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Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the

• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• jmye 2y ago
  That’s more than two people per day. But sure, let’s nitpick the definition of “regular” because that’s absolutely the important issue, here.
  • jrmg 2y ago
    Perhaps I made my point a little tactlessly - what I meant to imply is that people shouldn’t live in fear of this. While it happens too often, it’s still extremely uncommon.
    • stavros 2y ago
      The (bigger) problem is that that's the tip of a much larger police brutality iceberg. It's not like the police is 99.9% pleasant and helpful and then just murders the occasional person, the murders are indicative of a disturbing police culture.
  • edanm 2y ago
    Agreeing on facts is always important, because if not, nothing else matters in a discussion. We should never criticize people for actually bringing real numbers into a conversation to clarify things. I didn't know that statistic, and I suspect many "disagreements" are things where if the actual numbers and facts were known to all, they would actually agree.
    • jmye 2y ago
      The criticism was not about “bringing facts”, it was about pedantically parsing word choices. Whether you think 2.5ish people per day is “regular” is irrelevant to the larger point.
• jdietrich 2y ago
  It's an apples-to-oranges comparison for all sorts of reasons, but England and Wales has a population of about 60 million and averages about 3 fatal police shootings per year. From that perspective, 'regular' sounds like something of an understatement. Swatting just isn't a thing here - our armed officers are trained completely differently and held to much stricter standards regarding the use of force. American police do have to deal with much more widespread gun ownership and higher rates of violent crime, but that's only one half of the equation. Policing in the US is exceptionally fragmented across thousands of agencies, with no consistent standards of training and supervision. Even if there was a clear political mandate to reduce the number of police-involved shootings, there's no effective mechanism to change how policing is carried out on the ground. https://www.statista.com/statistics/319246/police-fatal-shootings-england-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/319246/police-fatal-shoo... https://www.college.police.uk/about https://www.college.police.uk/about
  • monetus 2y ago
    Can I ask you about the political power of police? Is there an equivalent to our police union? My mayor is downright afraid of them.
    • jdietrich 2y ago
      Extremely limited. Police officers are not legally permitted to join a conventional trade union, because of the risk to public safety that would be posed by industrial action. Rank-and-file officers are represented by the Police Federation, which has many of the functions of a trade union but none of the legal recognition. More broadly, the British police are a service, not a force. A British officer would never refer to a member of the public as a "civilian", because our police are civilians in uniform. They have powers granted to them by Parliament, but their right to use those powers comes from the consent of the public that they serve. It's a radically different attitude that colours every interaction between police and the public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Federation_of_England_and_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Federation_of_England_a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
• Manuel_D 2y ago
  Of those 1000 people, the vast majority are armed and actively threatening either the public, the police officers themselves or both.
  • bcdtttt 2y ago
    According to the cops. The same cops who shoot people for having wallets and sticks. Same cops who beat Deaf people for not following verbal instructions. Same cops who shoot autistic folks. Yeah, I don't think "armed" means "was an imminent threat to life" in the slightest. It's much more likely it's a cover your ass designation.
    • Manuel_D 2y ago
      No, according to third party police use of force tracking projects: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
• Rebelgecko 2y ago
  That stat includes all shootings, not just murders
  • jrmg 2y ago
    I think many would argue that all deaths by shootings are murder - even if it’s in self defense, and perhaps especially if society grants more power, in the form of immunity, to one ‘side’. I didn’t want to open that can of worms. Even the inclusive stat I cited is small enough to support the point I wanted to make.
    • Rebelgecko 2y ago
      Why?
      • jrmg 2y ago
        You’re asking me to defend a position I don’t entirely agree with now, which is always dangerous… I believe the argument is that deliberately killing another person is always wrong. It does’t matter if it’s in self defense - taking a life is such a morally abhorrent thing to do that it’s always indefensible. It’s always murder. Some who wouldn’t go that far would still argue that for police to do it - people who are in a position of power, and who should know there are risks associated with the job of protecting society - is indefensible even if it would not be for a regular person. Not my position - self defense if you know you’d otherwise die is, I think, morally justified. But I can see the argument.