Police in the US Kill Citizens at Over 70 Times the Rate of Other First-World Nations

[AdamG]

BB,

You might get a better response to this over at the Police One Forums, considering that they're the ones actually on the street.
http://www.policeone.com/police-forums/

If you do register and get a response, by all means post the thread URL here.

[davidbfpo]

Blueblood,

The issue you raise certainly in the USA have come to the foreground of late, although it is unclear whether with any impact.

I know the BBC News had an item comparing several nations, but not readly found now. This four-sided discussion may help:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523

Obviously I am more familiar with the UK situation. As you show death from shooting here is rare. Deaths in custody alas are not and fatal road traffic deaths involving the police - even if lower now - can arouse controversy. Outside London and airports the numbers of armed police are low. My old force regularly deployed eight officers each shift, to respond to incidents; larger numbers were available for planned operations.

It is exceptionally rare in England for the police to be fired upon, even rarer are exchanges of gunfire between the police and others.

That is completely at variance with the USA. There are many reasons for this, which I expect have been exacerbated since 9/11 with the belief in a constant terrorist threat and a perceived increase in police readiness to shoot.

Then when one reads this, you start to wonder:

Data collected by the Washington Post newspaper suggests that the number of people shot by US police is twice as high as official figures claim. Official statistics rely on self-reported figures from law enforcement agencies.They suggest about 400 people have been killed each year since 2008.

Link:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523

[Bob's World]

Numbers need to be normalized for size of population.

Also very important to note, is that "Suicide by Cop" is a very popular form of suicide in the US, in which case it is the police officer, not the dead civilian (they are all citizens) who is the victim.

Gun violence is a real problem in America; but equally it is the Second Amendment that protects the other nine components of the Bill of Rights that protects the American people from governmental abuses of power that are so prevalent in other societies. We have our problems, but a relative handful of gun deaths (compared to cars, cancer, stairs, etc) is a small price to pay for having a government that is deterred from abusing its power.

[slapout9]

Cops shooting people and not reporting it.......really! This is nothing but left wing gun grab, social Justis, let's embarrass America propaganda. Nothing but editorial pornography.

[davidbfpo]

Cops shooting people and not reporting it.......really! This is nothing but left wing gun grab, social Justis, let's embarrass America propaganda. Nothing but editorial pornography.

Slap,

Perhaps you see WaPo as fitting such a description. Personally I don't think the Wall Street Journal fits your words.

What did the WSJ report in December 2014:

A Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest data from 105 of the country’s largest police agencies found more than 550 police killings during those years were missing from the national tally or, in a few dozen cases, not attributed to the agency involved. The result: It is nearly impossible to determine how many people are killed by the police each year.

Link:http://www.wsj.com/articles/hundreds...ics-1417577504

Police-linked shootings like deaths in custody and deaths in police-related accidents can be an indicator of how the police perform their duties. They should not be ignored, indeed I would argue to do so is dangerous for the police and the public.

Back to WSJ, citing a law professor:

When cops are killed, there is a very careful account and there’s a national database..Why not the other side of the ledger?

All manner of reasons can be cited about data problems, the facts matter.

[slapout9]

David,
Article is behind a paywall. But everyone in the USA has to have a death certificate and a cause of death and must be reported to the Feds and should be tracked by Homeland Security for CT reason as I understand it, so how did this happen?. But as Bob said out of 330 million people that is statistically insignificant.

[davidbfpo]

David,
Article is behind a paywall. But everyone in the USA has to have a death certificate and a cause of death and must be reported to the Feds and should be tracked by Homeland Security for CT reason as I understand it, so how did this happen?. But as Bob said out of 330 million people that is statistically insignificant.

Slap,

Thanks the WSJ article - oddly here - was not behind a paywall and I assumed it was open access for all.

I appreciate data collection, especially one between so many agencies providing data to the FBI is fraught with problems. The WSJ and WaPo work suggests strongly that open source and FoI requests can generate a comprehensive picture.

I'll leave aside the DHS role; one which can be explained as removing data on "persons of interest", but also to take action to prevent the deceased's identity being used.

Factually true Bob's description of being 'statistically insignificant', but that is context and is not helpful. Even a former CIA Deputy Director has publicly commented on how IIRC "wrapped tight" police officers are, so one adjusts one's behaviour.

Major Marginal tweeted just after Ferguson a link to a PPT on how often the US public encounter the police and the chances of being IIRC arrested or worse, which showed how tiny the chances were.

[AdamG]

Gun violence is a real problem in America; .

The implied question is "who is shooting who?"

1) Wading into the statistics, often times you'll find that the victims are the result of urban pharmacological business disputes.

2) The other is statistical manipulation, to wit: the pearl-clutching mantra of "so many children being shot!" is negated when you find out the agenda-driven organization publishing that set of statistics considers "youths" those all the way up to the age of 25. Return to Point 1, Rinse/Lather/Repeat.

3) Also, one of the tricks the urban pharmacological businessmen perpetrate is to keep their young offspring around them in an attempt to reduce the chances of things getting loud and lethal. That's why you see some poor little girl getting shot in the head, because her 'parents' had her out on the front porch at 22.30hrs (never mind the arrest records of the adults around her).

[Firn]

It is surprising, if not disturbing that something as killings are not properly put into a federal database, especially considering the big controversy.


As discussed before, violent crime has been trending strongly downward...




Some information about officers killed in the line of duty. Thankfully has come down a great deal over the many years.






Sadly we lack a proper official database but for what it is worth a baseline graph.




Obviously the last three are not adjusted for population. The one of the USA increase almost 50% since 1980 while the number of police per capita has roughly around 15% in the same timeframe.

[Firn]

So violent crimes more then halfed in the last 25 years, if it was reported in a roughly similar way.



If one does mention reported it is amazing to compared it with graphs like that...




I generally prefer very long timeframes as it gives you a far broader vision, however in some case one wants to detect trends. I just can repeat that sadly there is no proper FBI database so we are stuck with this baseline:




The increase in population and officers obviously softens that increase in the last ten years* but it is still surprising to see the in international comparision very high levels of police killings trending upwards during the last decade in the context of decreasing violent crimes and overall killings and specifically a lower number of killed police officers.

Keep in mind the words comparision and context as the police kills fewer per officer and overall capita then in the 'good old days' around 1980, if the reported stats are consistent. Still we are nowhere near the reduction in violent crime or police officers killed. While providing some answers such threads produces usually even more questions...

---

*What about police tazers and cars?

[AdamG]

Anyone who appreciates Maskirovka should embrace the increased rate, volume and shrillness with which bad news is spread by the media these days.

If you're not on Ground Zero and your sole source of information is the bleached blonde talking head interviewing the agenda-driven pencil-neck geek, then you're gonna perceive things differently.