93 victims were unarmed, 33 were armed with a toy, and 27 unknown.
That is a lot more than Americans killed by terrorists in US.
That is a lot more than Americans killed by terrorists in US.
He was walking away from the police when they shot him -- 16 times! Fortunately this was caught on camera, but a lot of shootings are not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff#April_12_confro...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs_Planned_Paren...
I'm certainly not suggesting that we encourage violent responses from law enforcement. (I'm relieved injury and harm were minimized in both of the above instances.) But, it's disingenuous to think that all demographics get an equally fair shake/generous response from law enforcement when they are holding (or believed to be holding) a gun.
Maybe they do and maybe they don't, but that particular argument doesn't work at all. There's a huge difference between a protest (even with armed protesters) in broad daylight surrounded by cops and news media, and a split-second confrontation between a police officer and a suspect in the middle of the night. You cannot boil down both situations to "a person may have a gun."
(To be clear, that's not to make any moral judgements about the people involved in those two different situations, or what cops should or should not do. Just saying they are different, and it's dangerously simplistic to line them up next to each other and believe you've proved anything.)
not("breaking law" or "pointing guns at other people") == not("get shot")
which is what you were snarkily making it out to be.
There are whole fields of study devoted to the issues at hand, neither you nor I will convince each other or make an airtight case in a single post regarding the full spectrum of input into all armed encounters with police that result in the output of either dying, or being arrested without incident, or anything in between.
Interesting.
...but I won't, because I know the situations are more complicated than that and if we were speaking in person instead of over the Internet you'd probably agree with me on that, even if we didn't agree on the fundamentals of the issue.
How often does this happen?
A much more common occurrence is when someone sees a suspicious-looking dude walking down the street, calls the cops and says "I think he is armed!" and the cops arrive and shoot him without first verifying if he's actually armed with a real weapon.
Second: In almost the entire US, being armed is not against the law.
Third: If it's as much of a "common occurrence" as you claim, please paste here one example from the list of shootings on the article's main page where an officer shoots a civilian without any provocation.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/16/justice/walmart-shooting-john-...
So what? Cops don't know the law and aren't expected to know the law. The fact that a cop didn't know the law is a legal defense if you accuse him of messing up.
As a comparison, here in The Netherlands, all citizens are expected to know the law. Not knowing it is never an argument as far as I know.
Way to miss the point. Of course being armed isn't against the law. But most states don't allow open-carry, and if someone is reporting you to the cops and saying you're armed, that means you just broke the law by failing to conceal your weapon. Furthermore, if the person reporting you says you're acting suspiciously or in a threatening manner, that's enough justification for most cops to shoot you.
How exactly do you define "provocation"? I'm curious because you seem to have a very lenient definition when talking about police using deadly force. This is remarkable to me when there have been a number of highly reported incidents involving police shooting a civilian without provocation that warrants deadly force (by my definition and video evidence). Here are a few to consider:
1. Tamir Rice
2. John Crawford III
3. Levar Jones
4. Laquan McDonald
Seriously, I could go on. It happens far too frequently that Americans are killed by police firearms when they are not posing an immediate and credible mortal threat. Sadly, there are too many high-profile cases in which cops fire before even bothering to assess the situation. Videos of these incidents abound.
Now, I assume we all agree that police are charged with serving and protecting their communities, right? I believe that also includes suspects and criminals. The bar for determining provocation that warrants deadly force should be very high.
If we are being rational and reasonable, I think there are behaviors that we can agree are not provocations of mortal danger. A few such behaviors:
1. Running away from police
2. Verbal altercations
3. Suspicious behaviors of any kind that are not posing credible mortal threat to other persons or officers
4. Reaching for waistbands (of what are too often excessively sagging pants that frequently need to be pulled up)
I think it is reasonable to have a civil, national conversation about better training for police, and a national charge and expectation to keep every potential suspect alive until a situation is properly assessed and resolved.
If ranchers in a standoff, or bikers in a gun battle, can make it out alive, I think many more can, too.
Funny story from my childhood in Southern California, around 1990:
I was playing in the yard with my toy gun. I hated the orange cap at the end of the barrel and had pulled it out with pliers. It was a metal rifle. A cop came down the neighborhood street, and I took cover behind a tree and pretended to shoot, as if he was my new imaginary enemy. He slowed down and stopped in front of the yard. I was within earshot, so he called out to me in a friendly way. Asked if I was shooting at bad guys. I nodded. He asked if I'd like to see his gun and might be interested in a trade. I thought that was cool, and ran over to his car with my metal toy rifle. He opened his car door to me and stepped out, asking if he could see my gun. I handed it right over, and he invited me to sit in the drivers seat of his squad car. Looking back, I'm sure he was checking if I had a real firearm. He then showed me the shotgun he had secured between the front seats. He talked to me about being careful with guns. Then he suggested there were some bad guys sneaking around my house, and I should go get them with my gun. And I ran off to chase them down.
I shudder to think what would happen to my 12-year-old in the same situation today.
> It happens far too frequently that Americans are killed
> by police firearms when they are not posing an immediate
> and credible mortal threat.
If you want to really shut up the naysayers, try showing this data:
Interactions between civilians and LEOs: __________
Of those, how many involved physical force? __________
Of those, how many resulted in fatalities? __________
Of those, how many were unjustifiable? __________
Of those, how many went unpunished? __________
That being said, if you want to claim that we need "a civil, national conversation" about this, I think the onus should be on you to prove that the last number above has risen to a national crisis level. Maybe it has, but I don't think this article (or even your 4 examples) makes a very good case for it.
When a 12-yr-old boy with a toy gun is shot by police after being on the scene for a few seconds, and the cop doesn't wind up in prison, there is a problem. And that problem extends from bad policing to the justice system as a whole.
Unfortunately, on polarizing issues like this where clear communication is paramount to prevent people from wasting time arguing similar points, it seems people are more prone to comment without fully considering their wording (possibly due to high emotional investment).
I disagree, especially in your outlined scenario, for a couple of reasons:
1) First and foremost: the police are professionals whose job should be to protect the public, even if that means they put themselves in harm's way. The person with the toy gun (or wallet, cell phone, etc) is still a member of the public.
2) After a car chase, the police have the ability to position themselves defensively until the situation becomes clearer (e.g. shots are actually fired at them). They also could be wearing unusual protective gear like body armor, which would further reduce their personal danger.
Now, if the person was actively threatening an innocent third party with a realistic toy gun in some way, then I think it would be much more justifiable for the police to shoot. Ditto if a person brandishes something clearly gun-like at an officer at close range.
Police officers shouldn't be shooting people on the off chance that a suspicious bulge might be a gun, but it seems pretty unreasonable to expect police officers to put their self-defense as the very lowest priority and wait until bullets actually come out of a gun-like-object being pointed at them before shooting.
The police are after all are the ones with the experience and training: they shouldn't ever be killing kids with toy guns or people with wallets, which they in fact are. The thinking that enables that needs to change.
I disagree. That's not an achievable standard without putting officers' lives at undue risk. Cops can not tell the difference between toy guns and real guns without a close inspection.
...in the US. In other countries you can fuck with the police and not get killed.
And, for the sake of clarity here, "fucking with the police" is for example asking if you're being detained or if you're free to go, or asking what grounds they have for a stop and search. It's baffling to me why asking police to obey the law is described, by police, as fucking with them.
It's far too common in the US.
And while it's stupid to point a gun (toy or not) at police (I agree that death is a likely result, because you should never point a gun at someone unless you intend to kill them) that doesn't excuse all the people who had cell phones in their hands, or the people shot within six seconds of a police officer arriving on the scene, or the people with no weapon and their back turned.
Yet in many of these cases we see officers closing ranks and claiming the victim somehow deserved it, and was somehow responsible for their death because they were arguing with police.
The US is unique in first world nations in murdering its citizens. It's an abuse of human rights when it happens after lengthy court cases; I can't imagine why it's okay before an arrest is made.
(Unless someone's life is in real and immediate danger).
The scenario outlined did not involve an actual gun that could harm anyone.
If a car chase ends the suspect hiding behind a door with a "gun" in their hand, there are actually many possible scenarios, for instance:
1. The "gun" is not actually a gun, and was misidentified.
2. The gun is fake or a toy.
3. The gun is a real gun and the suspect will not shoot at anyone.
4. The gun is a real gun and the suspect will shoot at the police or others.
Some people say the suspect should be shot in all four scenarios (after all, he might shoot!). I disagree.
It did not involve an actual gun in that particular instance. I would like you to explain exactly how the police may identify whether the object that appears to be a weapon is an actual weapon other than waiting for the suspect to fire first.
Again, we should just hope that innocent bystanders are not hit by that first shot at police as they hide behind their defensive positions and superior equipment? Police officers and innocent bystanders don't always fare too well when the police are obligated to follow stupid rules of engagement.
> Some people say the suspect should be shot in all four scenarios (after all, he might shoot!). I disagree.
See, that's where I agree with you. Because none of the scenarios in your list is a reason for police officers to fire as you list them. But tack on the end of each item that the suspect acted in a threatening manner with an object that appeared to be a weapon then the police officer may choose to fire their weapon. To be fair, if the suspect tried to run down other people or cops during the chase to show that he was a threat then just getting out of the car with an object that appeared to be a weapon will get him shot. It's all about context.
However, a in lot of recent videotaped incidents, it's been shown that many police officers are shooting and often killing people merely because the officer falsely "thought" they had a real gun. That behavior is unacceptable and needs to stop, even if that means police have to take more personal risks themselves.
But I still have problems with your wording. In your examples above you feel 2 is more important than 3 and you disagree with people that reverse it. I agree with you. The difference is I see the possibility that the police may think the unarmed suspect is armed and is a direct threat to the officer or bystanders. By your wording you seem to suggest that scenario is not possible, and just in case the officer should wait until fired upon to determine whether the suspect is armed or not. That's a bad rule of engagement.
So you are correct when you say armed with a toy and armed with a functional weapon should be treated in the same way. But I don't think possessing an object that may or may not be a weapon is sufficient justification in itself for the use of lethal force. I think police need to exercise every available opportunity to de-escalate conflicts, with the goal being to deliver the suspects alive and unharmed to the courts for arraignment. That may actually mean that the cops have to let the suspect fire a shot before he gets a lead shower. That would leave no doubt that yes, it is a real weapon, and yes, the suspect is willing to use it inappropriately.
I don't want 750k Judge Dredds on the street, acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
When a man takes cover and points a gun, he should be ordered to "show me empty hands" [0], then given a reasonable opportunity to assess his situation and comply. If he even fires the gun, and injures a cop, he should still be given an opportunity to surrender and make it to the courtroom alive.
[0] As "drop the weapon" is confusing to a person not actually carrying one.
Terrorism has never been a problem. The same number of people died in car accidents during September 2001 as they did in terrorist attacks. Where is our war on cars? Oh, nobody cares about that, cars are freedom, cars are what we went to war to protect.
I think it does, it's just that people are simply not aware of the numbers.
Consider, without any emotion, the issue of murder versus suicide. What are the negative impacts of those acts? From the point of view of that person's friends and family and society at large, leaving aside emotion or notions of justice, the impact of the acts is the same: loss of that person, loss of their financial and emotional support. In fact, the impact on family and friends is often worse in cases of suicide because insurance policies often have an exemption for suicide.
Yet, almost nobody thinks murder should be legal while quite a few people think suicide should be legal. If we just mechanically consider "a death is a death" and count up the monetary impact of each case, we have no way to explain or justify why people feel this way.
The only difference between murder and suicide is if the person who dies chose to die.
Meanwhile we do in fact prosecute car fatalities when they are caused by recklessness, and, of course, when they're caused intentionally.
Yes, there are prosecutions of reckless/negligent drivers. However, the fact remains:
1) Most traffic fatalities are the result of human error.
2) Most traffic fatalities do not result in prosecution.
I can't find numbers to back up #2 but this semi-anecdotal evidence is telling:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/283394-killed-while-cycling-why-so...
This quote in particular makes my point:
> “We as a society have chosen to drive these big cars," said Joe McCormack, Assistant District Attorney for the Bronx. It’s his job to prosecute traffic crimes. "And we also as a society have chosen not to criminalize every single small mistake that just has a dramatic consequence because you're driving a car,” he said.
I also don't think you read my comment carefully.
As a reset: here's what the state must prove in a manslaughter case:
First, the defendant unlawfully killed someone;
Second, while in a sudden quarrel or heat of passion, caused by
adequate provocation:
a) the defendant intentionally killed someone; or
b) the defendant killed name of victim recklessly with extreme
disregard for human life; and
Heat of passion may be provoked by fear, rage, anger or
terror. Provocation, in order to be adequate, must be such as might
arouse a reasonable and ordinary person to kill someone.
To prove that the defendant is guilty of this crime, the People must
prove that:
1. The defendant (drove under the influence of (an alcoholic
beverage/ [or] a drug) [or under the combined influence of an
alcoholic beverage and a drug]/drove while having a blood
alcohol level of 0.08 or higher/drove under the influence of (an
alcoholic beverage/ [or] a drug) [or under the combined influence
of an alcoholic beverage and a drug] when under the age of 21/
drove while having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 or higher when
under the age of 21);
2. While driving that vehicle under the influence of (an alcoholic
beverage/ [or] a drug) [or under the combined influence of an
alcoholic beverage and a drug], the defendant also committed
(a/an) (misdemeanor[,]/ [or] infraction[,]/ [or] otherwise lawful
act that might cause death);
3. The defendant committed the (misdemeanor[,]/ [or] infraction[,]/
[or] otherwise lawful act that might cause death) with gross
negligence;
AND
4. The defendant’s grossly negligent conduct caused the death of
another person.
Again: we don't prosecute people for errors. We prosecute them for doing things intentionally, or, as I said, for causing grave harm recklessly.
> we don't prosecute people for errors. We prosecute them for doing things intentionally, or, as I said, for causing grave harm recklessly.
We usually don't prosecute for intentional errors. That is precisely the problem: we are far to lax with incompetent/reckless drivers. Do you think that if the costs associated with causing injury/death due to your own 'errors' were higher, we wouldn't see more careful drivers?
1) We don't prosecute people for things that aren't crimes.
2) Thus our system and standards for prosecuting people for things that are crimes is just.
I don't see the step from 1) to 2). I would guess you are making the following assumptions that I would disagree with:
a) We do a adequate job of enforcing the current laws. (Prosecutions tend to be fairly rare due to low priority and lack of investigative resources)
b) The current laws on the books are just. (The standards for recklessness are weighted toward DUIs and tend to exclude other types of intentional misconduct.)
Now you'd like to litigate whether we should pass laws that criminalize more kinds of driver error. I'm not interested in that discussion, and I don't have to be, because it's not germane to the argument you made up thread, except in a Calvinball kind of way.
You think the current laws regarding driver culpability for errors are sufficient. Ok, fine. We've established a difference of opinion and don't need to argue it.
> You began the thread by trying to argue that a lack of prosecutions for vehicular fatalities was evidence of injustice. But it isn't: it's evidence for the fact that most traffic fatalities don't involve conduct we recognize as criminal.
From this I am going to assume that you also disagree that investigation and prosecution of traffic fatalities lack sufficient priority and resources.
If I am correct about this, then I now think the source of a disagreement is clear.
We do have a war on car fatalities. It's been remarkably successful:
http://www.donerdesigns.org/_/rsrc/1376697199749/other-cause...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._traffic_deaths_as_fr...
The recent improvement in car accident rates is pretty impressive.
The first graph show we have made driving far less dangerous per mile.
The second graph shows the likelihood that any given person will die due to traffic.
This is akin to announcing a 'war on cancer fatalities' but only caring about improving cancer treatments, not removing carcinogens on the environment.
Obviously, it is a bad idea to maximize the wrong metric. In the case of cancer, just measuring survival rates is a bad metric, but so is measuring cancer deaths per capita. A better metric is to measure the per-capita deaths due to cancer within specific age groups.
I'm not missing your point, and cbr's reply makes it obvious that he isn't either. The prevalence of driving is a separate variable from how dangerous it is. Driving is far less dangerous and far more prevalent.
> Here's a gedankenexperiment for you: I instantaneously and permanently disable every car and car manufactory, thereby reducing all traffic fatalities to zero. Did I make driving safer?
You certainly would have done an effective job of executing a 'war on car fatalities' which is what the harryh was claiming was demonstrated by the chart he posted.
While I agree that driving is safer than it used to be, the chart harryh posted doesn't actually show that. it just shows that driving is safer per mile.
Analogous to the point that cbr made: Without changing any of the risks of driving, I could make driving safer per mile by hiring a million drivers to drive 10MPH on a closed track year round.
While the above point is rather tongue-in-cheek, I do suspect that a significant part of the drop indicated in harryh's chart is due to changing driving patterns, particularly the increase in freeway driving.
I don't think eliminating all driving would be a good way to reduce traffic deaths (because it all of the other consequences that would have). However, if we had spent more effort in trying to reduce unnecessary and high-risk driving we would see a larger reduction in traffic deaths. This includes solutions like walkable cities, adequate public transit, and higher penalties for drivers engaged in risky behavior that cause fatalities. Focusing purely on deaths per mile excludes those types of interventions. Thus you can't use that measure to claim a 'war on car fatalities'.
You then 'charitably' missed my point twice, and argued against a strawman. You followed that up by 'charitably' accused me of only arguing semantics rather than responding to any of my actual points.
The original graphic shows that driving is less dangerous now than ever before. However, it does not take into account the prevalence of driving, which is also higher. Therefore, the original graphic is "misleading", because "traffic fatalities" is the combination of the danger of driving and its prevalence.
Given this current understanding of your point, my only argument now is that I believe that is an uncharitable view of the original post. I argue this because the view is entirely based on that singular interpretation of "war on traffic fatalities". A charitable approach is entirely based on attempting to view an argument with suspension of your own beliefs and interpretations in order to understand the other party's. Through such, common understanding can be worked towards.
I'm also sorry that you feel that I have been uncharitable to you. I honestly do believe your argument is entirely centered around the semantics of "war on traffic fatalities". The information you provided in your graphic is very good, and the point you are making is not wrong. I didn't have any issues at all until your response to cbr's original post, which is where I feel you began arguing semantics over content. I feel this way because cbr was also not wrong, and if anything was an equally good summary as what I stated above. And yet you still seemed to take an issue with it.
> Terrorism has never been a problem. The same number of people died in car accidents during September 2001 as they did in terrorist attacks. Where is our war on cars?
My main point, and reason for making the distinction between metrics is explained here:
"However, if we had spent more effort in trying to reduce unnecessary and high-risk driving we would see a larger reduction in traffic deaths. This includes solutions like walkable cities, adequate public transit, and higher penalties for drivers engaged in risky behavior that cause fatalities. Focusing purely on deaths per mile excludes those types of interventions. Thus you can't use that measure to claim a 'war on car fatalities'."
Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented.
You are being a pedantic jerk. Read this:
http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the...
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-m...
"DH0. Name-calling. This is the lowest form of disagreement"
> Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented.
"DH1. Ad Hominem."
Good job, you've hit the bottom of the disagreement heirarchy. In my mind my responses are all on the level of DH4 and DH5. If I have failed to do that, please provide specific examples because I strive to disagree well and wish to improve.
> Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue:
Neither of those are discussions of the issue at hand, which is the number of deaths due to cars. Nowhere, except in replies that attack a strawman argument, was the safety of driving a point of debate. I have even stated elsewhere that I agree that driving has gotten safer (though I do dispute that fatalities per distance is an ideal metric for measuring that since it is also affected by usage patterns in addition to safety).
I have made solid, non-pedantic points about the effect of using different metrics and what types of interventions will show up in those metrics.
If you are talking about traffic safety (say vs air travel or between countries), fatalities per distance is one of several applicable metrics (fatalities per trip being another).
If you are talking about traffic deaths, as a overall source of risk (say vs terrorism) then fatalities per capita is a more correct metric.
This is not a pedantic point, this is a very important point that is key to the discussion that you seem to be avoiding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
We have higher traffic related death rates per capita than any other 'first world' country, including coutries with similar geograhpy such as Canada and Australia.
We have higher traffic related death rates per distance than any other 'first world' country (other than New Zealand, but still including Canada and Australia)
I was interested if this is true, and on the face of it it is. 2996 people died in 9/11, in 2001 (the entire year) 37,795 people died in car accidents (source: NHTSA), or an average of 3149/deaths per month.
Injuries are also higher from accidents than 9/11 for the month of Sept. 2001.
The 3,000 people killed were 20% of the 16,000 murders that year. It was by far the biggest mass murder in US history. Next biggest was 44 in the 1927 Bath School disaster.
And of course terrorism is a much bigger problem in some countries.