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Thousands of deaths caused by police have been misclassified since 1980

93 points by EastOfTruth 5y ago

1cvmask 5y ago
From the article: That realization isn't entirely new. After the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., news organizations started to keep their own tallies of police-related deaths, which turned out to be higher than the government's numbers. -- This then transpired into the events in Ferguson. Obama on the ensuing violence in Ferguson: President Barack Obama said he has "no sympathy at all for destroying your own communities," urging protesters in Ferguson to avoid a second night of violence and fight instead for longer-lasting political changes. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/politics/obama-holder-ferguson/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/politics/obama-holder-fer...
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  > Obama on the ensuing violence in Ferguson:[...] What does this have to do with anything? Edit: ...and the article is flagged. I guess research on black people getting shot by police gets in the way of important threats of civil liberties, like YouTube taking down GuyTalksStraightIntoCamera264623's take on Great Replacement Theory.
  - BrianOnHN 5y ago
    Polarization. Reshares. Ad dollars.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    The media started to track it independently after the attention caused by the events that transpired. Because it was in the news cycle at the Presidential level.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Data is quantitative, and metrics can be so easy to compute that it feels like it's hard to screw up that easy computation and therefore they're more trustworthy. But garbage in, garbage out. It's hard to not be overconfident sometimes, especially when it fits the narrative you already believe.
msgilligan 5y ago
> misclassified by 55.5% That's a weird (and confusing) way to phrase it. Better phrasing (I checked the linked source article in the Lancet) would be: "researchers found that 55·5% of deaths from police violence between 1980 and 2018 were misclassified" It would also have been good to provide the numerator and denominator: "The Lancet estimates 17,100 of 30,800 were misclassified." The headline is good and provides the numerator: > More than 17,000 deaths caused by police have been misclassified since 1980 (Edit: Added clarification as to why I think this is weird confusing, with the full data from the article and suggestions for how NPR could have written this more clearly.)
- Retric 5y ago
  So police are killing roughly 2 Americans per day, that’s more than I was expecting.
  - google234123 5y ago
    How many times a day are Americans trying to kill police (e.g. shooting them, physically assaulting them)?
    - dlp211 5y ago
      I'd guess less than once a day. There is also a huge gulf between assault/resisting arrest and attempted murder.
      - google234123 5y ago
        A police person has to assume that their life is at risk if they are overpowered during an assault since there is a gun involved. Attacking a cop is a life or death struggle - they have to assume you are trying to get their gun.
        IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
        By that logic, and seeing how far more people are killed by police than police officers are killed by people, anyone getting arrested would have a better claim to be at risk of death. How much better? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty_in_the_United_States#2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_office..., twenty police officers were killed by assailants in 2020. The list of people killed by the US police isn't a single article, unfortunately. It's a list for every month of every year. Here's January 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States,_January_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... It's 93 deaths for that month. For the year, it's 632.
temp8964 5y ago
Is there a way to quantify the good things police did? Or does anybody (journalists) even care?
- EastOfTruth 5y ago
  you could do a data request (using Freedom of Information Act)... Some police/sheriff harassed me in my own backyard in an helicopter... I probably should request some data on that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- johnklos 5y ago
  What does this have to do with them murdering people? It's completely irrelevant, unless you somehow want to rationalize their behavior.
EastOfTruth 5y ago
This post was reported and dead for a few hours ... it is now back live... thanks DANG

93 points by EastOfTruth 5y ago

From the article: That realization isn't entirely new. After the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., news organizations started to keep their own tallies of police-related deaths, which turned out to be higher than the government's numbers. -- This then transpired into the events in Ferguson. Obama on the ensuing violence in Ferguson: President Barack Obama said he has "no sympathy at all for destroying your own communities," urging protesters in Ferguson to avoid a second night of violence and fight instead for longer-lasting political changes. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/politics/obama-holder-ferguson/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/politics/obama-holder-fer...

IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
> Obama on the ensuing violence in Ferguson:[...] What does this have to do with anything? Edit: ...and the article is flagged. I guess research on black people getting shot by police gets in the way of important threats of civil liberties, like YouTube taking down GuyTalksStraightIntoCamera264623's take on Great Replacement Theory.
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  Polarization. Reshares. Ad dollars.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  The media started to track it independently after the attention caused by the events that transpired. Because it was in the news cycle at the Presidential level.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

Data is quantitative, and metrics can be so easy to compute that it feels like it's hard to screw up that easy computation and therefore they're more trustworthy. But garbage in, garbage out. It's hard to not be overconfident sometimes, especially when it fits the narrative you already believe.

msgilligan 5y ago

> misclassified by 55.5% That's a weird (and confusing) way to phrase it. Better phrasing (I checked the linked source article in the Lancet) would be: "researchers found that 55·5% of deaths from police violence between 1980 and 2018 were misclassified" It would also have been good to provide the numerator and denominator: "The Lancet estimates 17,100 of 30,800 were misclassified." The headline is good and provides the numerator: > More than 17,000 deaths caused by police have been misclassified since 1980 (Edit: Added clarification as to why I think this is weird confusing, with the full data from the article and suggestions for how NPR could have written this more clearly.)

Retric 5y ago
So police are killing roughly 2 Americans per day, that’s more than I was expecting.
- google234123 5y ago
  How many times a day are Americans trying to kill police (e.g. shooting them, physically assaulting them)?
  - dlp211 5y ago
    I'd guess less than once a day. There is also a huge gulf between assault/resisting arrest and attempted murder.
    - google234123 5y ago
      A police person has to assume that their life is at risk if they are overpowered during an assault since there is a gun involved. Attacking a cop is a life or death struggle - they have to assume you are trying to get their gun.
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
        By that logic, and seeing how far more people are killed by police than police officers are killed by people, anyone getting arrested would have a better claim to be at risk of death. How much better? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty_in_the_United_States#2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_office..., twenty police officers were killed by assailants in 2020. The list of people killed by the US police isn't a single article, unfortunately. It's a list for every month of every year. Here's January 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States,_January_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... It's 93 deaths for that month. For the year, it's 632.

temp8964 5y ago

Is there a way to quantify the good things police did? Or does anybody (journalists) even care?

EastOfTruth 5y ago
you could do a data request (using Freedom of Information Act)... Some police/sheriff harassed me in my own backyard in an helicopter... I probably should request some data on that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
johnklos 5y ago
What does this have to do with them murdering people? It's completely irrelevant, unless you somehow want to rationalize their behavior.

EastOfTruth 5y ago

This post was reported and dead for a few hours ... it is now back live... thanks DANG