago. Even though it was so long ago, it seems to directly reflect solutions mentioned on the site. For the TLDR crowd: * Too much force was being used by police * Mental illness was a factor in some shootings / use of force (4%) * Standardised training for all police members * Safety first approach taken: * - Safety of offender is included in that approach (officers first, public next, offender third) * - Contain first, avoid confrontation, avoid force * - If needed, only use minimum force required * - Forced property entry only as last resort * All police undertake mandatory 5 day mental health training * Police to take refresher mental health training every 6 months * Any use of force - from minor (forced fingerprinting/cuffing) through to major (riots) - to be placed on register for tracking * Increased trends noticed in force register will be addressed in 6 monthly training ------------------------- 3. Project Beacon The establishment of Project Beacon followed a number of shooting incidents involving the use of firearms by the Victoria police. Between 1987 and 1994, officers were involved in operational incidents which resulted in the deaths of 29 offenders or suspects. Police were required to attend 15 to 20 incidents per day where use of force was employed and up to three "critical incidents" per week. A critical incident is defined as "any incident requiring police management which involves violence or a threat of violence and is, or is potentially, life-threatening". By mid-1994 this trend became the catalyst for fundamental change in operational safety tactics and training within the Victoria police. Expert analysis revealed that a number of factors may have contributed to this increase; namely, a feeling of vulnerability within the police force, a desire on the part of the community for instant solutions and a belief within the force that "there was no one else to solve these problems". It was also felt that this trend was in part contributed to by the de-institutionalisation of patients with mental illness in Victoria in the early 1990s. Six of nine fatal shooting incidents in 1994 by police (and one in 1995) involved persons with a mental illness. Statistics revealed that such persons were involved in 44% of all critical incidents reported to Project Beacon between October, 1994 and December, 1995. It was further noted that persons with mental illness were involved in approximately 4% of all "use of force" incidents, i.e., where force is used or threatened by or against the police. Emotionally disturbed persons attempting suicide and/or self-mutilation constituted a further 3.5% of use of force incidents. In general, a significant number of emotionally disturbed persons and people with behavioural problems, who may not have had histories of mental illness, regularly came to the police attention. A number of reviews, both internal and with the assistance of international policing experts, were undertaken in an attempt to identify solutions. On 6th April, 1994, the Commissioner of the Victoria police, Mr. Neil Comrie, wrote to all commissioned officers emphasising the philosophy that "the success of an operation will primarily be judged by the extent to which the use of force is avoided or minimised". On 19th September, 1994, Project Beacon was established and involved the standardisation of training so that all officers were trained to the same level of competence. The core principles of Project Beacon inform the response to every incident and the planning of operations which may involve any potential use of force. These core principles may be summarised as follows: * "Safety First — the safety of police, the public and the offender or suspect is paramount. * Risk Assessment — is to be applied to all incidents and operations. * Take Charge — effective command and control must be exercised. * Planned Response — every opportunity should be taken to convert an unplanned response into a planned operation. * Cordon and Containment — unless impractical, a cordon and containment approach is to be adopted. * Avoid Confrontation — a violent confrontation is to be avoided. * Avoid Force — the use of force is to be avoided. * Minimum Force — where the use of force is to be avoided, only the minimum amount reasonably necessary is to be used. * Forced Entry Searches — are to be used only as a last resort. * Resources — it is accepted that the "safety first" principle may require the deployment of more resources, more complex planning and more time to complete". The primary principle of Project Beacon is "safety first". The safety of the police officer is paramount, followed by the safety of the public and the safety of the subject. Mr. Shuey utilised the example of a doctor attending a collision to treat a patient: "the doctor wouldn’t stand in the middle of the road to do the treatment of the patient because he would be exposing himself to the risk of being run over by a car". If the police officer is in a position of security, he or she will be more competent and capable of handling the situation. If a police officer is not involved in anything which is unsafe, he will have a clearer perspective of what is happening and be able to deal with the situation accordingly. If you expose a police officer to a "kill or be killed" situation, the risk of a fatal confrontation increases. A significant objective of Project Beacon was to assist police in dealing with persons with mental illness, emotionally disturbed individuals and persons with behavioural problems. Project Beacon, in collaboration with the Victoria Department of Health and Community Services, developed a comprehensive integrated approach for dealing with such persons which was incorporated into police training courses. The training involved video scenarios and role-playing and in December, 1995, a video called "Similar Expectations" was produced. It offered a range of methods for dealing with persons with mental illness, and provided advice from mental health experts. The video received widespread acceptance in law enforcement and mental health agencies and was automatically incorporated into every police officer’s training; it was not confined to the training of those who participated in dedicated negotiators courses. Further training programmes were developed by persons with expertise in psychiatric mental health with the assistance of a police psychologist. 8,500 police officers, student and operational, were placed on an initial, five day training course complemented by mandatory two-day refresher training every six months. It is now part of ongoing training of police officers in the state of Victoria. Training for the Special Operations Group is rigorous and ongoing, taking place on most occasions when its members are not involved in operational response duties. A "use of force register" is now maintained by the Victoria Police. Use of force incidents range from the forcible obtainment of fingerprints and handcuffing, through to riot situations. All such incidents are recorded in the register. This enables the police force in Victoria to track the number of incidents where force is a factor, and enables trend analysis in relation to the type of force and weapons that are used. This acts as a "catalyst" for the next six months of training. The information is analysed and if there is an excessive increase in crimes involving firearms or knives etc., the training in the following six months will be highlighted in that direction.

throwwwaway 6y ago

It doesn't make sense to compare absolute number of deaths across different cities. You need to normalise against number of police interactions with the public (approximated by population size * crime rate).

Gwypaas 6y ago
Scroll down a bit for the graph contrasting violent crime rate per 1K population (according to some metric) to police killings per 1M population. Really interesting seeing absolutely no correlation.
sideshowb 6y ago
With my geographer hat on - and not being from the US, so I don't instinctively know where all the cities are - I was disappointed not to see a static display of deaths on a map. Ideally with the option to normalize at the users choice, both by population size alone, and by the crime rate suggestion above. The best sort of display would probably be circles for each city or state that scale in size, as choropleth maps tend to under-represent small areas. I don't mean to criticize the animated map, as it's impactful, just not very good for understanding the geography of the problem. e.g. are all US cities like this, or is it disproportionately a few of them? is the problem clustered spatially in particular regions?

M4v3R 6y ago

Not sure I agree with the premise behind this map. The title says "Mapping Police Violence" and then "Police killed 1,099 people in 2019", which to me implies, that it shows cases where police killed that many innocent people/killed without any real reason. Then it also goes to say that "There is no accountability" and "99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime" which further underlines that these killings were something that the officers should be charged/convicted for. And yet when I was clicking through the cases most of them seemed to be armed suspects that were shooting at other people and/or at the officers arriving at the scene. In which case I don't see how shooting at the suspect should be condemned in any way. Maybe I'm missing something here? I'm all in for charging and convicting unlawful use of violence and firearms by the police but this website seems a bit misleading to me because it misrepresents the scope of the problem. It would be much more useful to prove its point if it only showed cases where the suspect was not armed and dangerous.

deathgrips 6y ago
Until someone is convicted of a crime in America, they are presumed innocent. I don't see why that should change just because a suspect was killed before they could be tried. All police killings should be thoroughly investigated. The statistic that 99% of them do not lead to legal punishment is extremely suspicious.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  To simplify, if someone shoots at the police first, and police shoots back, and kills him.... what's the point of the whole trial, if the suspect is already dead? Should they be on trial for the thing they were suspected to be doing? Or for the shooting at the police? Both? If you're a store owner that called the police on the suspect, because the suspect robbed your store, what good would it be, if you had to go to court and testify for a full robbery case (apart from the shooting case, where you're just a possible witness), if either way, the suspect is already dead? Edit: to clarify, i'm talking about the suspected "original" crime, eg. a robbery, and not the shooting part. The shooting should of course be investigated, but i see no point in holding a full trial for the robbery part, if the suspect is already dead, and if there is no actual benefit for anyone.

VSerge 6y ago

It's interesting to read about accountability (just scroll down a bit on the page). 99% of the officers involved in a killing are not held accountable. It could mean that 99% of killings were lawful, or it could mean impunity, and that while there are lawful killings (when facing armed criminal posing a threat), there are cases where officers are quite literally getting away with murder. The lack of correlation between killings and violent crime rates (also on this page) makes it likely unlawful killings do not result in the prosecution they require.

grey-area 6y ago
That a police officer is willing to choke a man to death in public over 10 minutes, and the illegal attacks on press over the last few days, even while being filmed, tells you how accountable they feel.
- andarleen 6y ago
  It sucks watching these 3rd world countries harassing the press and citizens. From Europe, we are pretty shocked at the true state of affairs in the US.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

Police killed 1,099 people in 2019. As a contrast 3 people died at the hands of the police in the UK in 2019.

carlob 6y ago
2019 was a bit of a bad year for the UK: the 2010-2019 average was 2.2...
yummybear 6y ago
But is is due to prevalence of guns in criminals, militarization of police, outright executions of criminals or simply violent culture - either among criminals or police (or both).
- jopsen 6y ago
  There are many reasons for this... In the UK ordinary police don't carry firearms, this naturally reduces number of people shot :) But there are many things that could be improved by changing training, guidelines and accountability. In Denmark it's a use-of-force to draw a weapon or even more your hand into position to draw (or even signaling the ability to do so). Such events have to be counted, and officers held accountable. In the US police often draw or move hand into position as routine procedure on a traffic stop. You are right, it can't be fixed purely through police training and policies, but you could make inroads.
ajsnigrutin 6y ago
Stupid example, but how many people in the UK shot at the police?
ur-whale 6y ago
Absolute numbers are meaningless.
- shawabawa3 6y ago
  Controlled for population size that would be 15 people in the USA

bresqa 6y ago

I always struggle with racial (and religious) topics - everything about it is so emotionally charged and a lot of the time I find that data is presented superficially and can support any claim you'd like it to support. I'd like to imagine that we're living in 2020 and that race is not as much as of a problem as for example economic inequality. For example - to me, a more plausible hypothesis in this "modern world" would be that people from poor neighbourhoods suffer from police violence more. Has anyone correlated those police departments with median income? Even statistical claims on this website seem charged to me sometimes - for example this is the first sentence on the site "Black people were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population." - however upon (superficial) research - in 2016[1] of all crimes committed 26.9% were by black perpetrators. So in relation to that statistic - the other percentage doesn't seem that surprising any more. But without that extra piece of info the whole sentence (any maybe the whole site) exhibits bias because the correlation is skewed. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

stonogo 6y ago
This sort of comparison is unacceptable. For one thing, "committing a crime" is insufficent justification for onsite execution by a police officer. For another thing, the table you linked is arrests -- not convictions, not even charges filed. You have, in other words constructed exactly the sort of thinly-supported narrative that you complained about in your opening salvo. We do live in 2020 and racism -- not "race" -- is in fact a problem, no matter what you'd like to imagine. Of course class-related analyses are available, but I'm not sure how much value there is to be had in continuing to engage on this topic before you take an opportunity to consider deeply what conclusions you are comfortable accepting and which ones you are merely interested in rendering less "surprising." I apologize if this comment comes across as hostile; I find your assessment here to be highly offensive. It's one thing to attempt to maintain objectivity; it's another to speak with such detachment and lack of self-awareness as to make it extremely difficult to accept your text at face value.
- bresqa 6y ago

utopcell 6y ago

A couple of interesting points: - "Compare Places" -> "Compare States" shows consequences for officers involved. - The 10 highest rated police departments in CA are in Tracy, San Mateo, Carlsbad, Palo Alto, Tustin, Escondido, Alameda, Mountain View, Chula Vista and Salinas. It is interesting to note that East Palo Alto (once the crime capital of the US) is in San Mateo.

utopcell 6y ago
although on second thought, this refers to San Mateo the city, not the county..

samdamsamm 6y ago

As usual, the most reliable correlate is completely ignored: poverty. That is not a mistake. The ruling class wants race war to distract from their class war. https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-...

danielscrubs 6y ago
And to make it worse, it takes focus off solutions that would work and increases the racism by making identity politics a good thing. If you made $180,000 a day since the birth of christ, Jeff Bezos would still have more money than you and that guys children is going to inherit it because of the system. Having your kids not working a day in their life with inheritance money might be ok but grandkids?
koheripbal 6y ago
Social media isn't about sharing or exposing truth - it is about the contagion of emotions.
threatofrain 6y ago
Racial injustice is a smell people can either deal with or not but it’s all over the air. What does Black 2030 smell like? Optimistic? When will being black in America no longer “correlate” with poverty and pessimism? If Americans want to focus on poverty and move past matters of racial cruelty, ought they not deal with the odor in the air? What does Black 2030 mean in America?
- softawre 6y ago
  Of course we don't want to deal with poverty. We just want it as a scapegoat.

ajuc 6y ago

Looking from outside USA seems to be on a verge of a revolution, and not because of these particular riots, it's just a symptom of lots of systematic failures. Crazy high incarceration levels for a developed country, high crime levels, huge number of healthcare-related bankrupcies, low level of higher education and inescapable student's debt gating higher class jobs, huge inequalities, decreasing standards of living for the middle class. Basically it looks like either the system will change or fail altogether. I'm not even sure these riots are about race.

samdamsamm 6y ago
You’re correct. Contrary to characteristically similar protest efforts in the US during the past decade, the protesters on the ground this time care very little about race. That is only the media narrative. Class consciousness is increasing fast.
adontz 6y ago
It seems, but it's not true. There is no well defined organization or any other structure behind these protests, no funding and no force. Revolution is always about army, and I don't think U.S. army will go against U.S. police or at least stay neutral. From another side, in my country, when a few people were hurt (but not killed) by police, during police operation, it ended with months of protests. And also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure people would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up to pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation. Don;t get me wrong, we respect police. But we are not afraid of police. They serve us, we are not their cattle. From perspective of my culture, which I'm not stating is the best, U.S. people with all their amendments look like voiceless lambs. Police officer drives into crowd and crowd lets that car through. They do not break glass, do not cut tires, do not pull that officer off the car to describe with expressive gestures how upset they are by his actions.
- ajuc 6y ago
  > And also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure people would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up to pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation. For a comparison here's an intervention from my city that got viral a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw Everybody involved is white, but here everybody is white, it's just not a factor.

kenneth 6y ago

Most of the time, the complaint is that black people are being killed by police disproportionally. It's not often explicitly said what they are killed disproportionally to, but it is usually implied as compared to demographics. This chart says a black man is 3x more likely to be killed by police than a white man. The uncomfortable fact is that black people also commit a disproportionate amount of the crime in the USA. I was curious to see whether these police killings are disproportionate to the amount of crime being committed. Is a black criminal 3x more likely to get killed than a white criminal? Digging into the numbers, on this database there were 3,379 killings of white people by police, and 1,945 black people. In 2018 there were 589k property crimes committed by white people, vs. 264k by black people. [1] For each black crime, there were 2.2 white crimes. For each black killing, there were 1.7 white killings. So, yes, the data does support that black crime leads to a disproportionate amount of killings at the hand of the police, even accounting for higher rates of crime. A black criminal is 30% more likely to die at the hands of the police than a white criminal. Not 3x, however. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-property-crimes-in-the-us-by-type-and-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-propert... EDIT: dead comment below points to some other statistics from the FBI: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... If we look at the rates of violent crime categories only (murder, robbery, and aggravated assault), the data actually indicates that a greater proportion of these crimes are committed by black perpetrators. There are 1.6 white perpetrators of aggravated assault per black perpetrator, 0.8 white robbers per black robber, and 0.85 white murderers per black murderer. This suggest that in this category, the police killings are actually disproportionate in that more white people are killed by police than the rates of violent crime committed would warrant.

pyritefan 6y ago
It seems that black criminals are more likely to be armed. Comparing the number of crimes alone vs. killings by police means nothing if you do not look at the types of crimes. Police are not as likely to kill a vandal or unarmed burglar as they are killing an armed criminal, especially one that has committed a violent crime. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... In all crime categories which are more likely to be violent, blacks are over-represented.

peter_retief 6y ago

What a load of nonsense. Police are in the front line against violent criminals and need to be respected and supported. This childish graphic is highly offensive and should be removed.

Jataman606 6y ago
If you would read it you would see that killings have little correlation to violent crimes.
- peter_retief 6y ago
  What are you talking about? Killings have little correlation to violent crimes?

air7 6y ago

I dislike websites like this and their agenda. They are fueling the racial war instead of trying to fight it. It makes it seem like this is a white against black thing and it most surely isn't (or at the very least not primarily). For one, they add "Hispanic" in to the mix just to hint how Whites discriminate against them too, but less. However "Asian" is usually left out because they are killed and persecuted even less than "White" so that doesn't go well with the narrative. Also, a good portion of the police force is non-white, but the front cover stories are always of a white cop killing a black man. Police deal with criminal activity which is correlated with skin color (through poverty most likely), so it's harder to prove that the numbers are even higher than they're expected to be. Of course apparent atrocities like George Floyd are terrible and the officers involved should be prosecuted and the rage is understandable, but the race card shouldn't be played too easily otherwise the situation is just perpetuated.

Ensorceled 6y ago
Where did you get "white against black thing"? This "agenda" is entirely in your head since the website is quite clearly a "police against black thing". The fact that you are associating police with "white" in your head and getting upset about it is a huge part of this problem.
- air7 6y ago
  From this quote "Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police than white people". Perhaps the interpretation is indeed only in my head but it seems that a white cop killing a black perpetrator will generate substantially more attention and rage than any other racial combination. This in turn fuels the confirmation bias that make it seem that (white) police are just shooting unarmed black people left and right. The same site shows that black people are "only" 1.3x times more likely to be unarmed compared to white meaning that it happens a lot yet how many stories of unarmed white deaths caused mass riots? A quote such as above implies causation, yet the numbers while technically true, don't. For example "White people are 3x times more likely to be killed by police than Asian/Pacific Islanders" is also true [0]. Also, the same source shows that "Men are 20x times more likely to be killed by police than women". All these quotes have the same structure yet only cause outrage (and imply causation) when the race/genders are in an order that confirms an implicit agenda such as white>black or men>women. My point is that police brutality, like most things, is complicated and has many factors in play and allowing it to be hijacked to a racial discussion as "police against black thing" isn't doing anyone any good. [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

hkai 6y ago

It seems weirdly specific to create a map of only police brutality, like creating a map of murders by white people below the age 25. I am also not sure why it needs to have a geographic component. Perhaps you don't really care on which block the police brutality occurred as much as the outcome of the case.

tracymanson2019 6y ago

It's disgusting

fareesh 6y ago

In the context of US society, with all its socioeconomic and cultural baggage: - Is it possible to design a system with zero unjustified killings / violence? - Can you program 100% of policemen to be 100% lawful all the time? If not, what is the expected failure rate of the system, and how far is the US from that number? Obligatory disclaimer, I am one of those people who think it is justified to use violence against violent criminals, and shoot criminals who imminently endanger anyone. From what I read on social media, this does not seem to be a universally held view. Incidentally I find that this whole topic is so emotionally charged that people tend to speak in absolutes and frankly that is just not something you can honestly engage with because there is no agreement on first principles, if at all there are any to begin with. Most of the talk I see surrounding the topic seems to be rooted in idealism and moral posturing with very little to offer in terms of solutions. Here in my country India, the general public often welcomes it when the police beat up criminals. It is common for the criminal to receive their first set of beatings from the mob that captures them, and then another round during interrogation. Police shootings (colloquially referred to as "encounter-killings") happen quite often as well, and are generally assumed to be staged. Apart from a few activists, most of the country does not really care about this issue. It is incredibly privileged for American society to even be having a national conversation about police violence or police reform to begin with. The third world has largely accepted this to be a fact of life for anyone remotely involved in criminal activities, or people who dare to to stand up to corruption. Also the race angle of police violence seems to be entirely manufactured by the media. I have yet to see a single statistic that shows a disproportionate degree of violence towards a particular race. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and from the videos I am watching online, it looks like a large number of people have removed this from their minds completely because it is not in the "news-cycle" anymore, which to me just reinforces my earlier claim that the race angle is a complete fiction invented by the media to sell advertisements, because the society at large seems to be programmable by what the news tells them. That being said, I am 100% sure that that the many of the police across countries and cultures are biased against certain ethnicities, because that's how human brains work (pattern recognition) - is this a solvable problem either?

082349872349872 6y ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... it appears that encounter-killings occur almost 30 times more frequently in the US than in India. Indian encounter-killings occur at rates similar to German or Taiwanese. US encounter-killings occur at rates similar to Pakistani or Rwandese.

xlii 6y ago

After downloading the DB and deselecting "Allegedly Armed" there are 281 records so only 1/4th. Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun availability. Just few weeks back I was listening to a podcast where one of the guys went to US for couple weeks for vacations. They discussed the difference of the approach of the police. Where I am, it's usually silly, when cop stops my car he salutes in overly formal way and in really angry tone (like really really angry) described what I have done and if I comply if not. Probably 99% of the danger for the cop him/herself is that I'm going to curse him and his family 3 generations back. Whereas in US, it's all about police-safety first. They will scan back of the car, will ask (demand even) absolute compliance. This makes sense (to some degree, as police person is protecting their own life) since I could have a weapon and be a criminal or maybe even insane enough to try to pull this stunt. After living with this possibility for a while and having to estimate situation dozen if not hundreds time each day it's not surprising that police killings do happen. 613 of those 1089 killings in 2019 (56%) were gun related. And that's 75% of the "victim armed" cases. In contrary only 119 victims were confirmed to be unarmed. That's probably something completely different than the authors wanted to communicate, but I think it shows how complex the matter is and undoubtedly can't be attributed to only single class of the issues.

koheripbal 6y ago
I also grabbed the data - the majority of them are in counties where guns are very hard to come by. Of course, there is some bleed over from adjacent counties, but I'd suspect (guess) many of them are holding other types of weapons.
deathgrips 6y ago
>Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun availability Almost no effect. I live in a state where over 2/3 of people own guns (usually multiple guns) and we have one of the lowest murder rates in America and a very low rate of police killing.