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The social and racial divide becomes a problem in itself, which makes it much easier for the police to rationalise the use of excessive force.

The UK had this problem with the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and more generally the policing of Northern Ireland with troops. The only way out of it was the restructuring, renaming, and re-populating with affirmative action of the force as the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Another key part of the solution is a willingness to actually prosecute unlawful shootings. The key case here is Lee Clegg, a paratrooper on a roadside checkpoint who shot at a car driven by teenage joyriders that failed to stop. It was ruled that shooting after the car had passed was no longer justified.

The US has got to this point because it is not willing to effectively prosecute the use of lethal force against black men where it is not absolutely required. The US also has a very flexible and expansive idea of "required".

(PSNI are routinely armed, unlike most of the rest of the UK, except anti-terrorist patrols at airports and high security locations.)

Fantastic point, I'd never thought to put this into the context of NI before.

To emphasise what you've said, the root and brach reform that has happened in the RUC/policing in NI over the last decade (or more) can't be underestimated. Among the biggest factors, as I perceive them are both top down and bottom up:

* Engaging the civilian leadership of the effected Catholic/Republican communities in leadership and accountability positions (e.g. Sin Fein/Stormont)

* Making on the ground community relationships with the effected communities a huge priority, through: targeted engagement; community relations and frankly, demonstrating the RUC's value through active/effective community policing and crime reduction.

* The confrontation and acknowledgement of the previous injustices. Truth and reconciliation is key.

It's been a LONG and painful journey interlinked that isn't finished, but it really could serve as a great lesson to improving minority/police relationships in the US.

It absolutely could serve as a model for community reconciliation, and ending terrorism. Unfortunately it requires the people in power to back down and treat those they regard as inferior with justice and respect, which makes it a hard sell.

Which reminds me, the odious Michael Gove wrote in 2000 against the NI peace process: "it enshrines a vision of human rights which privileges contending minorities at the expense of the democratic majority". But that's exactly why human rights are important: protecting the minority from 'democratic' but unjust treatment from the majority.

I keep trying to bring NI analogies into US gun discussions because when people talk about armed resistance to the government being a constitutional right, that's what it looks like in practice. It's awful.

Mind you, last time I ran the numbers, a random resident of 70s Belfast was less likely than a random resident of 80s Detroit to be murdered. America is a violent country.

It's also difficult to prosecute police officers for a variety of reasons. Even when prosecuted, the results are often more lenient. The story below is about Washington state, but all of the US states have problems prosecuting law enforcement.

http://www.policemisconduct.net/the-problem-with-prosecuting...

> "PSNI are routinely armed"

I think another important point is despite being armed the PSNI rarely use their weapons. I honestly can't remember the last time someone was killed by a PSNI officer.

Certainly. And when they do they are investigated. The system works: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33085729

Police officer uses gun in inappropriate situation, wounds man, is subject to impartial investigation and disciplinary action.

That's what America needs to do to fix its police race relations problems.

Single data point: I was slightly shocked to see in Gloucester, a Policeman in Tesco supermarket with a pistol in a holster on his belt. Wonder if this was a one off - I hope so.

In general, only Armed Response Units (ARUs) in the UK are actually armed. There are a small number of ARU's in each police constabulary, but it depends on the size of the area covered and the perceived threat from assumed criminals.

Most ARU's are rarely called on to use their weapons, and every time they use their weapon it is seized as part of the investigation. Every bullet has to be accounted for.

Each officer receives an extremely intensive training, and only the best, with a secure psychological profile make it through. They have to follow a rigid set out protocols before they can engage a threat.

I find the British police protocols and training to be an excellent example of how to approach armed policing. That being said it sometimes goes wrong. In those cases the actions of the officers need to be reviewed, and any negligence or deliberate acts of harm need to be punished within the law.

These officers don't have an easy job. On the most cases they've had to make a split second decision based on their training and their immediate situation.

I'll exclude Charles de Menezes from that, since I still believe that he was shot by armed SAS soldiers operating in public on British streets, authorised by the home office, which they'll never admit to, as it would cause a public outcry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menez...

Strictly speaking, the only requirement a police officer need meet to be armed is to be authorised by a substantive Superintendent or higher. Hence the term 'Authorised Firearms Officer'.

All ARVs are AFOs, but not all AFOs are ARV. The difference is about 4 weeks (9 weeks vs 5 weeks), and the majority of that is the additional tactics around search and 'call outs' which an AFO (usually being entirely reactive) would not deal with.

The training is intensive, but there's no specific psychological screening beyond the instructors (and colleagues) realising that an individual officer ought not be trusted with a pen, let alone a firearm. There's more screening to become a sexual offences/CSE investigator than there is to become an AFO.

There are more AFOs than you'd imagine, and the majority of them will be only carrying a sidearm.

>They have to follow a rigid set out protocols before they can engage a threat.

No, the protocols are far from rigid. The training means that an AFO is fluent in the 'National Decision Model', which means that they can make dynamic assessments of risk without being hamstrung by a rigid "if this, then that" set of behaviours.

>I'll exclude Charles de Menezes from that, since I still believe that he was shot by armed SAS soldiers operating in public on British streets, authorised by the home office

Then you've been reading too many conspiracy stories. The whole thing was a fuck up from start to finish, but there's nothing in it that needs the SAS to be involved. If they had been, they would have had their own tactical command and De Menzes would probably still be alive.

The comment about the SAS came from an active AFO, who worked in London at the time. I don't want to give any more information than that. I'm probably risking too much by just saying that.

The comment was quite specifically, "we aren't trained to do that (execute suspect by putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger), but they are at Hereford".

It's hearsay, but far from your usual conspiracy theory.

>"we aren't trained to do that

Most AFO's weren't. Some were, as part of Op Kratos. That was the problem - there was a massive disconnect in training between two sides of the business (the CT side and the ARV side) which meant that when commands such as "stop him", were given, the expectations of both parties were very different.

Don't forget that a common-or-garden AFO on an armed OCU would have had his five weeks training, with bi-monthly top-ups, whilst the AFOs offering armed support to surveillance teams will have been massively upskilled.

Had an SAS team been deployed on a surveillance job (and I literally cannot imagine the circumstances that would require that), then tactical command would have been taken by soldiers who would (generally) have been clear and explicit about the task ahead. As it's been held that De Menzes was mistakenly identified and that there was only implication that he might have been a bomber rather than any explicit statement that he was, it is unlikely that there would have been the massive cock up in communications that resulted in him being shot.

Gloucestershire (UK) has a number of sensitive sites.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/1...

Correct. This sighting was in Churchdown not far from Imjin Barracks, a couple of miles from GCHQ and Staverton airport. He was climbing into a BMW X5 parked prominently and poised for a quick exit. I believe it was an armed response vehicle.

I think there are two other historical trends at play in the US (and elsewhere).

- A lot of shitty policing, and covering up of crimes by police has always existed, and we're just much more aware of it because everyone now has a video camera in their pockets. It's possible that police brutality had always been this bad, or worse.

- The general fitness and preparedness level of police has likely declined along with the rest of society. A police officer should be confident that they can handle and control a situation physically, but they are more inclined to rely on tasers or guns if they feel like they could get overwhelmed by a situation. In Sam Harris's interview with Jocko Willink he mentions a video[1] of 3 large cops taking over 5 minutes to subdue a half-naked man in socks. It's hard to watch it and believe that the cops had any adequate training or confidence in how to handle a situation without relying on weapons.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-QEsv0ZEg&app=desktop

Justifiable or not, 604 homicides by police so far this year is far is rediculous. If my understanding is correct, the vast majority of violent policing is associated to a relatively small percentage of officers. Opening up police data is urgent, is there an effort making any headway? http://killedbypolice.net/

> the vast majority of violent policing is associated to a relatively small percentage of officers

Isn't the vast majority of crime associated with small areas? People rag on Chicago for having lots of murders, but if you look at http://www.heyjackass.com, you end up finding that most of the shootings occur in only a few neighborhoods.

Similarly, most police officers are not patrolling in a war zone.

Where I would love to see the data is a comparison of officers with their peers. If you're an officer with Chicago's Finest, you probably have a group of peers who patrol the same neighborhoods as you. If you're grabbing your gun five times as often as the other guys on your squad, it's difficult to make the argument that random shit is only happening to you.

I'm waiting for when it will be a requirement to wear a bullet proof vest if you're a regular citizens that happens to be black and you are driving anywhere.

Us policies and laws are getting more and more ridiculous every year and enforcement non existent if you're the police so would anybody be surprised if the victim gets blamed for getting shot?

There are laws against buying and owning body armor in some areas of the US.

Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a violent crime from owning or possessing any type of body armor.

Most states explicitly prohibit felons from owning or possessing as well, and many states prohibit it outright for anyone, but I can't seem to find solid stats on which states outlaw it under which circumstances.

> A police officer should be confident that they can handle and control a situation physically, but they are more inclined to rely on tasers or guns if they feel like they could get overwhelmed by a situation.

This would have pretty dramatic effects on the number of female police officers.

I used to train Judo at a Dojo also used by the local police. Believe me, the female officers could throw me around just fine.

I live in France and I'm not worried, France and the US are apple and orange comparison : even when the French Police kills a known felon that was shooting at them it's a huge scandal because he may or may not have faced the cop that killed him (recent story).

Look at the video were the police car was torched and the cop beaten with an iron bar. Do you think the perps would still be alive in the US ? The French cop didn't even think about using his gun and was commended for it.

A recent article, suggested that part of this was the standard for when you can legally use force is very different:

"most European countries conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which impels its 47 signatories to permit only deadly force that is “absolutely necessary” to achieve a lawful purpose. Killings excused under America’s “reasonable belief” standards often violate Europe’s “absolute necessity” standards."

http://theconversation.com/why-do-american-cops-kill-so-many...

They also suggest very poor training of cops is a big part of it, as well as racism and the prevalance of guns.

  The problem is not just the police in the US to me it is the easy access to heavy weaponry by normal people. If it was hard for normal citizens to have guns police would not be shoot first ask question later mode all the time.

> Now what societal changes could happen that would disrupt a race to the bottom of police brutality, like in USA?

Robot cops with open-source A.I., verifiable firmware, and a public log of all their decisions.

As long as humans are given any sort of power over other humans, shit will happen. No matter where it is, what era it is.

Chappie: No. I can't shoot people. Chappie no crimes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappie_(film)

Except in Europe there's no second amendmend, so a possible raise in police brutality is probably more tied to racist conceptions.