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At the same time, if you look at the police-involved deaths per capita, our neighbors are countries like Iraq and Mali. Other nations in the developed world (an

At the same time, if you look at the police-involved deaths per capita, our neighbors are countries like Iraq and Mali. Other nations in the developed world (and even many who are not) have rates that are far, far lower. The US clearly has something tragically wrong with its policing system.

hodgesrm 6y ago
Starting with a lot of guns. Police don't have a lot of time to make decisions when situations escalate. It seems like shoot first and ask questions later in many cases.
- croh 6y ago
  I somewhat agree with you. If both parties have guns, then it is only question of who shoots first. Even small error in judgement, can end up shooting and tragedy. We seriously need to look into gun control.
  - creato 6y ago
    I agree with you completely, except I think gun control is a lost cause, and attempting anything significant here is a disastrous waste of political capital. The degree of gun control required to change this dynamic (that police need to anticipate a gun in every pocket and under every car seat) will not fly in this country in my lifetime.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      And IMO will not fly before 3d printers capable of manufacturing reliable guns become widely available, which will render the whole thing moot. (since at that point you'll never be able to get rid of enough guns to make the police stop anticipating them)
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    Given the current political situation with a president "joking" about 12 more years at his party's convention, mass protests in Belarus being put down by force, I am firmly against gun control now more than ever.
- nfw2 6y ago
  I'm not sure if this is the point you're making, but I think the problem starts with the United States having a lot of guns in general, not just in the hands of police. The United States in the only country in the world with more guns than people. I'm not saying US police aren't too trigger-happy, but comparing gun use by the police in the US to other developed countries that have a fraction of the guns per capita (in England, for example, there are .04 guns per capita), isn't apples-to-apples.
  - hodgesrm 6y ago
    It's guns in general, exactly as you suggest. It turns even simple encounters like a traffic stop into potential life-or-death situations. This is not the only issue with American policing (by far), but if the starting assumption is that people on both sides of encounters are in fear for their lives it's not surprising that we see a lot of bad decisions.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      I'm fairly pro-gun but even I'll concede this is a big BIG reason why police shoot first. A bunch of US police studies found that if the suspect looks like s/he is pulling a gun, then you pull first and shoot first. And this being the US, that's not a crazy or unlikely situation (compared to somewhere like Japan or the UK). Generally the studies backed that the winner of the gunfight is 1) who pulls a gun first, 2) who shoots first, 3) who scores a disabling hit within the first three (3) shots. The downside of teaching all of your officers this means that they see someone sneeze or move their hand incorrectly and they assume s/he's reaching for it and goes for a killshot with 3+ rounds. The drunk (white) guy who got shot by the cop when he tried to pull his pants come to mind[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
- Shacklz 6y ago
  While I agree that the availability of guns is definitely a problem, a lot of the videos that end up in the news show that police are often acting extremely amateur-ish and escalate situations themselves instead of trying to deescalate. Most people, even criminals, most likely do not want to shoot a police officer because that essentially means that you're screwed for life; one shred of DNA, a photo, a name; that's all it takes to make life miserable, even if you get away with it initially. So the only reason people actually pull the trigger is when acting extremely irrational (drawing a weapon against a police officer is already irrational per the above), and that's exactly what happens in so many of the videos that we see lately. I mean, let's take the recent Jacob Blake shooting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg Why is he being shot? He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? The officers with their weapons drawn and their shouting only increase the stress levels of everyone involved; it's amateur-ish on so many levels. As a Swiss (another country with high availability of guns), this is absolutely unimaginable here; an officer drawing a weapon on someone will result immediately in an investigation whether it was justified (at least that's my understanding but I might be wrong, at least that seems to always happen when something ends up in the news); I have witnessed some nasty arrests in person where the person to be arrested resisted but never, ever did any officer draw their weapon. And I would be surprised if even the thought of doing so crossed their mind; they certainly were trained not to. I do think that the USA has a gun problem, and I do think that it plays a role in why so many people are shot by the police, but I also think that, at least from what I see in the media (and might thus be heavily biased), that the police seem to be badly trained, especially when it comes to deescalation techniques, and that there is not enough accountability for their actions and bad behavior.
  - CapricornNoble 6y ago
    >>>He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? One of the most graphic shootings I've ever seen is damn-near such a scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller But I agree with most of your post: the US has an over-abundance of undisciplined, poorly-trained police who are VERY quick to escalate a situation to their firearm.
djsumdog 6y ago
> Iraq Can we stick to nations that are at least likely to report real numbers? You can say China has fewer police shootings and it might be true or it might not. It's literally impossible to tell when it comes out of a nation with a freedom of speech that exists in their constitution and not in reality. In the documentary "Iraq: No End in Sight" the original US team that did reconstruction said Baghdad had < 11 people in the morgue each year. After the 2003 invasion, it grew to over 11 per day.
- KSteffensen 6y ago
  > Can we stick to nations that are at least likely to report real numbers? France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Japan, New Zealand [0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124039/police-killings-rate-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124039/police-killings-... [1]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki...
- mercer 6y ago
  I'm confused. Wouldn't the likelihood of lying mean that the real numbers in Iraq are much worse, supporting the criticism of AlotOfReading more rather than less?
  - darawk 6y ago
    No, because if Iraq's real numbers are worse, than we are not in their same range.
    - mercer 6y ago
      Ah, right. Thanks.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  What are you trying to say in that second paragraph? It sounds like "when USA took charge the number of deaths that needed investigating increased >300-fold" but that doesn't fit with the rest of your comment.
ffggvv 6y ago
yeah we also have far higher violent crime rates and are one of the few countries with a 2nd ammendment
- rimliu 6y ago
  I'd guess US is the only country with the 2nd ammendment. Or at least the 2nd ammendment talking about arms.
  - agensaequivocum 6y ago
    The Czech Republic is in the processes of amending their constitution to include the right to self-defense with a weapon. The Czech Republic also is shall issue for carry permits and their are around 250k people with one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic
aaron_m04 6y ago
Deescalation training would go a long way toward fixing this.
- teddyh 6y ago
  You can’t just train people and expect behavior to change. There’s no correlation there. First you have to make people want to change. Only then can training help people change in the way they already want to change.
nojokes 6y ago
Perhaps the result should be normalized by the number of cases where police officers are attacked.
lonelyasacloud 6y ago
Gunshot wounds are overwhelmingly the leading cause of death at the hands of the American Police. American Police are broadly authorised to use lethal force "to protect their life or the life of another innocent party", or to "prevent a suspect from escaping, but only if the officer has probable cause to think the suspect poses a dangerous threat to others" - https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938226/police-shootings-killings-law-legal-standard-garner-graham-connor https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938226/police-sho... The American rules on the use of lethal force are similar to many other countries. For instance, in the UK guidance is "To prevent an immediate threat to life by shooting to stop the subject from carrying out their intended or threatened course of action. In most circumstances this is achieved by aiming to strike the central body mass (i.e. the torso)." - https://theconversation.com/heres-when-british-police-are-legally-allowed-to-shoot-under-a-new-policy-on-lethal-force-76666 https://theconversation.com/heres-when-british-police-are-le... So why are American Police shooting more people? Why are they afraid for theirs, and others lives? Is it really because the "System" turns them into nervous, trigger-happy bad people? Or, is the problem that that's what happens when a society is awash with guns?
- cestith 6y ago
  Rural white folks per capita own way more guns than inner-city POC. Perhaps the rampant insecurity in food, shelter, healthcare, proper education, and chance to climb out of social and economic holes combines with a system where a heavy patrol of armed police are first responders to things better handled by trauma counselors, psychologits, addiction counselors, employment specialists, social workers, and other professions makes a perfect storm for violent interactions.
CryptoPunk 6y ago
The US has a much higher homicide rate than its peers, which almost certainly means police face more dangerous situations in the US than in those other countries. This is a far bigger issue than policing.
- cestith 6y ago
  Often, the issue with policing is aggravated by exactly those other factors: food insecurity, housing insecurity, income insecurity, healthcare insecurity, a culture of stimulant abuse and praising material wealth in a vastly unequal society, lack of mental and emotional support, whole swathes of communities with substandard schools and little chance for upward mobility by legal means...
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Social welfare spending in the US increased an average of 4.8% per year between 1972 and 2011. Government spending in total increased from around 25% of GDP in the 1950s, to around 40% of GDP today, with a shift from infrastructure and military spending, to social welfare spending. So I disagree this has to do with what you're implying - society not taxing enough to fund social programs. To give a concrete example that demonstrates that: Harlem in the 1950s, when there was much less social support available through government programs, was a relatively safe neighbourhood. The situation eroded in the late 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of the Counter-Culture, along with numerous social programs as part of LBJ's Great Society campaign.
    - cestith 6y ago
      https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1940USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1940USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1950USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1950USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1960USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1960USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1970USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1970USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1980USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1980USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1990USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1990USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2000USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2000USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2010USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2010USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2015USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2015USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2020USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2020USbn Please show me which years since 1940 have defense and welfare spending more in parity than they were in 1940.

hodgesrm 6y ago

Starting with a lot of guns. Police don't have a lot of time to make decisions when situations escalate. It seems like shoot first and ask questions later in many cases.

croh 6y ago
I somewhat agree with you. If both parties have guns, then it is only question of who shoots first. Even small error in judgement, can end up shooting and tragedy. We seriously need to look into gun control.
- creato 6y ago
  I agree with you completely, except I think gun control is a lost cause, and attempting anything significant here is a disastrous waste of political capital. The degree of gun control required to change this dynamic (that police need to anticipate a gun in every pocket and under every car seat) will not fly in this country in my lifetime.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    And IMO will not fly before 3d printers capable of manufacturing reliable guns become widely available, which will render the whole thing moot. (since at that point you'll never be able to get rid of enough guns to make the police stop anticipating them)
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Given the current political situation with a president "joking" about 12 more years at his party's convention, mass protests in Belarus being put down by force, I am firmly against gun control now more than ever.
nfw2 6y ago
I'm not sure if this is the point you're making, but I think the problem starts with the United States having a lot of guns in general, not just in the hands of police. The United States in the only country in the world with more guns than people. I'm not saying US police aren't too trigger-happy, but comparing gun use by the police in the US to other developed countries that have a fraction of the guns per capita (in England, for example, there are .04 guns per capita), isn't apples-to-apples.
- hodgesrm 6y ago
  It's guns in general, exactly as you suggest. It turns even simple encounters like a traffic stop into potential life-or-death situations. This is not the only issue with American policing (by far), but if the starting assumption is that people on both sides of encounters are in fear for their lives it's not surprising that we see a lot of bad decisions.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    I'm fairly pro-gun but even I'll concede this is a big BIG reason why police shoot first. A bunch of US police studies found that if the suspect looks like s/he is pulling a gun, then you pull first and shoot first. And this being the US, that's not a crazy or unlikely situation (compared to somewhere like Japan or the UK). Generally the studies backed that the winner of the gunfight is 1) who pulls a gun first, 2) who shoots first, 3) who scores a disabling hit within the first three (3) shots. The downside of teaching all of your officers this means that they see someone sneeze or move their hand incorrectly and they assume s/he's reaching for it and goes for a killshot with 3+ rounds. The drunk (white) guy who got shot by the cop when he tried to pull his pants come to mind[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
Shacklz 6y ago
While I agree that the availability of guns is definitely a problem, a lot of the videos that end up in the news show that police are often acting extremely amateur-ish and escalate situations themselves instead of trying to deescalate. Most people, even criminals, most likely do not want to shoot a police officer because that essentially means that you're screwed for life; one shred of DNA, a photo, a name; that's all it takes to make life miserable, even if you get away with it initially. So the only reason people actually pull the trigger is when acting extremely irrational (drawing a weapon against a police officer is already irrational per the above), and that's exactly what happens in so many of the videos that we see lately. I mean, let's take the recent Jacob Blake shooting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg Why is he being shot? He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? The officers with their weapons drawn and their shouting only increase the stress levels of everyone involved; it's amateur-ish on so many levels. As a Swiss (another country with high availability of guns), this is absolutely unimaginable here; an officer drawing a weapon on someone will result immediately in an investigation whether it was justified (at least that's my understanding but I might be wrong, at least that seems to always happen when something ends up in the news); I have witnessed some nasty arrests in person where the person to be arrested resisted but never, ever did any officer draw their weapon. And I would be surprised if even the thought of doing so crossed their mind; they certainly were trained not to. I do think that the USA has a gun problem, and I do think that it plays a role in why so many people are shot by the police, but I also think that, at least from what I see in the media (and might thus be heavily biased), that the police seem to be badly trained, especially when it comes to deescalation techniques, and that there is not enough accountability for their actions and bad behavior.
- CapricornNoble 6y ago
  >>>He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? One of the most graphic shootings I've ever seen is damn-near such a scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller But I agree with most of your post: the US has an over-abundance of undisciplined, poorly-trained police who are VERY quick to escalate a situation to their firearm.

djsumdog 6y ago

> Iraq Can we stick to nations that are at least likely to report real numbers? You can say China has fewer police shootings and it might be true or it might not. It's literally impossible to tell when it comes out of a nation with a freedom of speech that exists in their constitution and not in reality. In the documentary "Iraq: No End in Sight" the original US team that did reconstruction said Baghdad had < 11 people in the morgue each year. After the 2003 invasion, it grew to over 11 per day.

KSteffensen 6y ago
> Can we stick to nations that are at least likely to report real numbers? France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Japan, New Zealand [0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124039/police-killings-rate-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124039/police-killings-... [1]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki...
mercer 6y ago
I'm confused. Wouldn't the likelihood of lying mean that the real numbers in Iraq are much worse, supporting the criticism of AlotOfReading more rather than less?
- darawk 6y ago
  No, because if Iraq's real numbers are worse, than we are not in their same range.
  - mercer 6y ago
    Ah, right. Thanks.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
What are you trying to say in that second paragraph? It sounds like "when USA took charge the number of deaths that needed investigating increased >300-fold" but that doesn't fit with the rest of your comment.

ffggvv 6y ago

yeah we also have far higher violent crime rates and are one of the few countries with a 2nd ammendment

rimliu 6y ago
I'd guess US is the only country with the 2nd ammendment. Or at least the 2nd ammendment talking about arms.
- agensaequivocum 6y ago
  The Czech Republic is in the processes of amending their constitution to include the right to self-defense with a weapon. The Czech Republic also is shall issue for carry permits and their are around 250k people with one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_Czech_Republic

aaron_m04 6y ago

Deescalation training would go a long way toward fixing this.

teddyh 6y ago
You can’t just train people and expect behavior to change. There’s no correlation there. First you have to make people want to change. Only then can training help people change in the way they already want to change.

nojokes 6y ago

Perhaps the result should be normalized by the number of cases where police officers are attacked.

lonelyasacloud 6y ago

Gunshot wounds are overwhelmingly the leading cause of death at the hands of the American Police. American Police are broadly authorised to use lethal force "to protect their life or the life of another innocent party", or to "prevent a suspect from escaping, but only if the officer has probable cause to think the suspect poses a dangerous threat to others" - https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938226/police-shootings-killings-law-legal-standard-garner-graham-connor https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938226/police-sho... The American rules on the use of lethal force are similar to many other countries. For instance, in the UK guidance is "To prevent an immediate threat to life by shooting to stop the subject from carrying out their intended or threatened course of action. In most circumstances this is achieved by aiming to strike the central body mass (i.e. the torso)." - https://theconversation.com/heres-when-british-police-are-legally-allowed-to-shoot-under-a-new-policy-on-lethal-force-76666 https://theconversation.com/heres-when-british-police-are-le... So why are American Police shooting more people? Why are they afraid for theirs, and others lives? Is it really because the "System" turns them into nervous, trigger-happy bad people? Or, is the problem that that's what happens when a society is awash with guns?

cestith 6y ago
Rural white folks per capita own way more guns than inner-city POC. Perhaps the rampant insecurity in food, shelter, healthcare, proper education, and chance to climb out of social and economic holes combines with a system where a heavy patrol of armed police are first responders to things better handled by trauma counselors, psychologits, addiction counselors, employment specialists, social workers, and other professions makes a perfect storm for violent interactions.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

The US has a much higher homicide rate than its peers, which almost certainly means police face more dangerous situations in the US than in those other countries. This is a far bigger issue than policing.

cestith 6y ago
Often, the issue with policing is aggravated by exactly those other factors: food insecurity, housing insecurity, income insecurity, healthcare insecurity, a culture of stimulant abuse and praising material wealth in a vastly unequal society, lack of mental and emotional support, whole swathes of communities with substandard schools and little chance for upward mobility by legal means...
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  Social welfare spending in the US increased an average of 4.8% per year between 1972 and 2011. Government spending in total increased from around 25% of GDP in the 1950s, to around 40% of GDP today, with a shift from infrastructure and military spending, to social welfare spending. So I disagree this has to do with what you're implying - society not taxing enough to fund social programs. To give a concrete example that demonstrates that: Harlem in the 1950s, when there was much less social support available through government programs, was a relatively safe neighbourhood. The situation eroded in the late 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of the Counter-Culture, along with numerous social programs as part of LBJ's Great Society campaign.
  - cestith 6y ago
    https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1940USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1940USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1950USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1950USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1960USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1960USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1970USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1970USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1980USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1980USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1990USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_1990USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2000USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2000USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2010USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2010USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2015USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2015USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2020USbn https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_2020USbn Please show me which years since 1940 have defense and welfare spending more in parity than they were in 1940.