Umm... https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...
> 963 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016
And that is just shootings, never mind other methods of murder.
> 963 people have been shot and killed by police in 2016
And that is just shootings, never mind other methods of murder.
Furthermore statements like that -- "the base rate is never going to be zero" -- show an unwillingness to even try to do better. It's excusing terrible performance rather than demanding accountability. The US currently has 1000 - 2000 police involved shootings per year. Every year. We may not be able to get to zero, but we can definitely do better than that. A lot of those shootings can be traced back to police hiring and training practices which can unquestionably be improved.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...
No, it doesn't, and that's a hostile attitude to take.
"We may not be able to get to zero, but we can definitely do better than that."
Exactly how much better? Or are you demonstrating an unwillingness to address the issue concretely? Or do you perhaps not like that excessively hostile attitude on my part?
The situation is complicated, and people like to fling around statistics with the apparent intent to simply inflame passions with no regard for the result it produces. So the US has been talking all about this for the last year or so... has it improved the situation any, or has the inflammatory rhetoric actually made things worse? I look to results, not words, and I can make a far better case for the latter than the former. So I'm pretty unimpressed by the attempt to socially shame me into accepting a line of rhetoric that from my point of view has killed more than it has helped. (My current estimate is in the mid-hundreds at a minimum, just to put some numbers on it.) Whatever the solution is, this doesn't appear to be it.
I also consider the fact that it is visibly not working to trump any other vague arguments, such as, say, "but it's raising awareness". So what? It's not working. Awareness is not the end goal some people seem to think it is, it's as best a method to attain some goal, and that goal is not being attained. This rhetoric line is killing more people and corroding social fabric. Concrete results don't get changed by hypothesizing about how they could have possibly been good maybe sorta in an alternate universe. Do we care about reducing the violence, or do we just want to feel brief moments of emotional catharsis by blaming everything on cops? Because if it's the former, a change in approach is needed.
in the case of intentional we can distinguish between self-defense shootings and aggravated shootings. self-defense shootings might not have been intended to kill, in which case it could be merely aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, resulting in accidental death (i.e. manslaughter). the legal system here allows for juries to find a shooter non-culpable of homicide if there is a clear case for self-defense. legal non-culpability is a technicality (i.e. no criminal conviction), it doesn't mean there was no homicide involved. the other guy is still dead by the actions of another human. murder.
And please outline every one of those situations. Because those are just numbers, nothing else.
- How many of those were suspects who threatened a cop with a gun or some other weapon?
- How many of those were a suspect was assaulting a cop and he drew his weapon to save his own life?
- How many of those where a suspect refused the orders of the cops to put down a dangerous weapon and surrender?
In fact, all you have is numbers. Without any context, those numbers are useless.
By comparison, in Chicago this year, there were 762 homicides. That's ONE CITY which nearly equals the entire country's worth of people being killed by police in the same time frame.
There's some context for you, but I'm guessing that's not what you were after.
Likewise, the context is critical for each of the examples you listed. . .
Mike Brown - So much evidence that contradicted the whole "hand up, don't shoot" narrative:
In summary, the DOJ report concluded: There are no witnesses who could testify credibly that Wilson shot Brown while Brown was clearly attempting to surrender. The accounts of the witnesses who have claimed that Brown raised his hands above his head to surrender and said “I don’t have a gun,” or “OK, OK, OK” are inconsistent with the physical evidence.”
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/why-did-justice-departme...
The whole incident took place after Brown had just committed a strong arm robbery and assaulted the owner of a shop. There's a mountain of evidence that proves officer Wilson was well within his rights to shoot Brown but I won't go down that rabbit hole at this point.
Eric Garner - I would agree the cops acted callously in arresting Garner. That should have been a standard arrest. Take him to the ground, cuff him and put in the car. The cops were wrong in this scenario, and should have done a better job of simply cuffing Garner and getting him in the car - especially when he kept saying he couldn't breathe. There is however, still some responsibility on Garner's part that he resisted arrest in the first place, which then resulted in the officers putting him in the choke hold that eventually killed him. Had he simply allowed the officers to arrest him without incident, he'd probably still be alive today.
Tamir Rice - This was an egregious act on the cops part. Not only did the callers mention that the gun was probably fake, the dispatcher didn't rely that to the cops who showed up. The cop also acted way too fast in drawing his gun and shooting Tamir immediately without hesitation or warning. A $6 million settlement probably confirms this was the case. Not to mention the officer in question had also been deemed "unsuitable and emotionally unstable" in his last position in a different county and shouldn't even been allowed to be a cop again.
According to that 811 people were shot and killed by police in 2016 who had a weapon. So a significant % of those killed did indeed have a weapon. I clicked on a few stories of unarmed people shot and killed by police and in some cases it seems obviously justified eg they were driving a vehicle as a weapon or attacked an officer reaching for the officers weapon.
In other cases its less so, eg man killed on 12 December after neighbours mistook his crucifix for a gun or 22 November where a teenager was shot in the back for running from the police or 16 September where a mans car broke down in the road and was shot by police despite clearly complying with instructions.
Don't downvote blindly, I was really wondering how "lawful" death could occur without gun in self defense.
That's also a not entirely uncommon occurence.
USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged...
Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semira_Adamu
South Africa http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/south-african-police-suff...
Sweden http://filmingcops.com/witnesses-horrified-as-cop-beats-and-...