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German Police Used Only 85 Bullets Against People in 2011

205 points by gscott 15y ago

aresant 15y ago
"used only 85 bullets" What an odd way to quantify police violence. Right? Wrong? Justified? Article provides none of that.
tzs 15y ago
Anyone know WHY this is? Germany is certainly not crime free, so some possibilities that come to mind: 1. Perhaps German criminals, for whatever reason, are more docile than American criminals and give up when asked to so there is little need for the police to use violence. 2. Perhaps German criminals aren't as well armed as American criminals, and so when the police try to arrest them the criminals know they are outgunned and give up. 3. Perhaps German police are not very good at tracking down armed criminals and so the are few chance for the police to use guns. If I had to guess, I'd guess that #2 is the most likely of those three possibilities, but I've surely not thought of all the possible explanations. Without some insight into why they fire their guns so rarely, this statistic is just interesting trivia.
- gscott 15y ago
  I don't believe it is that, because police shoot people who are armed with knives, tree branches, and unarmed on a pretty regular basis... all of which are readily available in Germany. There was a homeless person here in San Diego because he had a tree branch and looked like he was going to use it against the officers (the person was mentally ill). Not to mention the guy who jumped the White House fence who had a butterknife (the President wasn't in the country at the time). The butterknife guy was shot and killed, since he didn't follow orders to put the knife down. I believe it is a lack of respect for human life along with the fact that these cases have made it to the Superme Court which ruled for the officers, if the officer feel they are in danger, they can shoot to kill. And they do so. My guess is German police offers don't care if a person has a tree branch, butterknife, stones or whatever they go in and make the arrest without just shooting the person. There is some risk of personal injury but probably nothing that 10 officers with billy-clubs can't handle.
  - cskau 15y ago
    > My guess is German police offers don't care if a person has a tree branch, butterknife, [...] I'm pretty sure policy is if the guy is holding a knife, you warn them and draw your gun. Then if the guy comes at you you've got the possibility to fire to avoid injury or death. While use of guns by the police is extremely scrutinized (it's often big in the news when it happens). The guns are a last resort in the really messy situations when there's no other way out. (And you have to prove that later on)
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      As far as I'm aware though, disarming someone with a knife is relatively easy if you're highly trained and armoured, and they are literally "coming at you," ie. you have plenty of notice. It all comes down to the value of human life: how much personal effort and risk are you willing to go to in order to protect a murderous criminal? Should you chance a little light judo to make him drop the blade? Or should you just put a cap through his eye socket and go to lunch? I know which category I'm more willing to be policed by.
      - tluyben2 15y ago
        Indeed; all police are trained in martial arts of some sort; disarming someone with a knife is usually easy. If you have been trained, you can see if your assailant is trained as well by how he holds the knife and the way he looks, moves and runs/walks. I'm talking knife here, not tree branch. Then you have (again, you are trained) the option to shoot him in the head, heart, stomach all of which are usually quite lethal OR you can hit the leg, knee, shoulder, arm. Why use LETHAL force? Actually, in almost all cases of police violence in the US; why did they use lethal force and not just cap someone's knee? Unless the person is on PCP (or a zombie; note that in Resident Evil when the first zombies come in, they first shoot in the knee; it's obvious right? Basic training?) (which, tiring to say, you can see if you are trained) she/he will drop their weapon (even guns mind you) if their knee is capped or shoulder is pulverized...
        15y ago
- cskau 15y ago
  > 2. Perhaps German criminals aren't as well armed as American criminals, and so when the police try to arrest them the criminals know they are outgunned and give up. Nobody is as well armed as Americans. But really I'm pretty sure it's down to policy. The police doesn't 'shoot first, ask questions later'. No need to escalate to using guns unless you're directly threatened with a weapon yourself - say if the guy is threatening with knife. And I really think it's the fewest of people who are desperate/stupid enough to try something like that. Also note how 49 of those 85 bullets were warning shots fired into the air.
- netrus 15y ago
  I am pretty convinced #1 and #2 are both true. POlice officers most of the times do not hunt down murderer or kidnappers (their is hardly murder in Europe, compared to the US), but are asked to appease husbands beating their wives, stop parties that are too loud, etc. Those people will hardly ever own a weapon - other then in the US. Second, I am pretty sure there is another culture of violence and fighting with the police in the US. Car chases, for example, are way less often in Europe - criminals tend to give up, instead of fighting to death.
  - darklajid 15y ago
    I have no statistics of my own, so I cannot cry foul. But can you back up "their (sic) is hardly murder in Europe"? Europe is a big and quite diverse place..
    - ajuc 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... All data in homicides per 10000 inhbitants in 2010 USA - 5.0 North America - 4.7 Western and Central Europe - 1.2 East Europe - 7 (mostly thanks to Russia with 15.0) Overall Europe - 3.5 World - 6.9
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- rorrr 15y ago
  Gangs. American gangs are fueled by uneducated population. Ignorance is so celebrated here, mixed with the attitude of entitlement, you get a lot of frustrated uneducated people when they realize that all the stories about getting rich and famous only apply to 0.0001% of the population. This mentality is the major factor.
  - kitsune_ 15y ago
    Do you have any facts and figures to back up that claim?
    - rorrr 15y ago
      There are several claims I've made. Which one are you interested in?
  - brown9-2 15y ago
    How much crime in America is caused by gangs? Without this fact, this claim sounds non-sensical.
  - rdl 15y ago
    Gangs alone account for more crime than the total in places like Germany, but US crime levels ex-gangs are still higher than in those other places. Gangs alone aren't an adequate explanation, but if you're looking for a single factor, maybe the reasons people go into gangs would be broad enough to account for it.
- noonespecial 15y ago
  I have a different theory, having lived in both places. Police in America seem to be willing to escalate a confrontation or "chase" to almost any level in order to prevent a bad guy from getting away. Where I lived (near DC) a police officer stood in front of a car to prevent an unarmed teenager from leaving an IHOP without paying the bill, when the kids wouldn't stop, he shot up the car, killing a passenger(1). Sometimes, when the offense is minor its OK to let the bad guy get away. Firing repeatedly at a moving vehicle in a crowded parking lot is never ok, even if someone might get away with murder. Polizei seemed much more calmly methodical and much less cowboyish. I can't imagine this situation occurring in Germany. (1)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701515.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02...
  - brazzy 15y ago
    I think you're right. It's a common trope in German crime shows on TV to see the police chase a dangerous criminal on foot with their gun drawn and then watch in frustration as they get away - but not shoot at them. > Sometimes, when the offense is minor its OK to let the bad guy get away. Especially since, with a bit of methodical work, you usually have a good chance of catching them later.
    - noonespecial 15y ago
      Indeed. If only cars had some sort of unique identifier attached to them somewhere easily visible so you could simply discover after the fact who owned them...
    - tluyben2 15y ago
      In the Netherlands you have to, before you are even allowed to shoot at someone, point the gun in the air, call out "Halt or i'll shoot!" and shoot in the air which you have to repeat 3 times. We had some hilarious TV about that.
      - 38leinad 15y ago
        I think it is the same for german police. I.e. you at least have to shot in the air once and call out "stop or i will shoot you!". Obviously, this is not necessary if the life of the officer or someone else is at risk.
- rbehrends 15y ago
  First of all, German police statistics underestimate weapon use a bit (though not horribly much, so we're not talking about order-of-magnitude errors here). The gist of the article is correct, as far as I know, in that German police officers use guns far less than American ones (though still more than the UK police, where -- with few exceptions -- the police does not carry guns at all). As far as I know, it's primarily a matter of policy. Gun use is the ultima ratio, only to be used when other means are insufficient. Constitutionally, this is a reflection of the principle of proportionality [1] in conjunction with article 1 and 2 of the German constitution. This means that police officers are required by law to use the least intrusive means available to stop a crime and not use disproportionate means (obviously, with due regard to the difficulty involved when making split-second decisions or judgements based on incomplete and insufficient information). On a practical level, this is ensured by two mechanisms. Firstly, these principles are part of the firearms training for police officers. Secondly, each gun use by a police officer in the course of his or her duty automatically triggers a criminal investigation (even if it is obvious self-defense). This adds a high inconvenience factor even for justified uses that discourages casual shooting. (In 1993, allegations that a GSG-9 member had executed the terrorist Wolfgang Grams [2] nearly led to the dissolution of the GSG-9 and, along with the botched execution of the raid, caused the resignation of the Minister of the Interior.) [1] http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3907/1/1458-1702-1-SM.pdf http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3907/1/1458-1702-1-SM.pdf [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Grams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Grams
  - alister 15y ago
    > German police statistics underestimate weapon use a bit Can you explain how?
    - rbehrends 15y ago
      Methodological stuff mostly, as far as I know. For example, they generally do not include firearms use by the federal police (which includes the Federal Border Guard and the anti-terror unit GSG-9). Because the police is primarily a state-level power (as in the USA), with the federal government having only a limited role (in fact, the BKA as the German counterpart of the FBI probably has less power than the FBI), this should not affect totals too much.
- yason 15y ago
  I don't know about Germany but I suppose the situation might be quite similar in Finland. A quick googling revealed that about 15 police bullets shot per year is roughly the average in Finland, and most of them are warning shots. The Finnish police shoot and kill less than a handful of people in a decade. It's always news, and the news always report that police hasn't killed anyone for X years. The Finnish police forces are only allowed to use a gun when no other force is effective or available. So, it's the worst-of-the-worst case choice. All policemen I know haven't fired a single bullet during their entire career. Further, generally each shot fired (or use of any weapon) in duty will require the policeman to report the case to his superior officers and the internal investigations will determine whether what happened was within the laws that limit the use of force in duty. The fact that officers who shoot are generally suspected for breaking the criminal/police law is a constant counter-force to limit the usage of firearms. Mostly they don't and investigations cease but each case will be considered. Thus, the policeman needs to be 101% sure the situation warrants firing a gun until he will use it. In most cases where shots are fired there's a prior permission from the superior officers. There must be a case where a single policeman had to fire a gun based on his own judgement but I don't remember reading about one. The patrol calls do involve armed civilians but the clear majority of the offenders are talked down. This creates a general atmosphere where criminals know not to shoot back to the police. They know that because of the strict laws governing gun use in force, the Finnish police mean it when they announce they're prepared to use armed force. There's an occasional nutcase with a gun and who doesn't give up and he might be surrounded for hours or even days but even those cases rarely escalate to an actual firefight with the police.
- option_greek 15y ago
  I think like other comments noted, it all comes down to value of human life. Considering the UC Davis pepper spray incident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident), these numbers are not surprising at all.
- rickmb 15y ago
  With respect to #1: in countries with a functioning justice system, humane prisons, no death penalty and no insane "three strikes" rules, criminals are more likely to surrender and just accept defeat.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  Yes. The. War. On. Drugs.
- hussong 15y ago
  German here. I believe this is because power is balanced on a level of low escalation. The threshold for firing a weapon is rather high for law enforcement and criminals know this. They also know that pulling a gun or even firing at an officer when things go wrong will easily add 10 years to their sentence. As a result, most chases and arrests are not a life-threatening situation. Let me illustrate this with a story: My neighbor had a break-in, the alarm went off and the burglar was caught in the act. Burglar pepper sprays my neighbor, her friend and two police officers and escapes via the roof. Police officers had their guns drawn but wouldn't use them. Burglar knew this and didn't bring a gun of his own in the first place. Everybody lives.
- fauigerzigerk 15y ago
  I suspect that many gun fights in the US involve young people from underprivileged social backgrounds who don't know what they're doing. That demographic is much smaller in Germany as the welfare state keeps many of them on the right(ish) side of the law and the population is frankly older. I believe violent criminals in Germany are more professional types. They know when they have lost and they will switch to damage control mode instead of escalating the situation. It's mostly organized crime as far as I can tell. Lawyers instead of gun fights.
- moldbug 15y ago
  4. Because none of these people live in Germany: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5pZpGh5Hg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5pZpGh5Hg
- coldarchon 15y ago
  In Germany criminals have a code of honor. If you get caught by the police it was the fault of the criminal and the policemen did his job well. Shooting a policemen puts you in the jail hierarchy next to pedophiles or murderers of their mums. Also: Respect your police and they will respect you.
- antidoh 15y ago
  A drawn but unfired gun can be very effective in convincing someone to stop what they're doing. It would be useful to know how many times their guns were drawn. It may be (I dont' know) that German police are trained to minimize firing, and American police training may put relatively more emphasis on how to fire guns to resolve situations.
- ralfd 15y ago
  Criminals are just not suspected to have a gun. Another example: When German police is trying to stop one on the road they are driving ahead and then decelerate, so you can't escape. American police, at least in the movies I know, are driving behind you so they can see every move of you and you do better the show-your-hands-and-no-quick-moves-thing.
staunch 15y ago
What's really odd is that there were "49 warning shots". Police in the US aren't allowed to fire warning shots. For good reason too, it's a completely reckless thing to do.
- vegardx 15y ago
  It does not tell you anything about their rules of engagement, so how can you say it is completely reckless? I've seen my fair share of shoot-outs from the US, and if that is not reckless, than what is? Coming from Norway i find the very notion that police carry guns very strange. I also feel less safe when I'm around guns, be that of police or just regular citizen.
  - staunch 15y ago
    Because there's no safe way to fire a warning shot in a public space. Firing a weapon without a proper backstop is always extremely dangerous and should be a last resort. Also, I seriously doubt you would feel less safe in an FBI office than a ghetto in London. One is full of guns, the other is full of danger.
    - biafra 15y ago
      If there is no one around except the person that is not shot at? Why is that not safe?
    - vegardx 15y ago
      You are taking my statement out of context. I just said that guns make me feel less safe, not that I feel less safe in a police station. You also conclude that firing warning shots means that they have no backup, again, you have no idea what their rules of engagements are or what situation they were in and what the circumstances was.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      London does not really have anything that you could describe as a ghetto.
lispm 15y ago
A bit perspective: Germany has around 82 million people. Estimated 45 Million shooting weapons are in possession. Many of them illegal (for example people inherited weapons from their parents but did not register them, weapons were imported from East Europe or illegally left behind by the leaving soviet army). The ownnership is highly regulated. If you want to buy a weapon, you need a permission a Waffenschein and/or Waffenbesitzkarte (owner registration). A 'Waffenschein' is a permission to carry a gun in public. This permission is usually only given to Police, professional bodyguards or similar. A Waffenbesitzkarte allows you to have a weapon for sports (or similar) and you are only allowed to carry the weapon in a closed and sealed transport box without ammunition. To get a Waffenbeitzkarte is not that easy - for example if you are under 25 you need a psychological check. Thus the only shooting weapons one ever sees in public is usually from the police or a forester. Around 20000 crimes are done with weapons. This is 0.3% of all crimes. At 4500 crimes there is some shooting. In the statistics cited by DER SPIEGEL ( http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/polizei-schoss-2011-seltener-im-dienst-a-832037.html http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/polizei-schoss-2011-se... ) it is mentioned that the police shot 8812 times at animals. Almost all these cases were animals who had serious injuries due to traffic accidents. But many Germany use weapons for sports. For entertainment see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyq90LEZe4k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyq90LEZe4k
- diminish 15y ago
  lived for 3 years in germany; i was extremely clubbing. Forget shooting you don't see much fighting neither. In comparison, in my one year in England, I witnessed 5 club fights, and in Russia two gun fights. It seems mostly an attitude of the society towards violence and guns. On the other side, in Germany, you frequently see your neighbor calling the police if you make some noise.
  - arethuza 15y ago
    In my experience, violence in the UK tends to be concentrated at very specific times and places - generally city and town centers between 11pm and 3am on a Friday and Saturday night. Avoid these times and places and you'll never see a fight, go to the worst of these places and there will be multiple fights. As for culture - where I grew up (70s/80s, small town, North of Scotland, fishing and oil as main employers) there was a lot of fist fights but I never heard or saw anyone using a knife - I suspect that has changed.
gurkendoktor 15y ago
Two things... First, as a German, we do have discussions about police violence. But they mostly relate to using water throwers and brute force. Demonstrations in Berlin are known to look like a cliché British football match sometimes. Second, I looked up the list of countries by firearm deaths. Any Finnish folks here to explain what's going on there?! I didn't expect any European country to be so high up on the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-re...
- DanBC 15y ago
  High suicide rate? Finland 6.86 0.86 5.78 0.12 1994 Krug 1998 N. Ireland 6.82 5.24 1.34 0.12 1994 Krug 1998 Switzerland 6.4 0.58 5.61 0.13 1994 Krug 1998 (Country, total firearm related death rate, homicides, suicides, accidental, date, source.) I'm avoiding politics - here's a link about the Northern Ireland "troubles" to explain the high murder rate. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5097948.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5097948.stm)
  - sdfjkl 15y ago
    Interesting shift between homicides and suicides. Suicide by offending an armed drunk?
- yason 15y ago
  Well, it says most of them are suicides. That's certainly true. Most of the rest are homicides: Finland as a country is filled with weapons (registered for shooting at the range or for hunting) and when you mix that with excess alcohol consumption there's always someone who gets pissed at a family member, a relative, or a drinking buddy and as things escalate someone goes to get his hunting rifle.
- exDM69 15y ago
  I'm from Finland, maybe I can give some background. Finland has a high rate of gun ownership due to popularity of hunting and farmers, who use guns to keep unwanted wild animals at bay. In addition to that, there was a fair amount of guns left over from WWII, and there was a well-known case where guns where stashed away to form a resistance militia in case of foreign invasion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Cache_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Cache_Case). In addition to that, Finland's southernmost tip is roughly at 60 degrees northern latitude, roughly at the level of Anchorage, Alaska. That means that 3 months of the year, this is a cold, dark and desolate place where the only thing you can do is get drunk and wave guns at your friends and/or yourself in a state of delirium tremensis. Also note that firearms-related suicide is far more common than homicide, in that Wikipedia statistic it's about 6 times more suicides than homicides. (The Finns prefer to stab each other and shoot themselves). It is a very rare occasion that a police officer fires a gun at a person in Finland.
peteretep 15y ago
I tried to find similar figures for the UK, but could not. Best I could find was: "From 1990 to 2011, police shot dead 53 people" > http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/riot-d27.shtml http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/riot-d27.shtml
- peteretep 15y ago
  http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/non-personal-data/police/police-firearms-use-2007-2008 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/non-perso... Suggests that police in England and Wales discharge firearms in ~ 6 incidents a year. (updated: UK -> England and Wales)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
diminish 15y ago
that's a slow weekend in LA.
DanBC 15y ago
For comparison, here's some information about New York police: (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/nyregion/08nypd.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/nyregion/08nypd.html?pagew...) > The number of bullets fired by officers dropped to 540 in 2006 from 1,292 in 1996 — the first year that the city’s housing, transit and regular patrol forces were merged — with a few years of even lower numbers in between. Police officers opened fire 60 times at people in 2006, down from 147 in 1996.
radicalbyte 15y ago
The UK, with a population (~60m) close to Germany, has very few incidents a year where police discharge firearms. Stats from 2000-2007 show between 5 and 11 incidents where firearms were discharged per year: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/non-personal-data/police/police-firearms-use-2007-2008?view=Standard&pubID=807224 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.homeo... Unfortunately, when they do use them they do so to kill innocent foreigners, execution style (which then gets largely swept under a rug): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Meneze...
- epo 15y ago
  So you are claiming ("when they do use them they do so to kill innocent foreigners, execution style") the UK police make a point of discharging firearms to kill innocent foreigners? Is this some kind of policy to cull them? Tourists are annoying, sure, but they bring in money. Killing them seems kind of idiotic, as does your comment.
- sdfjkl 15y ago
  One thing I found very surprising when moving from Germany to the UK was that your average UK "beat cop" doesn't carry a firearm. They call in armed police when needed, but this seems to often result in delays in pursuing criminals and sometimes escalation where armed criminals are given the time to take hostages and/or barricade themselves in. On the other hand, when seeing some recent encounters with these beat cops, I was glad they weren't armed. Overall I got the impression that the UK police forces suffer from a training or selection problem that wasn't apparent in Germany.
  - hahainternet 15y ago
    You used the word 'often'. Please substantiate this.
  - k-mcgrady 15y ago
    Firearm use varies throughout the UK. For example in Northern Ireland all Police carry firearms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_U...
eiji 15y ago
The german police patrols in 2 person teams. You'll never see a single policeman in a car. This changes the dynamic of every confrontation.
nkoren 15y ago
Meanwhile, in America, not only is there no national tracking of firearm discharges -- there's no national tracking of how many people are killed by police.[1] The FBI tracks "justifiable homicides" by police -- which seems to range from 350 to 400 per year[2], and is limited to "The killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty"[3] -- but it explicitly refuses to track all other killings by the police. (And rather strangely, there seems to be no private group which tracks these figures either. When I've googled for it in the past, I've found anecdotal stories claiming that groups which attempt to compile these figures are strongly discouraged from doing so. But now I can't seem to find those claims, however.) News reports of the shootings of unarmed non-fellons would suggest to me that there are a few score such killings every year, but there's no way to be sure. Moral of the story: Germany is a profoundly civilised country. America, not so much. [1] http://www.lvrj.com/news/deadly-force/142-dead-and-rising/national-data-on-shootings-by-police-not-collected-134256308.html http://www.lvrj.com/news/deadly-force/142-dead-and-rising/na... [2] http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_14.html http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_informati... [3] http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/homicide.html http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_informati...
- 16s 15y ago
  It would be difficult to track discharges in the USA. Tens of millions of Americans go hunting and skeet shooting, and go to firing ranges, etc. Unless the discharge is illegal and results in injury or property damage, it's not really an issue which you would want to spend money tracking.
  - nkoren 15y ago
    Sorry, to clarify, I meant "firearms discharged in the line of duty by police officers", as per the original article.
    - 16s 15y ago
      Oh yes, that makes sense. My apologies for misunderstanding your point. I would have thought that law-enforcement discharges were tracked as they are often fatal. If not at the federal level, then certainly the state level.
jscheel 15y ago
Although the URL says Yahoo, this article originally comes The Atlantic Wire, a sister site of The Atlantic. Content aggregators on major news sites cheapen the experience. It's bad enough that nearly every news publication merely regurgitates AP stories, but to also outsource your op-ed takes away the one defining characteristic you have left. Cocerning the content, this article is literally dripping with contempt for America, and makes no attempt to actually find the story behind the statistics other than to postulate that America is "gun crazy." Poor reporting by a relatively inexperienced writer (who happens to be from NYC, which may explain his stance). Finally, this story really has zero bearing on anything HN related, other than the fact that it throws around a little statistical trivia. What gives? (edited for clarity, typing in this text field on an iPad is torture)
cnbeuiwx 15y ago
Not to mention the police attitude to people. Its like nazi Germany in the United States. Police can do anything and get away with it. Im watching the police in the US and comparing to Europe, and I cant believe the amount of sadistical violence that is going on there. Maybe because ex military people become cops? Its a very scary place. I dont even go there as a tourist because they have a legal right to throw anyone in jail without trial if they want to. That being said, ordinary people are very friendly. But the government and the police are scary as hell. Totally dark forces going on there.
- aggronn 15y ago
  Your perception of the US is a bit off.
- TDL 15y ago
  "Its a very scary place. I dont even go there as a tourist because they have a legal right to throw anyone in jail without trial if they want to." The U.S. is not a scary place. Violent crime is the lowest it has been since the 1950's. Also, the police do not have the right to just randomly arrest people. I have no idea where you came up with this notion, but it is manifestly untrue. There is much to criticize in law enforcement trends in the U.S. and this type of hyperbole is completely unmerited.
- Aloisius 15y ago
  I think you may be blowing things out of proportion just a bit. The vast majority of people in the US will never be terrorized by a police officer. In fact, the only time most people even interact with a police officer will be for a traffic citation.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  I know of people who have recently done vehicle sobriety tests (while sober), very obviously failed in trollish ways and blow zero on the breathalyzer just to annoy the police officer here in the USA and then let go. Police can be polite.
batista 15y ago
>German Police Used Only 85 Bullets Against People in 2011 Only? That's far too many for Europe. 20-30 would be a much better number.
davidw 15y ago
If the top comments on an article are about whether the US is a "civilized country", it's probably not Hacker News.
gnarbarian 15y ago
That's only because they made people line up to save bullets.

205 points by gscott 15y ago

"used only 85 bullets" What an odd way to quantify police violence. Right? Wrong? Justified? Article provides none of that.

tzs 15y ago

Anyone know WHY this is? Germany is certainly not crime free, so some possibilities that come to mind: 1. Perhaps German criminals, for whatever reason, are more docile than American criminals and give up when asked to so there is little need for the police to use violence. 2. Perhaps German criminals aren't as well armed as American criminals, and so when the police try to arrest them the criminals know they are outgunned and give up. 3. Perhaps German police are not very good at tracking down armed criminals and so the are few chance for the police to use guns. If I had to guess, I'd guess that #2 is the most likely of those three possibilities, but I've surely not thought of all the possible explanations. Without some insight into why they fire their guns so rarely, this statistic is just interesting trivia.

gscott 15y ago
I don't believe it is that, because police shoot people who are armed with knives, tree branches, and unarmed on a pretty regular basis... all of which are readily available in Germany. There was a homeless person here in San Diego because he had a tree branch and looked like he was going to use it against the officers (the person was mentally ill). Not to mention the guy who jumped the White House fence who had a butterknife (the President wasn't in the country at the time). The butterknife guy was shot and killed, since he didn't follow orders to put the knife down. I believe it is a lack of respect for human life along with the fact that these cases have made it to the Superme Court which ruled for the officers, if the officer feel they are in danger, they can shoot to kill. And they do so. My guess is German police offers don't care if a person has a tree branch, butterknife, stones or whatever they go in and make the arrest without just shooting the person. There is some risk of personal injury but probably nothing that 10 officers with billy-clubs can't handle.
- cskau 15y ago
  > My guess is German police offers don't care if a person has a tree branch, butterknife, [...] I'm pretty sure policy is if the guy is holding a knife, you warn them and draw your gun. Then if the guy comes at you you've got the possibility to fire to avoid injury or death. While use of guns by the police is extremely scrutinized (it's often big in the news when it happens). The guns are a last resort in the really messy situations when there's no other way out. (And you have to prove that later on)
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    As far as I'm aware though, disarming someone with a knife is relatively easy if you're highly trained and armoured, and they are literally "coming at you," ie. you have plenty of notice. It all comes down to the value of human life: how much personal effort and risk are you willing to go to in order to protect a murderous criminal? Should you chance a little light judo to make him drop the blade? Or should you just put a cap through his eye socket and go to lunch? I know which category I'm more willing to be policed by.
    - tluyben2 15y ago
      Indeed; all police are trained in martial arts of some sort; disarming someone with a knife is usually easy. If you have been trained, you can see if your assailant is trained as well by how he holds the knife and the way he looks, moves and runs/walks. I'm talking knife here, not tree branch. Then you have (again, you are trained) the option to shoot him in the head, heart, stomach all of which are usually quite lethal OR you can hit the leg, knee, shoulder, arm. Why use LETHAL force? Actually, in almost all cases of police violence in the US; why did they use lethal force and not just cap someone's knee? Unless the person is on PCP (or a zombie; note that in Resident Evil when the first zombies come in, they first shoot in the knee; it's obvious right? Basic training?) (which, tiring to say, you can see if you are trained) she/he will drop their weapon (even guns mind you) if their knee is capped or shoulder is pulverized...
      - 15y ago
cskau 15y ago
> 2. Perhaps German criminals aren't as well armed as American criminals, and so when the police try to arrest them the criminals know they are outgunned and give up. Nobody is as well armed as Americans. But really I'm pretty sure it's down to policy. The police doesn't 'shoot first, ask questions later'. No need to escalate to using guns unless you're directly threatened with a weapon yourself - say if the guy is threatening with knife. And I really think it's the fewest of people who are desperate/stupid enough to try something like that. Also note how 49 of those 85 bullets were warning shots fired into the air.
netrus 15y ago
I am pretty convinced #1 and #2 are both true. POlice officers most of the times do not hunt down murderer or kidnappers (their is hardly murder in Europe, compared to the US), but are asked to appease husbands beating their wives, stop parties that are too loud, etc. Those people will hardly ever own a weapon - other then in the US. Second, I am pretty sure there is another culture of violence and fighting with the police in the US. Car chases, for example, are way less often in Europe - criminals tend to give up, instead of fighting to death.
- darklajid 15y ago
  I have no statistics of my own, so I cannot cry foul. But can you back up "their (sic) is hardly murder in Europe"? Europe is a big and quite diverse place..
  - ajuc 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... All data in homicides per 10000 inhbitants in 2010 USA - 5.0 North America - 4.7 Western and Central Europe - 1.2 East Europe - 7 (mostly thanks to Russia with 15.0) Overall Europe - 3.5 World - 6.9
deleted 15y ago
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rorrr 15y ago
Gangs. American gangs are fueled by uneducated population. Ignorance is so celebrated here, mixed with the attitude of entitlement, you get a lot of frustrated uneducated people when they realize that all the stories about getting rich and famous only apply to 0.0001% of the population. This mentality is the major factor.
- kitsune_ 15y ago
  Do you have any facts and figures to back up that claim?
  - rorrr 15y ago
    There are several claims I've made. Which one are you interested in?
- brown9-2 15y ago
  How much crime in America is caused by gangs? Without this fact, this claim sounds non-sensical.
- rdl 15y ago
  Gangs alone account for more crime than the total in places like Germany, but US crime levels ex-gangs are still higher than in those other places. Gangs alone aren't an adequate explanation, but if you're looking for a single factor, maybe the reasons people go into gangs would be broad enough to account for it.
noonespecial 15y ago
I have a different theory, having lived in both places. Police in America seem to be willing to escalate a confrontation or "chase" to almost any level in order to prevent a bad guy from getting away. Where I lived (near DC) a police officer stood in front of a car to prevent an unarmed teenager from leaving an IHOP without paying the bill, when the kids wouldn't stop, he shot up the car, killing a passenger(1). Sometimes, when the offense is minor its OK to let the bad guy get away. Firing repeatedly at a moving vehicle in a crowded parking lot is never ok, even if someone might get away with murder. Polizei seemed much more calmly methodical and much less cowboyish. I can't imagine this situation occurring in Germany. (1)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701515.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02...
- brazzy 15y ago
  I think you're right. It's a common trope in German crime shows on TV to see the police chase a dangerous criminal on foot with their gun drawn and then watch in frustration as they get away - but not shoot at them. > Sometimes, when the offense is minor its OK to let the bad guy get away. Especially since, with a bit of methodical work, you usually have a good chance of catching them later.
  - noonespecial 15y ago
    Indeed. If only cars had some sort of unique identifier attached to them somewhere easily visible so you could simply discover after the fact who owned them...
  - tluyben2 15y ago
    In the Netherlands you have to, before you are even allowed to shoot at someone, point the gun in the air, call out "Halt or i'll shoot!" and shoot in the air which you have to repeat 3 times. We had some hilarious TV about that.
    - 38leinad 15y ago
      I think it is the same for german police. I.e. you at least have to shot in the air once and call out "stop or i will shoot you!". Obviously, this is not necessary if the life of the officer or someone else is at risk.
rbehrends 15y ago
First of all, German police statistics underestimate weapon use a bit (though not horribly much, so we're not talking about order-of-magnitude errors here). The gist of the article is correct, as far as I know, in that German police officers use guns far less than American ones (though still more than the UK police, where -- with few exceptions -- the police does not carry guns at all). As far as I know, it's primarily a matter of policy. Gun use is the ultima ratio, only to be used when other means are insufficient. Constitutionally, this is a reflection of the principle of proportionality [1] in conjunction with article 1 and 2 of the German constitution. This means that police officers are required by law to use the least intrusive means available to stop a crime and not use disproportionate means (obviously, with due regard to the difficulty involved when making split-second decisions or judgements based on incomplete and insufficient information). On a practical level, this is ensured by two mechanisms. Firstly, these principles are part of the firearms training for police officers. Secondly, each gun use by a police officer in the course of his or her duty automatically triggers a criminal investigation (even if it is obvious self-defense). This adds a high inconvenience factor even for justified uses that discourages casual shooting. (In 1993, allegations that a GSG-9 member had executed the terrorist Wolfgang Grams [2] nearly led to the dissolution of the GSG-9 and, along with the botched execution of the raid, caused the resignation of the Minister of the Interior.) [1] http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3907/1/1458-1702-1-SM.pdf http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3907/1/1458-1702-1-SM.pdf [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Grams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Grams
- alister 15y ago
  > German police statistics underestimate weapon use a bit Can you explain how?
  - rbehrends 15y ago
    Methodological stuff mostly, as far as I know. For example, they generally do not include firearms use by the federal police (which includes the Federal Border Guard and the anti-terror unit GSG-9). Because the police is primarily a state-level power (as in the USA), with the federal government having only a limited role (in fact, the BKA as the German counterpart of the FBI probably has less power than the FBI), this should not affect totals too much.
yason 15y ago
I don't know about Germany but I suppose the situation might be quite similar in Finland. A quick googling revealed that about 15 police bullets shot per year is roughly the average in Finland, and most of them are warning shots. The Finnish police shoot and kill less than a handful of people in a decade. It's always news, and the news always report that police hasn't killed anyone for X years. The Finnish police forces are only allowed to use a gun when no other force is effective or available. So, it's the worst-of-the-worst case choice. All policemen I know haven't fired a single bullet during their entire career. Further, generally each shot fired (or use of any weapon) in duty will require the policeman to report the case to his superior officers and the internal investigations will determine whether what happened was within the laws that limit the use of force in duty. The fact that officers who shoot are generally suspected for breaking the criminal/police law is a constant counter-force to limit the usage of firearms. Mostly they don't and investigations cease but each case will be considered. Thus, the policeman needs to be 101% sure the situation warrants firing a gun until he will use it. In most cases where shots are fired there's a prior permission from the superior officers. There must be a case where a single policeman had to fire a gun based on his own judgement but I don't remember reading about one. The patrol calls do involve armed civilians but the clear majority of the offenders are talked down. This creates a general atmosphere where criminals know not to shoot back to the police. They know that because of the strict laws governing gun use in force, the Finnish police mean it when they announce they're prepared to use armed force. There's an occasional nutcase with a gun and who doesn't give up and he might be surrounded for hours or even days but even those cases rarely escalate to an actual firefight with the police.
option_greek 15y ago
I think like other comments noted, it all comes down to value of human life. Considering the UC Davis pepper spray incident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident), these numbers are not surprising at all.
rickmb 15y ago
With respect to #1: in countries with a functioning justice system, humane prisons, no death penalty and no insane "three strikes" rules, criminals are more likely to surrender and just accept defeat.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
Yes. The. War. On. Drugs.
hussong 15y ago
German here. I believe this is because power is balanced on a level of low escalation. The threshold for firing a weapon is rather high for law enforcement and criminals know this. They also know that pulling a gun or even firing at an officer when things go wrong will easily add 10 years to their sentence. As a result, most chases and arrests are not a life-threatening situation. Let me illustrate this with a story: My neighbor had a break-in, the alarm went off and the burglar was caught in the act. Burglar pepper sprays my neighbor, her friend and two police officers and escapes via the roof. Police officers had their guns drawn but wouldn't use them. Burglar knew this and didn't bring a gun of his own in the first place. Everybody lives.
fauigerzigerk 15y ago
I suspect that many gun fights in the US involve young people from underprivileged social backgrounds who don't know what they're doing. That demographic is much smaller in Germany as the welfare state keeps many of them on the right(ish) side of the law and the population is frankly older. I believe violent criminals in Germany are more professional types. They know when they have lost and they will switch to damage control mode instead of escalating the situation. It's mostly organized crime as far as I can tell. Lawyers instead of gun fights.
moldbug 15y ago
4. Because none of these people live in Germany: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5pZpGh5Hg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5pZpGh5Hg
coldarchon 15y ago
In Germany criminals have a code of honor. If you get caught by the police it was the fault of the criminal and the policemen did his job well. Shooting a policemen puts you in the jail hierarchy next to pedophiles or murderers of their mums. Also: Respect your police and they will respect you.
antidoh 15y ago
A drawn but unfired gun can be very effective in convincing someone to stop what they're doing. It would be useful to know how many times their guns were drawn. It may be (I dont' know) that German police are trained to minimize firing, and American police training may put relatively more emphasis on how to fire guns to resolve situations.
ralfd 15y ago
Criminals are just not suspected to have a gun. Another example: When German police is trying to stop one on the road they are driving ahead and then decelerate, so you can't escape. American police, at least in the movies I know, are driving behind you so they can see every move of you and you do better the show-your-hands-and-no-quick-moves-thing.

staunch 15y ago

What's really odd is that there were "49 warning shots". Police in the US aren't allowed to fire warning shots. For good reason too, it's a completely reckless thing to do.

vegardx 15y ago
It does not tell you anything about their rules of engagement, so how can you say it is completely reckless? I've seen my fair share of shoot-outs from the US, and if that is not reckless, than what is? Coming from Norway i find the very notion that police carry guns very strange. I also feel less safe when I'm around guns, be that of police or just regular citizen.
- staunch 15y ago
  Because there's no safe way to fire a warning shot in a public space. Firing a weapon without a proper backstop is always extremely dangerous and should be a last resort. Also, I seriously doubt you would feel less safe in an FBI office than a ghetto in London. One is full of guns, the other is full of danger.
  - biafra 15y ago
    If there is no one around except the person that is not shot at? Why is that not safe?
  - vegardx 15y ago
    You are taking my statement out of context. I just said that guns make me feel less safe, not that I feel less safe in a police station. You also conclude that firing warning shots means that they have no backup, again, you have no idea what their rules of engagements are or what situation they were in and what the circumstances was.
  - justincormack 15y ago
    London does not really have anything that you could describe as a ghetto.

lispm 15y ago

A bit perspective: Germany has around 82 million people. Estimated 45 Million shooting weapons are in possession. Many of them illegal (for example people inherited weapons from their parents but did not register them, weapons were imported from East Europe or illegally left behind by the leaving soviet army). The ownnership is highly regulated. If you want to buy a weapon, you need a permission a Waffenschein and/or Waffenbesitzkarte (owner registration). A 'Waffenschein' is a permission to carry a gun in public. This permission is usually only given to Police, professional bodyguards or similar. A Waffenbesitzkarte allows you to have a weapon for sports (or similar) and you are only allowed to carry the weapon in a closed and sealed transport box without ammunition. To get a Waffenbeitzkarte is not that easy - for example if you are under 25 you need a psychological check. Thus the only shooting weapons one ever sees in public is usually from the police or a forester. Around 20000 crimes are done with weapons. This is 0.3% of all crimes. At 4500 crimes there is some shooting. In the statistics cited by DER SPIEGEL ( http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/polizei-schoss-2011-seltener-im-dienst-a-832037.html http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/polizei-schoss-2011-se... ) it is mentioned that the police shot 8812 times at animals. Almost all these cases were animals who had serious injuries due to traffic accidents. But many Germany use weapons for sports. For entertainment see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyq90LEZe4k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyq90LEZe4k

diminish 15y ago
lived for 3 years in germany; i was extremely clubbing. Forget shooting you don't see much fighting neither. In comparison, in my one year in England, I witnessed 5 club fights, and in Russia two gun fights. It seems mostly an attitude of the society towards violence and guns. On the other side, in Germany, you frequently see your neighbor calling the police if you make some noise.
- arethuza 15y ago
  In my experience, violence in the UK tends to be concentrated at very specific times and places - generally city and town centers between 11pm and 3am on a Friday and Saturday night. Avoid these times and places and you'll never see a fight, go to the worst of these places and there will be multiple fights. As for culture - where I grew up (70s/80s, small town, North of Scotland, fishing and oil as main employers) there was a lot of fist fights but I never heard or saw anyone using a knife - I suspect that has changed.

gurkendoktor 15y ago

Two things... First, as a German, we do have discussions about police violence. But they mostly relate to using water throwers and brute force. Demonstrations in Berlin are known to look like a cliché British football match sometimes. Second, I looked up the list of countries by firearm deaths. Any Finnish folks here to explain what's going on there?! I didn't expect any European country to be so high up on the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-re...

DanBC 15y ago
High suicide rate? Finland 6.86 0.86 5.78 0.12 1994 Krug 1998 N. Ireland 6.82 5.24 1.34 0.12 1994 Krug 1998 Switzerland 6.4 0.58 5.61 0.13 1994 Krug 1998 (Country, total firearm related death rate, homicides, suicides, accidental, date, source.) I'm avoiding politics - here's a link about the Northern Ireland "troubles" to explain the high murder rate. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5097948.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5097948.stm)
- sdfjkl 15y ago
  Interesting shift between homicides and suicides. Suicide by offending an armed drunk?
yason 15y ago
Well, it says most of them are suicides. That's certainly true. Most of the rest are homicides: Finland as a country is filled with weapons (registered for shooting at the range or for hunting) and when you mix that with excess alcohol consumption there's always someone who gets pissed at a family member, a relative, or a drinking buddy and as things escalate someone goes to get his hunting rifle.
exDM69 15y ago
I'm from Finland, maybe I can give some background. Finland has a high rate of gun ownership due to popularity of hunting and farmers, who use guns to keep unwanted wild animals at bay. In addition to that, there was a fair amount of guns left over from WWII, and there was a well-known case where guns where stashed away to form a resistance militia in case of foreign invasion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Cache_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Cache_Case). In addition to that, Finland's southernmost tip is roughly at 60 degrees northern latitude, roughly at the level of Anchorage, Alaska. That means that 3 months of the year, this is a cold, dark and desolate place where the only thing you can do is get drunk and wave guns at your friends and/or yourself in a state of delirium tremensis. Also note that firearms-related suicide is far more common than homicide, in that Wikipedia statistic it's about 6 times more suicides than homicides. (The Finns prefer to stab each other and shoot themselves). It is a very rare occasion that a police officer fires a gun at a person in Finland.

peteretep 15y ago

I tried to find similar figures for the UK, but could not. Best I could find was: "From 1990 to 2011, police shot dead 53 people" > http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/riot-d27.shtml http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/riot-d27.shtml

peteretep 15y ago
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/non-personal-data/police/police-firearms-use-2007-2008 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/non-perso... Suggests that police in England and Wales discharge firearms in ~ 6 incidents a year. (updated: UK -> England and Wales)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

diminish 15y ago

that's a slow weekend in LA.

DanBC 15y ago

For comparison, here's some information about New York police: (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/nyregion/08nypd.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/nyregion/08nypd.html?pagew...) > The number of bullets fired by officers dropped to 540 in 2006 from 1,292 in 1996 — the first year that the city’s housing, transit and regular patrol forces were merged — with a few years of even lower numbers in between. Police officers opened fire 60 times at people in 2006, down from 147 in 1996.

radicalbyte 15y ago

The UK, with a population (~60m) close to Germany, has very few incidents a year where police discharge firearms. Stats from 2000-2007 show between 5 and 11 incidents where firearms were discharged per year: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/non-personal-data/police/police-firearms-use-2007-2008?view=Standard&pubID=807224 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.homeo... Unfortunately, when they do use them they do so to kill innocent foreigners, execution style (which then gets largely swept under a rug): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Meneze...

epo 15y ago
So you are claiming ("when they do use them they do so to kill innocent foreigners, execution style") the UK police make a point of discharging firearms to kill innocent foreigners? Is this some kind of policy to cull them? Tourists are annoying, sure, but they bring in money. Killing them seems kind of idiotic, as does your comment.
sdfjkl 15y ago
One thing I found very surprising when moving from Germany to the UK was that your average UK "beat cop" doesn't carry a firearm. They call in armed police when needed, but this seems to often result in delays in pursuing criminals and sometimes escalation where armed criminals are given the time to take hostages and/or barricade themselves in. On the other hand, when seeing some recent encounters with these beat cops, I was glad they weren't armed. Overall I got the impression that the UK police forces suffer from a training or selection problem that wasn't apparent in Germany.
- hahainternet 15y ago
  You used the word 'often'. Please substantiate this.
- k-mcgrady 15y ago
  Firearm use varies throughout the UK. For example in Northern Ireland all Police carry firearms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_U...

eiji 15y ago

The german police patrols in 2 person teams. You'll never see a single policeman in a car. This changes the dynamic of every confrontation.

nkoren 15y ago

Meanwhile, in America, not only is there no national tracking of firearm discharges -- there's no national tracking of how many people are killed by police.[1] The FBI tracks "justifiable homicides" by police -- which seems to range from 350 to 400 per year[2], and is limited to "The killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty"[3] -- but it explicitly refuses to track all other killings by the police. (And rather strangely, there seems to be no private group which tracks these figures either. When I've googled for it in the past, I've found anecdotal stories claiming that groups which attempt to compile these figures are strongly discouraged from doing so. But now I can't seem to find those claims, however.) News reports of the shootings of unarmed non-fellons would suggest to me that there are a few score such killings every year, but there's no way to be sure. Moral of the story: Germany is a profoundly civilised country. America, not so much. [1] http://www.lvrj.com/news/deadly-force/142-dead-and-rising/national-data-on-shootings-by-police-not-collected-134256308.html http://www.lvrj.com/news/deadly-force/142-dead-and-rising/na... [2] http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_14.html http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_informati... [3] http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/homicide.html http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_informati...

16s 15y ago
It would be difficult to track discharges in the USA. Tens of millions of Americans go hunting and skeet shooting, and go to firing ranges, etc. Unless the discharge is illegal and results in injury or property damage, it's not really an issue which you would want to spend money tracking.
- nkoren 15y ago
  Sorry, to clarify, I meant "firearms discharged in the line of duty by police officers", as per the original article.
  - 16s 15y ago
    Oh yes, that makes sense. My apologies for misunderstanding your point. I would have thought that law-enforcement discharges were tracked as they are often fatal. If not at the federal level, then certainly the state level.

jscheel 15y ago

Although the URL says Yahoo, this article originally comes The Atlantic Wire, a sister site of The Atlantic. Content aggregators on major news sites cheapen the experience. It's bad enough that nearly every news publication merely regurgitates AP stories, but to also outsource your op-ed takes away the one defining characteristic you have left. Cocerning the content, this article is literally dripping with contempt for America, and makes no attempt to actually find the story behind the statistics other than to postulate that America is "gun crazy." Poor reporting by a relatively inexperienced writer (who happens to be from NYC, which may explain his stance). Finally, this story really has zero bearing on anything HN related, other than the fact that it throws around a little statistical trivia. What gives? (edited for clarity, typing in this text field on an iPad is torture)

cnbeuiwx 15y ago

Not to mention the police attitude to people. Its like nazi Germany in the United States. Police can do anything and get away with it. Im watching the police in the US and comparing to Europe, and I cant believe the amount of sadistical violence that is going on there. Maybe because ex military people become cops? Its a very scary place. I dont even go there as a tourist because they have a legal right to throw anyone in jail without trial if they want to. That being said, ordinary people are very friendly. But the government and the police are scary as hell. Totally dark forces going on there.

aggronn 15y ago
Your perception of the US is a bit off.
TDL 15y ago
"Its a very scary place. I dont even go there as a tourist because they have a legal right to throw anyone in jail without trial if they want to." The U.S. is not a scary place. Violent crime is the lowest it has been since the 1950's. Also, the police do not have the right to just randomly arrest people. I have no idea where you came up with this notion, but it is manifestly untrue. There is much to criticize in law enforcement trends in the U.S. and this type of hyperbole is completely unmerited.
Aloisius 15y ago
I think you may be blowing things out of proportion just a bit. The vast majority of people in the US will never be terrorized by a police officer. In fact, the only time most people even interact with a police officer will be for a traffic citation.
mahyarm 15y ago
I know of people who have recently done vehicle sobriety tests (while sober), very obviously failed in trollish ways and blow zero on the breathalyzer just to annoy the police officer here in the USA and then let go. Police can be polite.

batista 15y ago

>German Police Used Only 85 Bullets Against People in 2011 Only? That's far too many for Europe. 20-30 would be a much better number.

davidw 15y ago

If the top comments on an article are about whether the US is a "civilized country", it's probably not Hacker News.

gnarbarian 15y ago

That's only because they made people line up to save bullets.