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

[blueblood]

Let’s look at our immediate neighbors to the north, Canada. The total number of citizens killed by law enforcement officers in the year 2014, was 14; that is 78 times less people than the US.

If we look at the United Kingdom, 1 person was killed by police in 2014 and 0 in 2013. English police reportedly fired guns a total of three times in all of 2013, with zero reported fatalities.

From 2010 through 2014, there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, N.M., with a population 1 percent the size of England’s, had 26 fatal police shootings in that same time period.

China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/pol...world-nations/

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Someone posted this on a different fora. I could be wrong but some members here are LEO in their respective countries. Just wanted to know the other side of the story.

Is it because of the constant threat of getting shot because of the increasing proliferation of guns or a result of increasing militarized LE and society in general?

Thanks.

[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...

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*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.

[JarodParker]

First of all, the link provided by the original posted does not seem to be the most credible source. According to Wikipedia (the most credible of sources), the UK had one person killed by police each year 2010-2014, but the article has a disclaimer saying the list is incomplete. The wiki for UK police killed in the line of duty lists 5 officers for the same period. The poster states there were 14 police killings in Canada in 2014. However, wiki lists 21 deaths. The Canadian Officer Down Memorial page lists 3 officers feloniously killed in the line of duty. I don’t even know where to begin with the Chinese numbers. China might be a “first world nation” economically, but it doesn’t strike me as the ideal when it comes to government transparency and constitutional policing. I would think any data provided on Chinese government/citizen encounters is skewed one way or another. But I do commend their creativity in using the “police restraint stick.” And I suspect both the Chinese and Japanese incorporate some serious martial arts training for their police, which is practical for countries with strict gun control.

There are many factors at play here. First and foremost is the availability of guns. US police have to be alert not just against armed criminals but the average (otherwise law abiding) citizen who just had a bad day. Even in encounters where the citizen is not armed, the police by their mere presence are introducing guns into a potentially volatile situation. For instance, a police officer might feel comfortable walking into a high crime area unarmed and out of uniform, especially if he/she has some common sense and some people skills. Millions of people do that on a daily basis and most don’t end up dead. But it’s completely different when you have to go into the same area as “the police” armed and with the intent of enforcing the law. An unarmed subject could try to arm himself with the officer’s weapon – each year several officers are killed in the line of duty with their own weapons. Even in a purely physical struggle, an armed officer cannot lose the fight too much because he risks having his weapons taken.

So in the case of the UK, one could hypothesize, strict gun control leads to less perceived threat and much higher threshold for deadly force, so less shootings. In the case of Canada, gun control seems to be on par with the US. But there might be other factors such as population size, population density, level of criminality, drug use, presence of gangs and organized crime, geo-location, and etc. There might be cultural differences that are missing from the analysis. For instance, fraternities and sororities are ubiquitous on US college campuses, but they are not as common in Canada (and almost unheard of in the UK, Australian, Germany, China, etc). We also can’t underestimate the role our shared border with Mexico plays in terms of violent crimes tied to human and narco trafficking. If you consider the numbers I cited above, 3 officers were feloniously killed in Canada compared to 21 citizens who were killed by police. In the US, 51 officers were feloniously killed in 2014, compared to the 623 citizens listed in wiki. While the numbers are not proportionate, the ratio of officers killed to citizens killed is not as dramatic as taking the raw numbers of citizens killed by police.

One thing Canada has going for it socialized medicine. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I would think there is better mental health care and social service available in Canada than the US. A significant number of police killings involved people with mental health issues (both real and sometimes manufactured by the family after the fact in order to cash out from a lawsuit…Oh, Johnny was depressed when he was 14, so the officer shouldn’t have killed him even though he lunged at him with a knife). Municipalities all across the US have been dramatically slashing mental health services and assistance to the homeless for decades. Consequently these people are out on the streets, and with no one else stepping up, have become law enforcement’s problem. The 9th Circuit recently issued a ludicrous ruling saying actively armed and dangerous suspect with mental issues should have ADA rights. Dozens of cities and counties in California submitted a brief in protest. They argued they lacked the funding to care for these people, so they were forced to turn them out causing issues on the streets which the police have to deal with, sometimes with deadly results, leaving the officers and cities potentially liable. SCOTUS reversed the decision.

There are of course, differences in use of force policies and tactics between the US and Canada, but I’m not informed enough about the policies of the latter to discuss that in detail. I know Canadian officers can upholster their weapons and keep it at the ready but cannot point it at a subject until they are ready to shoot. Pointing results in a lot of paperwork.

Statistics for homicides, violent crimes, or the feloniously killing of officers could be deceiving, because they don’t take into account things like advances in modern medicine, body armor technology, and etc. Maybe the same could be said about the modern battlefield. I think an American soldier’s chances of recovering from a traumatic injury are better today than they were 20 years ago, but I don’t know if one could say the modern battlefield is safer. One might argue a smaller percentage of the population is inclined to violence these days, but that doesn’t mean those who are inclined are not more lethal than ever. There seems to be a higher proportion of the criminal element that is better trained, more informed and more determined that ever. Let’s also not forget the much dreaded CompStat and the cooking of the books by top brass when it comes to crime stats. In a reasonable society having official stats compiled by DOJ or some official entity would be great, but we can’t misuse that data or draw unfair conclusions from it. The bottom line is, every police use of force, deadly or not, has to be judged individually.

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.

I don’t think the average US officer is too worried about terrorists. The biggest threat is the armed “common criminal.”

The public discourse on “the militarization of police” has been irrational because the public can’t make up its mind on what it wants. But I am glad to see the poster mentioned the “militarization of society in general”… and I would say more so of the criminal element. People are appalled when they see police departments equipped with rifles, Kevlar and armored vehicles, especially when you add color commentary by activists and the media. But anytime there is any type of stand-off or hostage situation, especially, if things go wrong, there is outrage that more wasn’t done and better equipment wasn’t used. One would think this argument was settled by the North Hollywood Shootout in 1997. On the other hand, I can see why some small podunk department with three officers might not need an MRAP… since they might be able to get by with a mutual-aid arrangement with the state or a nearby large metro. But the communities have to be ok with having less (and what that might entail), and that MRAP being sold for scrap, given/sold to another country. To try to turn every police officer into Andy Griffith and every force into Mayberry PD is unrealistic. At the same time, the police have to be smart about how they use their equipment.

In summary, trying to compare the US stats with other countries is like comparing apples, to cars, to water.

[AdamG]

In summary, trying to compare the US stats with other countries is like comparing apples, to cars, to water.

You keep talkin sense like that and the Ministry of Re-Education is going to be knocking on your door.

[JarodParker]

You keep talkin sense like that and the Ministry of Re-Education is going to be knocking on your door.

"No activist left behind!" That's been my motto.

[davidbfpo]

An interesting argument and one that from "over here" could be a contributory factor to the issues raised here.

Here is a key passage:

Under this warrior worldview, officers are locked in intermittent and unpredictable combat with unknown but highly lethal enemies. As a result, officers learn to be afraid. That isn’t the word used in law enforcement circles, of course. Vigilant, attentive, cautious, alert, or observant are the terms that appear most often in police publications. But make no mistake, officers don’t learn to be vigilant, attentive, cautious, alert, and observant just because it’s fun. They do so because they are afraid. Fear is ubiquitous in law enforcement.

Link:http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/...rrior-problem/

[AdamG]

An interesting argument and one that from "over here" could be a contributory factor to the issues raised here.

Here is a key passage:

Link:http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/...rrior-problem/

About the author -

Seth served as an officer with the Tallahassee Police Department for five years. In that time, he trained other officers in report writing, helped create policies to govern the use of new technologies, earned multiple instructor and operator certifications, and taught personal safety and self-defense courses in the community.

http://www.law.sc.edu/faculty/stoughton/

[blueblood]

Thanks for the replies guys.

@JarodParker,

1) The link was not posted here for its authenticity but because of its provocative nature.

2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A

I would like to bring your attention to 06.30 and then on. I am not an American so I may be able to understand it completely but why does a place like Doraville, Georgia, population of 8500 requires a military grade tracked APC? The argument that they were going to get destroyed anyway is not a good one. US Armed forces dump lots of working equipment every year because it no longer passes the benchmark for service. US will be in lot of trouble if they started giving A-10s to police forces. Just kidding.

NYPD has roughly the same budget as the military of Ukraine and more than Greece, IIRC. Do you think it is justified?


3) One of the graphs above suggests that while crime is all time low especially since the 80s, illegal immigration reached peak in 2007. What do you think of that?

4) Racial tensions related to police shooting unarmed African Americans creates a horrible picture of US police forces across the world. One example is particularly chilling. A 74 old former insurance executive Robert Bates shoots an already restrained man. What are your opinions on that?

.................................................. ..................................

Again I am not trying to be hostile but just trying to pick the brains of people who probably have a different point of view than MSM.

[JarodParker]

1) It would be absurd to discuss a conclusion that is not based on facts. How can it be thought provoking, if it’s not accurate? What if it the author just said “police in the US kill citizens at 1000 the rate…” What if he said, “100% of police officer are members of the KKK?” You have to have facts to be able to have an intelligent dialogue about something as complex as this. I pointed out some inaccuracies in the data and gave you some context and possibly alternative matrices for comparison. If you’re just posting inflammatory links, then you’re just trolling.

2) Sorry, I didn’t watch the video. Stewart, Colbert and Oliver are great comedians, but these shows usually don’t present a balanced view on issues. It’s not gospel just because John Oliver says so. If something they bring up strikes a chord with you, then I suggest you research the matter for yourself.
Please read my previous response carefully. I said…

I can see why some small podunk department with three officers might not need an MRAP

I have never been to “Doraville, Georgia, population of 8500” so I don’t presume to know what their law enforcement needs are, but it sounds like the type of “podunk” place that might not need its own tracked APC. But armored vehicles (not necessarily tracked) are a part of the police toolkit used in hostage and barricaded suspect type of situations. The US from time to time has incidents where heavily armed bad guys get into shootouts with police. And the police need these vehicles for cover, to evacuate casualties, etc. However, in my humble opinion every department does not need to get such a vehicle when they could get by with mutual-aid. A mutual-aid agreement is a pact between various neighboring municipalities to share resources (such as armored vehicles and extra officers) during emergencies. So in theory Doraville and a few of its neighbors could sign such an agreement with the county. But that is something each community has to decide for itself. If the good people of Doraville decide to forgo the APC, then they have to be ok with the consequences of that (whatever that might be). Please look up North Hollywood I think this should be clear enough.

If the NYPD has the same budget as the military of Ukraine, maybe it’s time we beef up the NYPD budget. Because we’ve all seen how well the Ukrainians are doing. Again, examine underlying causes when you see random stats. NYC population is 8 million, Greece population is 10 million. There are ~50,000 officers in New York and 109,000 military personal in Greece. Compare population densities. Better yet compare the economies. The biggest cost for police/fire agencies in the US is personnel. So is it unthinkable each NYPD officer (with the cost of living in NYC) could be making twice as much as a Greek service person? Keep in mind this is an oversimplification. You’re thinking, “but the Greeks have military equipment.” Well, the NYPD has a ton of facilities, vehicles, helicopters, IT infrastructure, etc. But why are you even comparing the NYPD to the Greek military. It’s meaningless. Apples to cars.

3) That’s good news. I hope it continues to decrease.

4) Based on the limited open source information I have, it looked like an accident. It is unfortunate the man lost his life, but accidents happen. There are even occasional blue-on-blue shootings, with some resulting in fatalities. There was recently a police officer that was shot and killed by his colleague during the execution of a search warrant in Northern California. The legal system will sort out Mr. Bates in due time.

[AdamG]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Again I am not trying to be hostile but just trying to pick the brains of people who probably have a different point of view than MSM.

Are you truly asking, or perhaps tempted to bully pulpit?

4) Racial tensions related to police shooting unarmed African Americans creates a horrible picture of US police forces across the world.

You're aware that there are several groups in America (some quite well-funded) who make it a point to travel to incident sites and agitate mobs into acts of violence?

That leads right into one of the phenomenons of the MSM - when the facts contradict their initial leaps-of-logic and rush to play the blame game on their usual targets, then the topic gets flushed down the Memory Hole so fast that it would make George Orwell's head spin if he were still alive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole

You will NEVER see anywhere near the column inches/airtime minutes when the poor urban youth turns out to be completely, totally guilty of perpetrating a criminally stupid act that precipitated his own death - that would contradict the narrative.

The American media is populated by a significant majority of individuals who hold to what can best be described as "Progressive" political world-views, yet lack the maturity and morale compasses to divorce personal prejudices from their work products (and since they need to attract maximum attention to ensure maximum ad revenues, sensationalist nonsense sells).

You need to appreciate these Americanisms to distill the facts out of what counts as Open Source here.

That said, American Law Enforcement bears their own crosses for the current state of affairs - starting with small things like calling Citizens "civilians" (and thus implying a state of war between Law Enforcement and everyone else).