6 ms·

Is “cop shoots bike thief” something you actually think is common enough to note? This implies a concerning reality departure.

midasuni 5y ago
Depends on the colour of the skin of the bike thief, but cop shoots innocent driver seems fairly common
- rubicon33 5y ago
  I recommend you take some time to really research how common that actually is. You might be surprised. The modern world has a way of making relatively small (yet disturbing) events seem like massive wide spread problems careening out of control. It's one of the reasons we are seeing hyper polarization of beliefs. Nobody actually does the research, they just read headlines, and it seems like the world is much worse than it really is.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    US cops kill 15 times as many civilians as most civilised countries.
    - rubicon33 5y ago
      > "fairly common"? You are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. Chance of getting hit by lightning: 1 in 500,00 = 2.0 * 10^-6 [1] Chance of getting shot and killed by police (2020): 993 in 331,449,281 = 2.99 x 10^-6 [2] Hardly seems "fairly common" now does it? And, your second post about the relative frequency to other countries is a different statement, one that while interesting, doesn't say anything about how frequent something is. And the numbers aren't even outside of an order of magnitude if focusing on African Americans while controlling for population. 241 in 44,780,000 = 5.38 x 10^-6 [3] I understand that your sentiment is in vogue, but emotion and vitriol has taken enough of our society away from us. When possible, maintaining perspective is paramount. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/lightning/victimdata.html https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/lightning/victimdata.html [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183489/population-of-the-us-by-ethnicity-since-2000/#:~:text=U.S.%20population&text=The%20Black%20or%20African%20American,335.71%20million%20people%20in%202024 https://www.statista.com/statistics/183489/population-of-the....
      - haswell 5y ago
        > And yet, you are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. And? You’re also more likely to die of a lightning strike than you are in a school shooting [0]. Does that mean we should judge the horror of school shootings any differently? - [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-school-shootings-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-schoo...
        rubicon33 5y ago
        You're asking if we should judge the horror more differently? Certainly. One (school shootings) is obviously far more horrible, for obvious reasons. But, if you're commenting on how common something is (as the original poster did), then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important. For instance, I don't think we need armed police and metal detectors on every single campus. That would be an over reaction but one that you might make if you thought the problem was bigger and more widespread than it actually is. I am somewhat surprised that I am having to explain why keeping perspective is important on HN. Sign of the times, I guess.
        haswell 5y ago
        > then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important In which case it’s important to add some more context to the numbers you cited. Lightning strikes kill about 50 people/year. Police kill about 1,000 (US). You’re significantly more likely do die at the hands of police than you are from lightning. Does that make either occurrence particularly likely? That’s where things get messy. Lightning doesn’t discriminate. Cops do. A person of color has no disadvantage against lightning, but they do when police are involved. Bottom line: this comparison is problematic and misleading. This was the point of my first response. Understanding that on the whole it’s extremely unlikely to be struck by lightning doesn’t mean someone should go stand in a field during a lightning storm holding an umbrella.
        brigandish 5y ago
    - ctack 5y ago
      Am sure there is a startup idea in there somewhere.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/police-killings-undercounted-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/police-killings-underc...
andreareina 5y ago
The police department is recommending people store their documents in an always-visible pouch to avoid getting shot. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/dps-partners-with-valerie-castile.aspx https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/dps-par...
- cton 5y ago
  This is a solution in the same way anti-homeless design is a solution
- tyingq 5y ago
  And they called the pouches "not reaching pouches". I wonder if they get the irony of "not reaching".
- botverse 5y ago
  The sad reality is buried under so many layers of derangement, I can’t really understand what exactly they are trying to solve here
- aasasd 5y ago
  > deadly force encounters can be catastrophic for police officers Oy vey.
jdavis703 5y ago
At least where I live it is. I’ve personally witnessed two instances of excessive force and been a victim of excessive force myself. And the last police shooting was ultimately about stolen property. They killed a father to be and a fetus over a suspected stolen car. So no, I haven’t departed reality. But yes, not all police departments are like this (mine specifically has been under federal oversight for years).
- cutemonster 5y ago
  > At least where I live it is In the US? I wonder which part of the US (if I may ask) > last police shooting .. killed a father .. How sad that they did that. (If it got covered by any news, it'd be interesting (or is there a better word) to read)
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    I don't know if this is the case, but it seems to match: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/10/oakland-erik-salgado-shooting/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/10/oakland-eri... https://www.ktvu.com/news/attorney-for-brianna-colombo-confirms-unborn-child-lost-following-chp-shooting https://www.ktvu.com/news/attorney-for-brianna-colombo-confi...
valvar 5y ago
I find the wording itself interesting. I guess it's a sort of class-tribalism that's developed to the point where it's so ingrained in some people's mindsets that they causally append bizarre comments like that to their sentences.
- pxmpxm 5y ago
  Broadcasting your bona fides far and wide is certainly en vogue in certain circles; anecdotally speaking, the incidence of people manifesting their vanilla pronouns is orders of magnitude higher than otherwise. Seems it's on par with yelling go packers or similar at a crowded bar.

midasuni 5y ago

Depends on the colour of the skin of the bike thief, but cop shoots innocent driver seems fairly common

rubicon33 5y ago
I recommend you take some time to really research how common that actually is. You might be surprised. The modern world has a way of making relatively small (yet disturbing) events seem like massive wide spread problems careening out of control. It's one of the reasons we are seeing hyper polarization of beliefs. Nobody actually does the research, they just read headlines, and it seems like the world is much worse than it really is.
- midasuni 5y ago
  US cops kill 15 times as many civilians as most civilised countries.
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    > "fairly common"? You are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. Chance of getting hit by lightning: 1 in 500,00 = 2.0 * 10^-6 [1] Chance of getting shot and killed by police (2020): 993 in 331,449,281 = 2.99 x 10^-6 [2] Hardly seems "fairly common" now does it? And, your second post about the relative frequency to other countries is a different statement, one that while interesting, doesn't say anything about how frequent something is. And the numbers aren't even outside of an order of magnitude if focusing on African Americans while controlling for population. 241 in 44,780,000 = 5.38 x 10^-6 [3] I understand that your sentiment is in vogue, but emotion and vitriol has taken enough of our society away from us. When possible, maintaining perspective is paramount. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/lightning/victimdata.html https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/lightning/victimdata.html [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183489/population-of-the-us-by-ethnicity-since-2000/#:~:text=U.S.%20population&text=The%20Black%20or%20African%20American,335.71%20million%20people%20in%202024 https://www.statista.com/statistics/183489/population-of-the....
    - haswell 5y ago
      > And yet, you are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. And? You’re also more likely to die of a lightning strike than you are in a school shooting [0]. Does that mean we should judge the horror of school shootings any differently? - [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-school-shootings-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-schoo...
      - rubicon33 5y ago
        You're asking if we should judge the horror more differently? Certainly. One (school shootings) is obviously far more horrible, for obvious reasons. But, if you're commenting on how common something is (as the original poster did), then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important. For instance, I don't think we need armed police and metal detectors on every single campus. That would be an over reaction but one that you might make if you thought the problem was bigger and more widespread than it actually is. I am somewhat surprised that I am having to explain why keeping perspective is important on HN. Sign of the times, I guess.
        haswell 5y ago
        > then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important In which case it’s important to add some more context to the numbers you cited. Lightning strikes kill about 50 people/year. Police kill about 1,000 (US). You’re significantly more likely do die at the hands of police than you are from lightning. Does that make either occurrence particularly likely? That’s where things get messy. Lightning doesn’t discriminate. Cops do. A person of color has no disadvantage against lightning, but they do when police are involved. Bottom line: this comparison is problematic and misleading. This was the point of my first response. Understanding that on the whole it’s extremely unlikely to be struck by lightning doesn’t mean someone should go stand in a field during a lightning storm holding an umbrella.
        brigandish 5y ago
  - ctack 5y ago
    Am sure there is a startup idea in there somewhere.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/police-killings-undercounted-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/police-killings-underc...

andreareina 5y ago

The police department is recommending people store their documents in an always-visible pouch to avoid getting shot. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/dps-partners-with-valerie-castile.aspx https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/dps-par...

cton 5y ago
This is a solution in the same way anti-homeless design is a solution
tyingq 5y ago
And they called the pouches "not reaching pouches". I wonder if they get the irony of "not reaching".
botverse 5y ago
The sad reality is buried under so many layers of derangement, I can’t really understand what exactly they are trying to solve here
aasasd 5y ago
> deadly force encounters can be catastrophic for police officers Oy vey.

jdavis703 5y ago

At least where I live it is. I’ve personally witnessed two instances of excessive force and been a victim of excessive force myself. And the last police shooting was ultimately about stolen property. They killed a father to be and a fetus over a suspected stolen car. So no, I haven’t departed reality. But yes, not all police departments are like this (mine specifically has been under federal oversight for years).

cutemonster 5y ago
> At least where I live it is In the US? I wonder which part of the US (if I may ask) > last police shooting .. killed a father .. How sad that they did that. (If it got covered by any news, it'd be interesting (or is there a better word) to read)
- Thorrez 5y ago
  I don't know if this is the case, but it seems to match: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/10/oakland-erik-salgado-shooting/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/10/oakland-eri... https://www.ktvu.com/news/attorney-for-brianna-colombo-confirms-unborn-child-lost-following-chp-shooting https://www.ktvu.com/news/attorney-for-brianna-colombo-confi...

valvar 5y ago

I find the wording itself interesting. I guess it's a sort of class-tribalism that's developed to the point where it's so ingrained in some people's mindsets that they causally append bizarre comments like that to their sentences.

pxmpxm 5y ago
Broadcasting your bona fides far and wide is certainly en vogue in certain circles; anecdotally speaking, the incidence of people manifesting their vanilla pronouns is orders of magnitude higher than otherwise. Seems it's on par with yelling go packers or similar at a crowded bar.