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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,

by 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.
  - andarleen 6y ago
    You mean to tell me I can just call the police on a black person that happens to be in my store, they get killed, and we call it a day? Everything that results in some sort of police punishment must be investigated, even if the person is dead. Both the crime that may have led to the police being called, shooting at the police, and then police handling of the situation.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
      I'm not saying that... i'm refering to the parent post: > 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. The first part, suspect innocent until proven guilty (for the original crime, the one police got called for), and i see no point in going further with the trial for the original crime, if there is no point to be made (eg. trial for robbery, having the store owner come to court, proving was there a robbery, proving the suspect was the one robbing the store, etc.). The shooting (so robber vs. police) part should of course be investigated.
      - deathgrips 6y ago
        "Justified shooting" in American merely means that the police followed the protocols of his police department, which often say "shoot if you feel threatened". The rules of police departments should not in themselves be a shield from criminal liability. If cops shoot someone who was not guilty of a crime, they should be punished, much in the same way that if you or I shoot and kill an innocent person, we should be punished.
        ajsnigrutin 6y ago
        But if the shooting itself was justified (infront of the court, jury, or whatever other method of proving justification they implement, and you consider to be fair), because (eg.) the suspect started shooting at the police first, what does it matter, if the suspect really robbed that store, or if he started shooting due to some other reason?
michaelchisari 6y ago
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... If you look at the rate per 10 Million people, we're right in-between Mexico and Bangladesh with 28.4 Germany is 1.3, UK is 0.5, Japan is 0.2 That tells me there's a problem that isn't solved by breaking the numbers into two columns of justified and non-justified.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  But how many criminals in germany and UK shoot at the police officers? I think that this US number is also very different from the German/UK number.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    This is another evidence USA system is insane and needs to change.
    - pyritefan 6y ago
      There are many, many other countries with very strict gun control laws. The US is arguably the only location on Earth where people have a somewhat unrestricted right to arm themselves. Should there not be any place in the world where people who believe in personally having the power to defend themselves against attackers and a tyrannical government are able to do so?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Maybe criminals in the US carry and use guns because they fear violence from the police? If you think the police are going to kill you either way, you might as well go out shooting! In the UK you know the police are going to respectfully arrest you and treat you well, so might as well give in rather than escalate it to a firefight. But generally I think it's crazy that the police in the US are armed. Most policing doesn't need lethal weaponry, and community officers shouldn't be armed. Leave guns to specialist units when required. I know Floyd wasn't killed with a gun, but I think disarming the police would be the right response and first step towards reducing police violence, as it de-escalates every interaction.
pyritefan 6y ago
>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. Many people believe no use of lethal force by police is ever justified, and that no black person should ever be killed by police regardless of circumstances. I genuinely do not understand what their end goal is, do they expect police to simply be bullet sponges and passively die if they are being shot at? Should they allow criminals to murder citizens and wait until the murderer tires out or runs out of bullets to arrest them?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jka 6y ago
Do you find the data at https://policeviolencereport.org/ https://policeviolencereport.org/ any more convincing? It uses similar data for 2017 and illustrates that 149 out of 1147 people killed by police during that year were unarmed (~12.9% of cases). It also highlights some differences in the demographics of the people who suffered as a result of police violence; I mention that because it's relevant to these topics appearing on Hacker News currently.
- M4v3R 6y ago
  Yes, this website is a lot better because it shows a lot of more context and in-depth look at the data instead of just showing a map of police shootings without explanation.
MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
It certainly feels one sided. Since 2018, more police officers have been killed by blacks than the other way around. Blacks are substantially overrepresented in murders of police officers. [0] This is not to say that there isn't a problem with police violence, ridiculous militarisation after 9/11 or the way police are being trained, because there is. But those one-sided takes aren't helping. [0] https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1266926255082999810?s=20 https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1266926255082999810?s=20
- Infinitesimus 6y ago
  I don't condone murder, but do you think it's possible the police deaths are a response to the police murders that have been happening for 100's of years? Maybe some people realized that after constant harassment and threats, their only recourse was to get armed and protect themselves from the police.
  - MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
    Absolutely possible. To validate this theory, one would have to look at how those numbers develop over the decades. If you're right, they would start low and rise over time. I haven't found a good data source yet to confirm or falsify that. That wasn't exactly my point though: there will always be justification for violence. MLK and Ghandi were great men because they saw that the escalating spiral of death and violence cannot be stopped by retribution. What happens now will devastate black communities, encourage white flight, and possibly tip the next elections. Its not the first time, we've seen this happen before.
    - Infinitesimus 6y ago
      Agreed, the violence now will likely do much more harm than good.
watwut 6y ago
> "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. I cant figure out why would you assumed either first or second. The actual sentence is clear, killed people. But also, guilt is not valid reason for police to kill someone. Guilty people should be sentenced by court and death sentence should be treated carefully. The person have to be active threat and no other way possible. "He was guilty, therefor it is ok to kill him" does not cut it.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  This sentence further proves his point... > 99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime. If someone wrote... > "1099 patients died after being treated by cardiologists in Nevada. Thus far, 99% of them have not yet faced any charges." While "technically correct" it is obviously intended to deceive the reader.
fit2rule 6y ago
A nation ruled by actual war criminals should not be surprised that its police are a source of violent crime. Blacks and other minorities in America today are treated with the same callous disregard as Libyans, Afghanis, Iraqi's and Yemeni are treated by its out of control military industrial pharmaceutical complex - every single day for decades. Sure, you know who George Floyd is, because he was an American citizen and American media is not banned from reporting on his death. But, do you know who Saleh Matasher Tomal was? Got any clue who Saeed Chmagh was? Namir Noor-Eldeen? These are also victims of Americas out of control obsession with violent authority over what self-appointed political judges, proven war criminals, have deemed to be lesser human beings. If you want America to change its ways within its borders, you have to start prosecuting the real crimes against humanity that are committed in the name of every single American citizen outside its borders. This is where the actual trouble starts: war criminals, getting away with it, then turn their troubled death cult psyche towards American society and apply the same heinous policies towards the people they truly hate ...
Ensorceled 6y ago
The premise of the map is that "police kill a lot of people in the US, many unarmed, and they are disproportionately black". What do you think the premise of the map is? You are saying to disagree with the premise but then you simply argue with the "implications" of the data. What premise are you disagreeing with?
bikeshed 6y ago
wow, we're really gonna defend the indefensible in this thread, aren't we?
- ThA0x2 6y ago
  If facts and truth are "indefensible", then you're the problem. This is why leftists and other zealots have brought us into the post fact world. Sorry, facts don't care about your feelings.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  The truth is never indefensible - especially when inconvenient.

by M4v3R 6y ago

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.
- andarleen 6y ago
  You mean to tell me I can just call the police on a black person that happens to be in my store, they get killed, and we call it a day? Everything that results in some sort of police punishment must be investigated, even if the person is dead. Both the crime that may have led to the police being called, shooting at the police, and then police handling of the situation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    I'm not saying that... i'm refering to the parent post: > 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. The first part, suspect innocent until proven guilty (for the original crime, the one police got called for), and i see no point in going further with the trial for the original crime, if there is no point to be made (eg. trial for robbery, having the store owner come to court, proving was there a robbery, proving the suspect was the one robbing the store, etc.). The shooting (so robber vs. police) part should of course be investigated.
    - deathgrips 6y ago
      "Justified shooting" in American merely means that the police followed the protocols of his police department, which often say "shoot if you feel threatened". The rules of police departments should not in themselves be a shield from criminal liability. If cops shoot someone who was not guilty of a crime, they should be punished, much in the same way that if you or I shoot and kill an innocent person, we should be punished.
      - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
        But if the shooting itself was justified (infront of the court, jury, or whatever other method of proving justification they implement, and you consider to be fair), because (eg.) the suspect started shooting at the police first, what does it matter, if the suspect really robbed that store, or if he started shooting due to some other reason?

michaelchisari 6y ago

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... If you look at the rate per 10 Million people, we're right in-between Mexico and Bangladesh with 28.4 Germany is 1.3, UK is 0.5, Japan is 0.2 That tells me there's a problem that isn't solved by breaking the numbers into two columns of justified and non-justified.

ajsnigrutin 6y ago
But how many criminals in germany and UK shoot at the police officers? I think that this US number is also very different from the German/UK number.
- ajuc 6y ago
  This is another evidence USA system is insane and needs to change.
  - pyritefan 6y ago
    There are many, many other countries with very strict gun control laws. The US is arguably the only location on Earth where people have a somewhat unrestricted right to arm themselves. Should there not be any place in the world where people who believe in personally having the power to defend themselves against attackers and a tyrannical government are able to do so?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Maybe criminals in the US carry and use guns because they fear violence from the police? If you think the police are going to kill you either way, you might as well go out shooting! In the UK you know the police are going to respectfully arrest you and treat you well, so might as well give in rather than escalate it to a firefight. But generally I think it's crazy that the police in the US are armed. Most policing doesn't need lethal weaponry, and community officers shouldn't be armed. Leave guns to specialist units when required. I know Floyd wasn't killed with a gun, but I think disarming the police would be the right response and first step towards reducing police violence, as it de-escalates every interaction.

pyritefan 6y ago

>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. Many people believe no use of lethal force by police is ever justified, and that no black person should ever be killed by police regardless of circumstances. I genuinely do not understand what their end goal is, do they expect police to simply be bullet sponges and passively die if they are being shot at? Should they allow criminals to murder citizens and wait until the murderer tires out or runs out of bullets to arrest them?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jka 6y ago

Do you find the data at https://policeviolencereport.org/ https://policeviolencereport.org/ any more convincing? It uses similar data for 2017 and illustrates that 149 out of 1147 people killed by police during that year were unarmed (~12.9% of cases). It also highlights some differences in the demographics of the people who suffered as a result of police violence; I mention that because it's relevant to these topics appearing on Hacker News currently.

M4v3R 6y ago
Yes, this website is a lot better because it shows a lot of more context and in-depth look at the data instead of just showing a map of police shootings without explanation.

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago

It certainly feels one sided. Since 2018, more police officers have been killed by blacks than the other way around. Blacks are substantially overrepresented in murders of police officers. [0] This is not to say that there isn't a problem with police violence, ridiculous militarisation after 9/11 or the way police are being trained, because there is. But those one-sided takes aren't helping. [0] https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1266926255082999810?s=20 https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1266926255082999810?s=20

Infinitesimus 6y ago
I don't condone murder, but do you think it's possible the police deaths are a response to the police murders that have been happening for 100's of years? Maybe some people realized that after constant harassment and threats, their only recourse was to get armed and protect themselves from the police.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
  Absolutely possible. To validate this theory, one would have to look at how those numbers develop over the decades. If you're right, they would start low and rise over time. I haven't found a good data source yet to confirm or falsify that. That wasn't exactly my point though: there will always be justification for violence. MLK and Ghandi were great men because they saw that the escalating spiral of death and violence cannot be stopped by retribution. What happens now will devastate black communities, encourage white flight, and possibly tip the next elections. Its not the first time, we've seen this happen before.
  - Infinitesimus 6y ago
    Agreed, the violence now will likely do much more harm than good.

watwut 6y ago

> "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. I cant figure out why would you assumed either first or second. The actual sentence is clear, killed people. But also, guilt is not valid reason for police to kill someone. Guilty people should be sentenced by court and death sentence should be treated carefully. The person have to be active threat and no other way possible. "He was guilty, therefor it is ok to kill him" does not cut it.

koheripbal 6y ago
This sentence further proves his point... > 99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime. If someone wrote... > "1099 patients died after being treated by cardiologists in Nevada. Thus far, 99% of them have not yet faced any charges." While "technically correct" it is obviously intended to deceive the reader.

fit2rule 6y ago

A nation ruled by actual war criminals should not be surprised that its police are a source of violent crime. Blacks and other minorities in America today are treated with the same callous disregard as Libyans, Afghanis, Iraqi's and Yemeni are treated by its out of control military industrial pharmaceutical complex - every single day for decades. Sure, you know who George Floyd is, because he was an American citizen and American media is not banned from reporting on his death. But, do you know who Saleh Matasher Tomal was? Got any clue who Saeed Chmagh was? Namir Noor-Eldeen? These are also victims of Americas out of control obsession with violent authority over what self-appointed political judges, proven war criminals, have deemed to be lesser human beings. If you want America to change its ways within its borders, you have to start prosecuting the real crimes against humanity that are committed in the name of every single American citizen outside its borders. This is where the actual trouble starts: war criminals, getting away with it, then turn their troubled death cult psyche towards American society and apply the same heinous policies towards the people they truly hate ...

Ensorceled 6y ago

The premise of the map is that "police kill a lot of people in the US, many unarmed, and they are disproportionately black". What do you think the premise of the map is? You are saying to disagree with the premise but then you simply argue with the "implications" of the data. What premise are you disagreeing with?

bikeshed 6y ago

wow, we're really gonna defend the indefensible in this thread, aren't we?

ThA0x2 6y ago
If facts and truth are "indefensible", then you're the problem. This is why leftists and other zealots have brought us into the post fact world. Sorry, facts don't care about your feelings.
koheripbal 6y ago
The truth is never indefensible - especially when inconvenient.