Mapping Police Violence
mappingpoliceviolence.org
mappingpoliceviolence.org
And yet when I was clicking through the cases most of them seemed to be armed suspects that were shooting at other people and/or at the officers arriving at the scene. In which case I don't see how shooting at the suspect should be condemned in any way.
Maybe I'm missing something here? I'm all in for charging and convicting unlawful use of violence and firearms by the police but this website seems a bit misleading to me because it misrepresents the scope of the problem. It would be much more useful to prove its point if it only showed cases where the suspect was not armed and dangerous.
If you look at the rate per 10 Million people, we're right in-between Mexico and Bangladesh with 28.4
Germany is 1.3, UK is 0.5, Japan is 0.2
That tells me there's a problem that isn't solved by breaking the numbers into two columns of justified and non-justified.
If you think the police are going to kill you either way, you might as well go out shooting! In the UK you know the police are going to respectfully arrest you and treat you well, so might as well give in rather than escalate it to a firefight.
But generally I think it's crazy that the police in the US are armed. Most policing doesn't need lethal weaponry, and community officers shouldn't be armed. Leave guns to specialist units when required.
I know Floyd wasn't killed with a gun, but I think disarming the police would be the right response and first step towards reducing police violence, as it de-escalates every interaction.
I agree this will be the case most of the time, but it's worth pointing out this is not always the case.
The MET in particular are rather infamous for their level of institutionalised racism, which while undoubtedly better than it used to be, still leaves much to be considered.
Anecdotally, I have family members in the police force in London and in Scotland. The ones in London like to regale others with tales of how much they enjoy donning their riot gear and using any excuse to batter people, especially if they are black. The ones in Scotland tell of how prisoners are routinely abused - usually at a "minor" level, such as slapping a prisoner for no reason, but in one indicent a prisoner's head was smashed off a radiator.
If this is true then you need to immediately report it to MPS DPS and IOPC.
Unless you are lying, you absolutely have a civic duty to report what you heard.
> you absolutely have a civic duty to report
Real-life is just a tad more complicated than that.
As much as I abhor what they've said, they are family, and I'd liklely be ostracised by other close family members. In any case, effectively the evidence is my word against theirs from something they said a few years ago. Something they could simply claim didn't happen, or that they were just kidding around. If I was going to report it, the time to do so would have been then. Should I have done so? I battled with decision at that at the time, but ultimately didn't for the reasons I already mentioned.
As I said, it's complicated.
I was trying to say that you had no reason for not reporting it (based on what you had said - it's too old, it's my word against theirs etc).
Obviously now you've suggested you have your own personal reasons. That's completely different and totally up to you. I was only commenting on the objections you had raised previously, which suggested you thought your information had no value, when it does.
UK police are racist and they subject black people to disproportionate use of police powers.
The reasons for this are many fold, ranging from poorer opportunities and education to more severe punishments for crimes committed.
That said, extrajudicial killings are extraordinarily rare in the UK. I don't think anyone, even someone from those communities, would ever expect to die during an interaction with the police in normal circumstances. While in the US it's becoming clear that there is a real fear of any police interaction being escalated to that point.
It does happen though, and it disproportionately happens to black people. https://twitter.com/korrinesky/status/1267085008210210816?s=...
Moving away from law enforcement to mental health treatment we see black people are more likely to be detained under the mental health act, spend longer in detention, are more likely to be on CTOs, are more likely to be on forensic sections. In hospital they're more likely to be subjected to seclusion, restraint, and rapid tranquillisation.
Criminals carry guns because other criminals carry guns, and because prospective victims generally do not carry guns.
Most criminals are not going to be interested to pull a gun on the police. If they can make the gun disappear when encountering the police, they will.
> In the UK you know the police are going to respectfully arrest you and treat you well, so might as well give in rather than escalate it to a firefight.
In the UK you also don't face the same penalties. If it's twenty-five to life, people are likely to resist arrest by all means.
> But generally I think it's crazy that the police in the US are armed. Most policing doesn't need lethal weaponry, and community officers shouldn't be armed. Leave guns to specialist units when required.
Sure, most policing doesn't need arms, but most behavior doesn't need policing either.
If you were a police officer, would you, unarmed, engage another person wielding a hatchet? I'd say that's unlikely. Would you even take the job if you were unarmed?
Of course that means police kill/injure fewer people, but they also prevent fewer people from killing or injuring others.
> I know Floyd wasn't killed with a gun, but I think disarming the police would be the right response and first step towards reducing police violence, as it de-escalates every interaction.
It would de-escalate in the sense that there won't be any policing. Officers aren't going to engage a potentially armed criminal with just pepper spray.
If you could assume that the person you are trying to arrest most likely does not carry a gun, like in Europe, it would be different. That's just not going to happen in the US.
Great example! Here's how the UK engage someone wielding a machete, without guns or any other weapons beside extendable batons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY
They try to deescalate, they bring in reinforcements, they surround, then they disarm him using shields, not weapons, and he survives to stand a fair trial. No guns needed.
And if they thought they couldn't arrest him using shields they could call in a specialist firearms unit, who are specifically trained, authorised, and accountable.
Look, in this case maybe the screaming guy didn't actually intend to hurt anyone. You can tell by the fact that he isn't actually attacking. There also weren't any victims or bystanders involved.
Now, what happens if somebody actually tries to assault people? The perpetrator gets shot from a safe distance when those "special units" finally arrive:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50594810
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-51349664
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/09/westminster-...
In the US, this man would be dead. Here, he survived. That's not ridiculous.
> Now, what happens if somebody actually tries to assault people? The perpetrator gets shot from a safe distance, when those "special units" finally arrive:
Yes - that's how it should be. Leave an actual firefight to specially appointed marksman with specialist weapons, not day-to-day officers waving pistols around. And they don't need those weapons when attending other incidents.
Well alright, that's one machete-wielding life that was saved. How many non-machete-wielding lives are lost by having an underpowered police force?
I guess we'll never know.
> That's not ridiculous.
It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize the threat, which may not even have been a real threat.
> Yes - that's how it should be. Leave an actual firefight to specially appointed marksman with specialist weapons, not day-to-day officers waving pistols around. And they don't need those weapons when attending other incidents.
So, you get called to a minor domestic disturbance, the unarmed cops show up and it turns out that the guy in question "upgraded" to a kitchen knife. They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the properly equipped force shows up.
I'm sure there's a trade-off between having police officers armed and dangerous versus having them be harmless. However, most countries in Europe - even those with low crime rates - choose to arm their officers. Deadly incidents remain rare:
So just kill people to save a handful of officers having to spend 15 minutes sorting a situation out?
> So, you get called to a minor domestic disturbance, the unarmed cops show up and it turns out that the guy in question "upgraded" to a kitchen knife. They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the properly equipped force shows up.
How do you think it works in practice in the UK at the moment? If someone attacks you with a kitchen knife you can defend yourself and arrest them using a baton or a Tazer - you don't need a gun that's an insane murderous overreaction.
Our rate of both people killed by the police, and people killed by other people, is very low. Learn from what we're doing.
That's a false dichotomy. What if it had been only two officers? That would be the situation if there happened to be a patrol around.
How do you know how the crazy guy would've reacted when facing a gun? Perhaps he would have surrendered.
What about the officer's safety? Having a gun doesn't mean you have to shoot it, it means you have better means to defend yourself and others.
The fact that almost all other police forces in Europe have guns but then tend to not fire them at people tells me that guns are not the problem.
Either way, I'm not willing to put the lives of police officers on the line just to save a couple of machete-wielding crazy people from a "suicide by cop" situation.
> How do you think it works in practice in the UK at the moment? If someone attacks you with a kitchen knife you can defend yourself and arrest them using a baton or a Tazer - you don't need a gun that's an insane murderous overreaction.
No it isn't. If you are getting attacked with a knife, you and or other person, officer or not, are morally and legally entitled to defend yourself and others with lethal force.
For your own safety, don't bring a baton to a knife fight. You can not intervene at a distance and you're risking your life.
As for Tazers, they don't have the same psychological impact as a gun and they have limited range. You're welcome to use them, but I wouldn't put my or any officer's body on the line just to prevent the attacker from harm.
Statistics give clues, and strongly suggest the method is quite effective at saving non-machete-wielding lives.
> It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize the threat, which may not even have been a real threat.
I think what you're implying here is that it's ridiculous to spend a few hours of a few officers work day to save a life.
Better to kill someone, at least it's over quickly and doesn't need as much... salary?
> They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the properly equipped force shows up.
The point of the video is that, indeed, they are effective at keeping someone occupied until the properly equipped force shows up, and that it is possible to do that without just killing people when they are freaking out.
It is hardly just trivia questions. If you were paying attention to the video, the positioning of the cars and officers was intentional, to contain the situation while de-escalating it.
No, it's ridiculous to keep a threat going for so long. Remember that it is a threat? For how long exactly should these officers be expected to have a machete wielded at their face?
> Better to kill someone, at least it's over quickly and doesn't need as much... salary?
That's not how it would work in a standoff like this. First, you present the gun. That might change the perpetrator's mind. Then, you fire a warning shot. That might change the perpetrator's mind. Then, you shoot at the legs. If that doesn't change the perpetrator's mind, it's going to seriously impede their ability to cause harm.
If the perpetrator chooses to initiate an assault, all bets are off. They're getting shot, but also injury to others is likely going to be prevented.
> The point of the video is that, indeed, they are effective at keeping someone occupied until the properly equipped force shows up, and that it is possible to do that without just killing people when they are freaking out.
How do you know that this was effective? Show me a situation with an attacker actually ready to initiate an assault. The situation couldn't have been brought under control. For example:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/22/police-briti...
https://news.sky.com/story/police-officer-critical-after-bei...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-49273979
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/man-charged-stabbing-p...
We do know, if you'd care to find out, because homicide and suicide rates are significantly lower in the UK and other countries without armed police than the US.
A domestic is a perfect example of a situation where coming in with guns will get people killed.
That's not how you know anything. First of all, the vast majority of countries around the world have armed police, so there's very few samples to work with.
Of course you'll have trouble finding any country with a high homicide rate where the police isn't armed, but you can easily find countries where homicides are extremely rare and police are still armed, for example Japan.
Suicide is mostly cultural. Korea, a country with extremely low crime rates has a very high suicide rate. In the Philippines, police are literally executing suspects in the streets, yet the suicide rate is very low. In Syria, a war torn country, suicide is even lower than that.
https://www.businessinsider.com/michigan-open-carry-laws-leg...
But in places with criminals being heavily armed, having unarmed police, just makes the police more vulnerable.
In the US a criminal needs to be ready to defend themselves to the death in any interaction with the police. In the UK, they don't.
Why does a police officer in a nice suburban area who attends things like noisy parties... carry a lethal firearm? That's absolutely crazy to me, and should be to everyone else.
But this is (literally) overkill in my opinion. You could justify a flamethrower by saying 'they'd use it for their protection'. Most community police officers do not need to carry lethal weapons as they do not need that level of protection. They're patrolling communities, not war zones.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ckwnky8QQfgBCZ2p2Lcw...
It's not that surprising IMO for a country where there are so many guns for the police to encounter more hostile situations that require utilizing their gun for theirs and others protection.
Guns are a weapon that quickly escalates any situation to life or death.
It was a long time ago so I probably butchered the description, but I thought it was profound.
Not at all. The idea is that the state has a mandate from its citizens to exercise violence (within due limits) to enforce the decisions of the citizens. It's a monopoly because citizens don't have the right to use violence against each other, and even if they do the state is guaranteed to be able to respond with enough force to make it stop.
> In effect, Americans have contractually given the state the essential powers of violence but still keep the means to take that power back.
This justification to arms ownership always strikes me as delusional. Whatever the amount of weapons in circulation there is absolutely no way American citizens could fight their own police and their own army.
Do people have the right to self defense? Are police legally obligated to keep you safe?
>there is absolutely no way American citizens could fight their own police and their own army
Please tell me the last time America won a war against a militia or insurrection embedded in the civilian population.
Of course, but that's a last resort. You cannot ask someone who is in risk of imminent harm not to defend him/herself, although that should be the minimum use of force needed to fend off the danger (in the US as usual the law is less strict, in Europe you can shoot to defend your life but if it's proven that in that exact moment your life wasn't in danger you'll be charged).
> Please tell me the last time America won a war against a militia or insurrection embedded in the civilian population.
A clear case must be in 1865, when the Union won the civil war- at the cost of between 600k and 1 million dead. But there's of endless instances of the US police or national guard using force to repress protests, uprising and terrorism- as it is normal. It's hard to say whether these movements could have been more widespread if they hadn't been repressed through intelligence and use of force.
But can you point out an example of when a militia or an insurrection won against the US police or national guard?
Afghanistan, 2016.
Why would I think that?
I'm saying that from the violence monopoly everything else is upheld by a first principle approach. If the state is overthrown the violence monopoly is either upheld by a new group, or you have no governing state.
So criminals actually don’t have easy access to guns in these countries, and post terrorism our secret police forces and Europol tracks guns rather well, typically leading to arrests before anyone get to use their guns.
In Switzerland, it's very easy[0] to acquire a weapons, the requirements are:
- you must be at least 18 years old,
- you must not be subject to a deputyship or a supervision order,
- you must not give any cause to assume that you could harm yourself or anyone else with the weapon,
- you must not have a criminal record for violent or dangerous offences or repeated felonies or misdemeanours.
Middle of Nowheretown USA (and Canada for that matter) tends to have astronomically high gun ownership rates and astronomically low "gun crime" or any violent crime other than domestic violence and people who are known to each other engaging in fisticuffs over preexisting disputes. I don't think it's the mandatory class you need to pretend not to sleep though and bureaucratic red tape that's keeping people from shooting each other. It's the lack of a society and economy (victim supply) capable of sustaining a "large enough to show up in the statistics" number of career violent criminals that keeps violent crime and therefore gun crime low in both places.
The crazy high crime, murder and incarceration rates in USA aren't caused by population size. They are caused by inequalities inherent in American system.
If a whole class of your society can't hope for their kids to get a white collar job, and have to fear losing their house if they ever get seriously ill - that's not a stable basis for a peaceful society.
I really hate how I find myself having to go to greater and greater lengths to disclaim my words around here to not have them twisted or stretched to imply something.
US murder and incarceration rates are more or less solely caused by the war on drugs. Once you remove people who are involved in the manufacture, transportation and sale of illicit substances from the crime stats the place looks a lot like the better parts of western Europe.
Yes, wealth equality, social mobility and healthcare have a hell of a lot of room for improvement but they are not the driver of violence in the US. Forcing a multi-billion dollar industry to exist outside the law is what is driving violence.
> US murder and incarceration rates are more or less solely caused by the war on drugs
That's what you would expect if drug trade is the most profitable crime, no matter if drugs are the reason these people went into crime in the first place. If you can't afford your expected lifestyle within the system you go outside the system. Once there you choose the crime with the highest profit per risk factor.
There's plenty of countries that penalize drug ownership that have order of magnitude less crime than USA.
Edit: to clarify, i'm talking about the suspected "original" crime, eg. a robbery, and not the shooting part. The shooting should of course be investigated, but i see no point in holding a full trial for the robbery part, if the suspect is already dead, and if there is no actual benefit for anyone.
Are you sure about this? American Police don’t have to account for each bullet while on duty? They can shoot indiscriminately?
Or are you just saying this because it sounds sorta true and you don’t think anyone will disagree?
““You can get online today and figure out how many tickets were sold to ‘The Martian,’ which I saw this weekend. . . . The CDC can do the same with the flu,” he continued. “It’s ridiculous — it’s embarrassing and ridiculous — that we can’t talk about crime in the same way, especially in the high-stakes incidents when your officers have to use force.””
“In New York, state officials now require a special prosecutor to investigate any death at the hands of police. In Texas, lawmakers recently approved legislation requiring local police to report shootings by their officers.”
“Until now, federal officials have relied on local police to report officer-involved shootings, but reporting is voluntary and typically occurs months after the fact.”
If you consider what happens in other countries, what happens when a citizen shoots someone, what is required of American police when they shoot someone and the accountability police face when they shoot someone unreasonably — it’s pretty clear “indiscriminately” and “with impunity” are valid descriptions of the current situation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fbi-director-calls-l...
What you’re referring to is a centralized federal registry you can do a simple query on. Yes, that doesn’t fully exist right now, because reporting numbers to a central federal authority is new, and currently voluntary.
But do you honestly think this means we don’t keep track of times officers use their guns, on a local level? That officers are simply not responsible in any way for using their gun on duty?
> Until someone is convicted of a crime in America, they are presumed innocent. I don't see why that should change just because a suspect was killed before they could be tried. All police killings should be thoroughly investigated. The statistic that 99% of them do not lead to legal punishment is extremely suspicious.
The first part, suspect innocent until proven guilty (for the original crime, the one police got called for), and i see no point in going further with the trial for the original crime, if there is no point to be made (eg. trial for robbery, having the store owner come to court, proving was there a robbery, proving the suspect was the one robbing the store, etc.).
The shooting (so robber vs. police) part should of course be investigated.
- Suspect allegedly robs a store. Store owner calls police.
- Police finds suspect, yells "stop, police!", suspect starts shooting at the police.
- Police fires back, kills suspect.
- After that, the shooting investigation starts (or atleast should start).
All I'm saying is, that due to suspect being dead, the trial for the robbery is not needed (if noone gains anything from that). Yes, shooting, attempted murder, and everything else is valid and should be investigated, go to trial, etc. But the robbery itself, in my opinion doesn't that much anymore.
If the suspect survived the shooting, then of course, investigating the robbery should be done TOO (checking security footage, search warrant to find stolen stuff, etc), next to attempted murder etc.
I cant figure out why would you assumed either first or second. The actual sentence is clear, killed people.
But also, guilt is not valid reason for police to kill someone. Guilty people should be sentenced by court and death sentence should be treated carefully. The person have to be active threat and no other way possible. "He was guilty, therefor it is ok to kill him" does not cut it.
> 99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime.
If someone wrote...
> "1099 patients died after being treated by cardiologists in Nevada. Thus far, 99% of them have not yet faced any charges."
While "technically correct" it is obviously intended to deceive the reader.
It uses similar data for 2017 and illustrates that 149 out of 1147 people killed by police during that year were unarmed (~12.9% of cases).
It also highlights some differences in the demographics of the people who suffered as a result of police violence; I mention that because it's relevant to these topics appearing on Hacker News currently.
This is why leftists and other zealots have brought us into the post fact world.
Sorry, facts don't care about your feelings.
Since 2018, more police officers have been killed by blacks than the other way around. Blacks are substantially overrepresented in murders of police officers. [0]
This is not to say that there isn't a problem with police violence, ridiculous militarisation after 9/11 or the way police are being trained, because there is. But those one-sided takes aren't helping.
[0] https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1266926255082999810?s=20
Maybe some people realized that after constant harassment and threats, their only recourse was to get armed and protect themselves from the police.
That wasn't exactly my point though: there will always be justification for violence. MLK and Ghandi were great men because they saw that the escalating spiral of death and violence cannot be stopped by retribution.
What happens now will devastate black communities, encourage white flight, and possibly tip the next elections. Its not the first time, we've seen this happen before.
What do you think the premise of the map is? You are saying to disagree with the premise but then you simply argue with the "implications" of the data. What premise are you disagreeing with?
Blacks and other minorities in America today are treated with the same callous disregard as Libyans, Afghanis, Iraqi's and Yemeni are treated by its out of control military industrial pharmaceutical complex - every single day for decades.
Sure, you know who George Floyd is, because he was an American citizen and American media is not banned from reporting on his death. But, do you know who Saleh Matasher Tomal was? Got any clue who Saeed Chmagh was? Namir Noor-Eldeen? These are also victims of Americas out of control obsession with violent authority over what self-appointed political judges, proven war criminals, have deemed to be lesser human beings.
If you want America to change its ways within its borders, you have to start prosecuting the real crimes against humanity that are committed in the name of every single American citizen outside its borders.
This is where the actual trouble starts: war criminals, getting away with it, then turn their troubled death cult psyche towards American society and apply the same heinous policies towards the people they truly hate ...
For example - to me, a more plausible hypothesis in this "modern world" would be that people from poor neighbourhoods suffer from police violence more. Has anyone correlated those police departments with median income?
Even statistical claims on this website seem charged to me sometimes - for example this is the first sentence on the site "Black people were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population." - however upon (superficial) research - in 2016[1] of all crimes committed 26.9% were by black perpetrators. So in relation to that statistic - the other percentage doesn't seem that surprising any more. But without that extra piece of info the whole sentence (any maybe the whole site) exhibits bias because the correlation is skewed.
[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
You have, in other words constructed exactly the sort of thinly-supported narrative that you complained about in your opening salvo. We do live in 2020 and racism -- not "race" -- is in fact a problem, no matter what you'd like to imagine.
Of course class-related analyses are available, but I'm not sure how much value there is to be had in continuing to engage on this topic before you take an opportunity to consider deeply what conclusions you are comfortable accepting and which ones you are merely interested in rendering less "surprising."
I apologize if this comment comes across as hostile; I find your assessment here to be highly offensive. It's one thing to attempt to maintain objectivity; it's another to speak with such detachment and lack of self-awareness as to make it extremely difficult to accept your text at face value.
For one - I believe there is never sufficient justification for "onsite execution". I don't see how looking at convictions vs. arrests changes anything about that? We could compare it to convictions if you'd like - the gap might be even larger I believe.
My main point was that I hypothesise most of these issues are in fact due to income inequality more than anything else. It's still a huge issue - but a whole other issue - why that income inequality gap might be larger within the black population in the US.
Crime rate vs. number of persons killed is something that I find a lot more comfortable accepting then just blindly comparing the relations to the total population. It would be just as easy for me to question your detachment from reality or the lack of self-awareness.
Predicts markers in this topic, ie traits of people that allow someone looking at a set of data to make a prediction about who end up killed by the police and who doesn't, would not list racism at the top. If I attempt an simplified meta analyze on the research, I would list at the top gender which the human brain determine at an exceptional speed. Second are social economic status symbols and signals. After that and in third place I would place in-group association with either minority or majority groups, ie the result of racism, homophobia, xenophobia and so on.
Prediction models don't have a narratives. You get a set of data and after that you should be able to make risk profiles that match future data sets. If given 1000 people in a given area, a prediction model would pull out risk profiles of who are more likely to end up being killed by the police. Statistically over time the risk profiles would then match the outcomes. Those with lowest risk profile of getting shot by the police would, if we follow the above ordering: female, high status, and part of a majority group. Highest risk would be male, low status, and part of a minority group.
What we want to do with such model is a separate issue, including if we want to apply it to the current events. I would note that gender, social economic status and in-group association all effects how the brain perceive threats and get amplified in threatening situations.
I believe police killings are caused by racial and inequality factors, but I can't tell to what extent.
What do you think? How have you concluded that, taking into account confounding factors?
Nobody said it is. Every police killing is unique and justified or unjustified based on the particular circumstances.
> For another thing, the table you linked is arrests -- not convictions, not even charges filed.
Suppose you are about to arrest someone who presumably committed a homicide that carries a severe sentence, are you going to take any chances? Suppose you were to be arrested for that crime, are you not likely to use any means necessary to avoid getting arrested? Under these circumstances, the chances of a lethal altercation rise dramatically.
Therefore, whichever population cohort commits more homicides is going to skew its share of police killings upwards. African-Americans accounted for 52% of homicide convictions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
If you accept the possibility that police killings may be skewed by racism, why are you simply assuming that arrests (and therefore trials and convictions) are not?
All I did was just interpret the existing numbers and correlate them to other statistics that make more sense to me (if we're talking about race and the percentage of single ethnicity in the number total of deaths, then to me it makes a lot more sense to look at the percentage of crime that ethnicity committed in total).
Again - I'm trying very hard to detach the issue from emotions/race and just look at the numbers. Why there is a disproportional number of black people in the US being arrested or killed is certainly appalling - but its also a whole other issue.
Saying that it may be true is accepting the possibility :)
> All I did was just interpret the existing numbers and correlate them to other statistics that make more sense to me
My point is that the correlation may obscure more than it reveals.
It's like if someone in the Tower of Pisa said: "this windowsill is crooked, the vases I put there keep falling", and someone responded "that can't be, I measured it against the floor and they're perfectly parallel".
> Again - I'm trying very hard to detach the issue from emotions/race and just look at the numbers.
I understand that. But which numbers and comparisons are relevant, and which conclusions can be produced from such comparisons, is a matter of discussion.
> Why there is a disproportional number of black people in the US being arrested or killed is certainly appalling - but its also a whole other issue.
This I have to confess I don't understand. The site is trying to answer that exact question, and their answer is "racism". Now, they may be wrong, but I don't see how it's another issue... what issue are you focusing on, then?
Only if you completely ignore the other part of that same sentence :)
> This I have to confess I don't understand. The site is trying to answer that exact question, and their answer is "racism". Now, they may be wrong, but I don't see how it's another issue... what issue are you focusing on, then?
Think I covered that in my original comment (and the subsequent ones too) - was just not convinced that "racism" is the correct answer and questioning the reasoning behind it.
The ruling class wants race war to distract from their class war.
https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-...
Having your kids not working a day in their life with inheritance money might be ok but grandkids?
When will being black in America no longer “correlate” with poverty and pessimism? If Americans want to focus on poverty and move past matters of racial cruelty, ought they not deal with the odor in the air? What does Black 2030 mean in America?
The uncomfortable fact is that black people also commit a disproportionate amount of the crime in the USA.
I was curious to see whether these police killings are disproportionate to the amount of crime being committed. Is a black criminal 3x more likely to get killed than a white criminal?
Digging into the numbers, on this database there were 3,379 killings of white people by police, and 1,945 black people. In 2018 there were 589k property crimes committed by white people, vs. 264k by black people. [1]
For each black crime, there were 2.2 white crimes.
For each black killing, there were 1.7 white killings.
So, yes, the data does support that black crime leads to a disproportionate amount of killings at the hand of the police, even accounting for higher rates of crime. A black criminal is 30% more likely to die at the hands of the police than a white criminal. Not 3x, however.
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-propert...
EDIT: dead comment below points to some other statistics from the FBI: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
If we look at the rates of violent crime categories only (murder, robbery, and aggravated assault), the data actually indicates that a greater proportion of these crimes are committed by black perpetrators.
There are 1.6 white perpetrators of aggravated assault per black perpetrator, 0.8 white robbers per black robber, and 0.85 white murderers per black murderer.
This suggest that in this category, the police killings are actually disproportionate in that more white people are killed by police than the rates of violent crime committed would warrant.
Capital punishment is the mechanism through which the justice system has the right to kill people for their crimes. Cops do not have the authority to decide who is guilty, let alone what their punishment will be. Therefore I ask again, how is the crime rate of black people (even if that number is taken in good faith and not heavily questioned as any competent statistician should) relevant when we are discussing how often officers murder black people, before a court has decided whether they have actually committed a crime or not?
Cops do have the legal authority to use lethal force on people resisting arrest if there's probable cause for injury to themselves or others.
I'm rather confused as to what the conclusion is here. Reading through the entire introduction of the paper, my impression is that it supports that there is not a statistically significant discrimination in the numbers of shootings of black people by officers; that in a similar situation, race does not increase the likelihood of a shooting. Am I reading this right?
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... In all crime categories which are more likely to be violent, blacks are over-represented.
Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun availability. Just few weeks back I was listening to a podcast where one of the guys went to US for couple weeks for vacations. They discussed the difference of the approach of the police.
Where I am, it's usually silly, when cop stops my car he salutes in overly formal way and in really angry tone (like really really angry) described what I have done and if I comply if not. Probably 99% of the danger for the cop him/herself is that I'm going to curse him and his family 3 generations back.
Whereas in US, it's all about police-safety first. They will scan back of the car, will ask (demand even) absolute compliance. This makes sense (to some degree, as police person is protecting their own life) since I could have a weapon and be a criminal or maybe even insane enough to try to pull this stunt. After living with this possibility for a while and having to estimate situation dozen if not hundreds time each day it's not surprising that police killings do happen.
613 of those 1089 killings in 2019 (56%) were gun related. And that's 75% of the "victim armed" cases. In contrary only 119 victims were confirmed to be unarmed.
That's probably something completely different than the authors wanted to communicate, but I think it shows how complex the matter is and undoubtedly can't be attributed to only single class of the issues.
Almost no effect. I live in a state where over 2/3 of people own guns (usually multiple guns) and we have one of the lowest murder rates in America and a very low rate of police killing.
Of course, there is some bleed over from adjacent counties, but I'd suspect (guess) many of them are holding other types of weapons.
I don't mean to criticize the animated map, as it's impactful, just not very good for understanding the geography of the problem. e.g. are all US cities like this, or is it disproportionately a few of them? is the problem clustered spatially in particular regions?
[1] http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/
Crazy high incarceration levels for a developed country, high crime levels, huge number of healthcare-related bankrupcies, low level of higher education and inescapable student's debt gating higher class jobs, huge inequalities, decreasing standards of living for the middle class.
Basically it looks like either the system will change or fail altogether.
I'm not even sure these riots are about race.
From another side, in my country, when a few people were hurt (but not killed) by police, during police operation, it ended with months of protests. And also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure people would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up to pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation.
Don;t get me wrong, we respect police. But we are not afraid of police. They serve us, we are not their cattle. From perspective of my culture, which I'm not stating is the best, U.S. people with all their amendments look like voiceless lambs. Police officer drives into crowd and crowd lets that car through. They do not break glass, do not cut tires, do not pull that officer off the car to describe with expressive gestures how upset they are by his actions.
For a comparison here's an intervention from my city that got viral a few months ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw
Everybody involved is white, but here everybody is white, it's just not a factor.
The US transition to end slavery (ca 1860) was very violent, and the US attempt to end lynching (ca 1960) was not without deaths.
I imagine it's impossible to see an accurate picture of the US through the distorted lens of both the news media and social media.
We need better media tools.
For most of us here - things are normal.
I imagine it's impossible to see an accurate picture of the US through the distorted lens of both the news media and social media.
We need better media tools.
6x more black guys killed than white? That does not mean anything. What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime?
"27 days without killing anybody" - if the country were to be 600M or 1B big, it would probably have just 1 day - it doesn't mean anything really.
99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies.
Why do people mess up good ideas, with cheap sensationalism?
this is adressed on the page, where it is noted that the rate of black people murdered does not correlate with crime rates in that area.
>99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies.
Its an interesting number at least because it shows that regardless of what cops actually do, the justice system rarely/never holds them accountable for it. Perhaps you could say that 99% of the times that cops kill someone its "justified" but that number is very, very unlikely to be up there.
Regardless, I think this is more than simply sensationalism and presents some very interesting facts on a topic that is very relevant today.
Because it works.
It also increases the likelihood than someone will be “engaged” enough to forward the link into virality, and thereby increasing traffic.
Those which does not do this will be ignored and replaced by those who do. The data used in this project have been available to everyone, and many have undoubtedly done presentations about it. Have we seen those more reasonable versions here on HN or as viral features on social media? No. Because they’re not interesting enough. In order to be noticed, you have to crank your interestingness factor to the max.
There's a difference between x12 black guys committing a crime and x12 black guys convicted of a crime.
>99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were innocent old ladies.
Yes, America presumes innocence.
Does the USA do trials for the dead people?
- "Compare Places" -> "Compare States" shows consequences for officers involved.
- The 10 highest rated police departments in CA are in Tracy, San Mateo, Carlsbad, Palo Alto, Tustin, Escondido, Alameda, Mountain View, Chula Vista and Salinas. It is interesting to note that East Palo Alto (once the crime capital of the US) is in San Mateo.
- Is it possible to design a system with zero unjustified killings / violence?
- Can you program 100% of policemen to be 100% lawful all the time? If not, what is the expected failure rate of the system, and how far is the US from that number?
Obligatory disclaimer, I am one of those people who think it is justified to use violence against violent criminals, and shoot criminals who imminently endanger anyone. From what I read on social media, this does not seem to be a universally held view.
Incidentally I find that this whole topic is so emotionally charged that people tend to speak in absolutes and frankly that is just not something you can honestly engage with because there is no agreement on first principles, if at all there are any to begin with. Most of the talk I see surrounding the topic seems to be rooted in idealism and moral posturing with very little to offer in terms of solutions.
Here in my country India, the general public often welcomes it when the police beat up criminals. It is common for the criminal to receive their first set of beatings from the mob that captures them, and then another round during interrogation. Police shootings (colloquially referred to as "encounter-killings") happen quite often as well, and are generally assumed to be staged. Apart from a few activists, most of the country does not really care about this issue. It is incredibly privileged for American society to even be having a national conversation about police violence or police reform to begin with. The third world has largely accepted this to be a fact of life for anyone remotely involved in criminal activities, or people who dare to to stand up to corruption.
Also the race angle of police violence seems to be entirely manufactured by the media. I have yet to see a single statistic that shows a disproportionate degree of violence towards a particular race. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and from the videos I am watching online, it looks like a large number of people have removed this from their minds completely because it is not in the "news-cycle" anymore, which to me just reinforces my earlier claim that the race angle is a complete fiction invented by the media to sell advertisements, because the society at large seems to be programmable by what the news tells them.
That being said, I am 100% sure that that the many of the police across countries and cultures are biased against certain ethnicities, because that's how human brains work (pattern recognition) - is this a solvable problem either?
Indian encounter-killings occur at rates similar to German or Taiwanese. US encounter-killings occur at rates similar to Pakistani or Rwandese.
This took place _26_ years ago. Even though it was so long ago, it seems to directly reflect solutions mentioned on the site.
For the TLDR crowd:
* Too much force was being used by police
* Mental illness was a factor in some shootings / use of force (4%)
* Standardised training for all police members
* Safety first approach taken:
* - Safety of offender is included in that approach (officers first, public next, offender third)
* - Contain first, avoid confrontation, avoid force
* - If needed, only use minimum force required
* - Forced property entry only as last resort
* All police undertake mandatory 5 day mental health training
* Police to take refresher mental health training every 6 months
* Any use of force - from minor (forced fingerprinting/cuffing) through to major (riots) - to be placed on register for tracking
* Increased trends noticed in force register will be addressed in 6 monthly training
-------------------------
3. Project Beacon
The establishment of Project Beacon followed a number of shooting incidents involving the use of firearms by the Victoria police. Between 1987 and 1994, officers were involved in operational incidents which resulted in the deaths of 29 offenders or suspects. Police were required to attend 15 to 20 incidents per day where use of force was employed and up to three "critical incidents" per week. A critical incident is defined as "any incident requiring police management which involves violence or a threat of violence and is, or is potentially, life-threatening". By mid-1994 this trend became the catalyst for fundamental change in operational safety tactics and training within the Victoria police. Expert analysis revealed that a number of factors may have contributed to this increase; namely, a feeling of vulnerability within the police force, a desire on the part of the community for instant solutions and a belief within the force that "there was no one else to solve these problems".
It was also felt that this trend was in part contributed to by the de-institutionalisation of patients with mental illness in Victoria in the early 1990s. Six of nine fatal shooting incidents in 1994 by police (and one in 1995) involved persons with a mental illness. Statistics revealed that such persons were involved in 44% of all critical incidents reported to Project Beacon between October, 1994 and December, 1995. It was further noted that persons with mental illness were involved in approximately 4% of all "use of force" incidents, i.e., where force is used or threatened by or against the police. Emotionally disturbed persons attempting suicide and/or self-mutilation constituted a further 3.5% of use of force incidents. In general, a significant number of emotionally disturbed persons and people with behavioural problems, who may not have had histories of mental illness, regularly came to the police attention.
A number of reviews, both internal and with the assistance of international policing experts, were undertaken in an attempt to identify solutions. On 6th April, 1994, the Commissioner of the Victoria police, Mr. Neil Comrie, wrote to all commissioned officers emphasising the philosophy that "the success of an operation will primarily be judged by the extent to which the use of force is avoided or minimised".
On 19th September, 1994, Project Beacon was established and involved the standardisation of training so that all officers were trained to the same level of competence. The core principles of Project Beacon inform the response to every incident and the planning of operations which may involve any potential use of force. These core principles may be summarised as follows:
* "Safety First — the safety of police, the public and the offender or suspect is paramount.
* Risk Assessment — is to be applied to all incidents and operations.
* Take Charge — effective command and control must be exercised.
* Planned Response — every opportunity should be taken to convert an unplanned response into a planned operation.
* Cordon and Containment — unless impractical, a cordon and containment approach is to be adopted.
* Avoid Confrontation — a violent confrontation is to be avoided.
* Avoid Force — the use of force is to be avoided.
* Minimum Force — where the use of force is to be avoided, only the minimum amount reasonably necessary is to be used.
* Forced Entry Searches — are to be used only as a last resort.
* Resources — it is accepted that the "safety first" principle may require the deployment of more resources, more complex planning and more time to complete".
The primary principle of Project Beacon is "safety first". The safety of the police officer is paramount, followed by the safety of the public and the safety of the subject. Mr. Shuey utilised the example of a doctor attending a collision to treat a patient: "the doctor wouldn’t stand in the middle of the road to do the treatment of the patient because he would be exposing himself to the risk of being run over by a car". If the police officer is in a position of security, he or she will be more competent and capable of handling the situation. If a police officer is not involved in anything which is unsafe, he will have a clearer perspective of what is happening and be able to deal with the situation accordingly. If you expose a police officer to a "kill or be killed" situation, the risk of a fatal confrontation increases.
A significant objective of Project Beacon was to assist police in dealing with persons with mental illness, emotionally disturbed individuals and persons with behavioural problems. Project Beacon, in collaboration with the Victoria Department of Health and Community Services, developed a comprehensive integrated approach for dealing with such persons which was incorporated into police training courses. The training involved video scenarios and role-playing and in December, 1995, a video called "Similar Expectations" was produced. It offered a range of methods for dealing with persons with mental illness, and provided advice from mental health experts. The video received widespread acceptance in law enforcement and mental health agencies and was automatically incorporated into every police officer’s training; it was not confined to the training of those who participated in dedicated negotiators courses. Further training programmes were developed by persons with expertise in psychiatric mental health with the assistance of a police psychologist.
8,500 police officers, student and operational, were placed on an initial, five day training course complemented by mandatory two-day refresher training every six months. It is now part of ongoing training of police officers in the state of Victoria. Training for the Special Operations Group is rigorous and ongoing, taking place on most occasions when its members are not involved in operational response duties.
A "use of force register" is now maintained by the Victoria Police. Use of force incidents range from the forcible obtainment of fingerprints and handcuffing, through to riot situations. All such incidents are recorded in the register. This enables the police force in Victoria to track the number of incidents where force is a factor, and enables trend analysis in relation to the type of force and weapons that are used. This acts as a "catalyst" for the next six months of training. The information is analysed and if there is an excessive increase in crimes involving firearms or knives etc., the training in the following six months will be highlighted in that direction.
Another slight difference is we generally only have 1 police force per state. You can transfer between different stations/areas - but they are all under control of a single state body. If you stuff up badly enough to get fired from one - you can't transfer. You could theoretically go to a different state - but you'd need to declare any past history and if it's bad you won't get a job there either.
In total we have less than about 30 law enforcement agencies nation-wide - including state police, military, fisheries, federal police, prisons and border control.
It's my understanding in the US there are many many police agencies - per county as well as schools, banks, etc. Which adds up to around 18,000 over 50 states.
For our schools or shops we have security guards which have different training and far less powers than police. They basically have the similar powers to a normal citizen. They are used more as a deterrent rather than anything functional.
As a contrast 3 people died at the hands of the police in the UK in 2019.
They also collect statistics of why every single shot happened, which distance, what the person they shot at was armed with and the legal basis of the shot https://polisen.se/siteassets/dokument/ovriga_rapporter/poli... (PDF, Swedish)
But there are many things that could be improved by changing training, guidelines and accountability.
In Denmark it's a use-of-force to draw a weapon or even more your hand into position to draw (or even signaling the ability to do so). Such events have to be counted, and officers held accountable.
In the US police often draw or move hand into position as routine procedure on a traffic stop.
You are right, it can't be fixed purely through police training and policies, but you could make inroads.
Never, ever, ever, claim that another country does something better than the US. You will be flooded by US Exceptionalism.
Then again: https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...
Oddly enough, while attempting to say another country does (in a single particular instance, not even overall) something better than the US, only gets downvotes to negative, when I actually attempt to defend the US (some of my best friends are Americans!), the whole tree gets flagged.
In US social mores, is it considered uppity to mention that other countries and other people exist?
On topic: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/chmVn/3/ 12 uses (not necessarily deadly) of a gun in 2018 would be what, 480, scaled to US population? In the last 20 years, police snipers have had to kill once. That would be twice per year for the US.
Dear child, nobody is claiming that any police force in the whole world is better than the US police force - in killing unarmed, black people. The US police is std::exceptionally good at this.
So you think the UK police should kill more people?
[0]: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/1000-knife-crime-victi...
Interestingly the justification for carrying knives is often self-defence.
The crime figures have been falling in the UK for a long time. There has been a small uptick in knife crime, probably associated with falling police numbers (20,000 less) since the financial crisis.
0.5 per 1e8 inhabitants UK
better now?
I am also not sure why it needs to have a geographic component. Perhaps you don't really care on which block the police brutality occurred as much as the outcome of the case.
I think it's a real shame that what should be racially blind protest about police brutality that affects all communities has turned racial when the statistics for doing so really don't make much sense. Especially considering how many police forces in the US are headed by minorities and how much of the police force consists of minorities.
The statistics show all kinds of things. It would show the same for men vs women, young vs old, it would even show the same poor urban areas vs rich suburbs.
It's unfortunate, but also clear that certain demographics simply present a higher threat. Perhaps the police should be blind to age, race, neighbourhood and gender, but in reality that's not going to happen. It's a survival instinct we all have and if you pretend you feel less threatened when a group of young men walk pass you in a rough area compared to an elderly couple in the suburbs, then you're lying.
What you really need to be asking is whether these stats are a product of the increased threat young black men pose to the police or whether this is simply straight up racism. But the fact these statistics are not comparable to other minority ethnic groups living in the US, nor to black women, you have to question if racism is the best explanation of the data. Indeed if it is racism, it seems to be a very unusual type of racism which has prejudice specifically for young, male, poor, and of course, black individuals.
It makes it seem like this is a white against black thing and it most surely isn't (or at the very least not primarily).
For one, they add "Hispanic" in to the mix just to hint how Whites discriminate against them too, but less. However "Asian" is usually left out because they are killed and persecuted even less than "White" so that doesn't go well with the narrative.
Also, a good portion of the police force is non-white, but the front cover stories are always of a white cop killing a black man.
Police deal with criminal activity which is correlated with skin color (through poverty most likely), so it's harder to prove that the numbers are even higher than they're expected to be.
Of course apparent atrocities like George Floyd are terrible and the officers involved should be prosecuted and the rage is understandable, but the race card shouldn't be played too easily otherwise the situation is just perpetuated.
The fact that you are associating police with "white" in your head and getting upset about it is a huge part of this problem.
Perhaps the interpretation is indeed only in my head but it seems that a white cop killing a black perpetrator will generate substantially more attention and rage than any other racial combination. This in turn fuels the confirmation bias that make it seem that (white) police are just shooting unarmed black people left and right. The same site shows that black people are "only" 1.3x times more likely to be unarmed compared to white meaning that it happens a lot yet how many stories of unarmed white deaths caused mass riots?
A quote such as above implies causation, yet the numbers while technically true, don't. For example "White people are 3x times more likely to be killed by police than Asian/Pacific Islanders" is also true [0]. Also, the same source shows that "Men are 20x times more likely to be killed by police than women". All these quotes have the same structure yet only cause outrage (and imply causation) when the race/genders are in an order that confirms an implicit agenda such as white>black or men>women.
My point is that police brutality, like most things, is complicated and has many factors in play and allowing it to be hijacked to a racial discussion as "police against black thing" isn't doing anyone any good.
How is that a "white vs black thing"? That's direct evidence of the sites premise; police are more likely to be deadly violent towards black people.
The site makes no claim to causation, it's just numbers. The rest of your numbers are "whataboutism" but also continue to show that the way the police operate is problematic. That police are more likely to be brutal towards men than women is another issue, not the issue this site is trying to raise awareness off.