Hacker News Reader

Comment by CountDrewku | Hacker News Reader

Except police killings are not a "distinctly" American problem. Just because it doesn't happen as often in other wealthier western countries doesn't mean it only happens in the US.

Moreover, statistically it's still very rare despite the increase in sensationalized media coverage.

View on HN

It's statistically less rare than airline flight disasters, and yet those rightfully get plastered all over the news.

https://policeviolencereport.org/

1,127 people killed by police in the US in 2020.

https://www.airfleets.net/crash/fatalities_year.htm

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263443/worldwide-air-tra...

Somewhere between 422 and 561 people killed in 2018, a year I specifically anti-cherry-picked as being particularly high within the last few years.

At what point is cops killing people "statistically significant" for you? Because many people think that should be pretty close to zero. Especially when, as indicated in the first link I have below:

* Only 16 cases, 1.42%, resulted in any kind of judicial action.

* 601 of those cases were "police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported."

* "121 people were killed after police stopped them for a traffic violation."

I think you’re picking the wrong stats here. The article says that 55 unarmed people were killed by police last year. If armed people are killed by police in a shootout, that isn’t the same sort of obvious tragedy that a plane crash is.

Statistics around this are hard to verify. Chicago just had a 13 yr old killed. Police thought he was pointing a gun. Toy gun found on scene. But camera footage showed no gun and hands up when he was shot.

Is that classified as an armed or unarmed shooting?

Philando Castile had a gun is his car of which he informed the officer. Was that an armed or unarmed shooting?

The source I provided has the following:

* 80 unarmed.

* 65 "armed" with a vehicle.

* 180 armed with a knife or other sharp object.

* 59 armed with "another object".

* 670 armed with a gun.

* 73 undetermined.

So sure, let's just handwave that all those armed with a gun and also undetermined were justified self-defense, with whatever definition that carries. That still leaves 384 deaths.

See my other response here regarding my thoughts around "justified" killings:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26865592

It's only significant if those people were shot when it wasn't necessary. I think you'll find in the majority of these cases the shootings were more than justified and that includes many of the recent shootings/killings. If you want of fix the issue maybe try focusing on the actual problem which is the fact that these people end up in a life where they feel they need to be criminals to survive. Fix the socio-economic problems that cause this instead of what happens after they're already stuck in that lifestyle. You see this same sort of ridiculous logic in gun control as well. I'm sorry but the problem isn't as simple as taking away guns or blaming police. When people use this narrative I have question whether they actually even care about helping these people or if they want to just feel good and lie to themselves by picking out something they can easily blame. Focusing on police reform and gun control is such a white elitist argument. They can focus on a couple easy issues, pat themselves on the back and return to their lifestyles of luxury without even thinking about minorities afterwards.

Additionally, here are the leading causes of death in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Notice that unjustified police shootings aren't even close in numbers? Would you like to have a discussion about diabetes and how we fix it? Probably not, because it's fat shaming to discuss that but the extremely rare police shooting "epidemic" is what we should be scared of, not the fact that there's an actual obesity epidemic.

I think it's important to define terms. what, in your estimation, qualifies as a "justified killing"? Self defence? does the aggressive party have to be capable of lethal force in that case?

I would also like to point out that diabetes is something that an individual has some long-term control over, whereas it takes one cop with a hot trigger finger and some bad luck to get shot. The two are not remotely equivalent.

Isn't it basically legally defined already? Brandishing a weapon at a police officer seems like a pretty good bar to me.

"I would also like to point out that diabetes is something that an individual has some long-term control over, whereas it takes one cop with a hot trigger finger and some bad luck to get shot. The two are not remotely equivalent."

Oh they are plenty equivalent. Staying away from criminal activity and obeying police orders are certainly something you can control individually. That will keep you from being shot by a police officer 99+ % of the time.

What is a "justified" killing? Police are not a jury, and they are not executioners. I understand self-defense, but often these claims are made when the other person was a perceived threat and not a demonstrated threat. And that to me is a gaping issue. Police are supposed to be trained in appropriate use of lethal force, and that should mean that they are answering lethal force with lethal force. Not meeting the potential for lethal force with lethal force -- that definition can apply to practically everyone if twisted enough.

And "we" do talk about diabetes, mostly in the form of universal healthcare and drug costs. Why can't people get proper healthcare? Why does insulin cost hundreds of dollars a month?

They are in fact executioners when they deem it necessary for public safety and we have given them that option by law. Brandishing a weapon or acting violently doesn't seem like a "perceived" threat to me, it seems like an actual threat. I guess debate comes down to whether you want police to be useful or not.

"And "we" do talk about diabetes, mostly in the form of universal healthcare and drug costs. Why can't people get proper healthcare? Why does insulin cost hundreds of dollars a month?"

This is the same logic again. Focusing on what happens after someone gets in to such a bad state they need to take insulin. Why are they becoming so fat and eating such bad things that they need insulin at all? I'm so tired of the band-aid fixes. Healthcare doesn't fix shitty lifestyle choices.

If we gave them the power to kill via laws then we can take it away the same way.

>This is the same logic again. Focusing on what happens after someone gets in to such a bad state they need to take insulin. Why are they becoming so fat and eating such bad things that they need insulin at all? I'm so tired of the band-aid fixes. Healthcare doesn't fix shitty lifestyle choices.

People can have diabetes without being fat and unhealthy. And did you just say Healthcare doesnt matter, its the people making shitty choices that gives them crippling medical bills?

Your ignorance of the issues and privilege are showing something fierce.

Policing needs to be fixed. Healthcare needs to be fixed. Because something works for you doesn't mean it works for the general public.

"People can have diabetes without being fat and unhealthy."

Yes and that's called type 1 diabetes which is genetic and obviously not what we're talking about. Type 2 is a result of poor lifestyle choices that need to be dealt with before it gets so bad that the they need to take insulin to fix it. If you really want to help these people then that's how you do it, not by throwing millions at drugs afterwards. People that get to that point still have a lower life expectancy regardless of how much money you throw into "free" insulin.

"If we gave them the power to kill via laws then we can take it away the same way."

Sure and they will be less effective. Would you like to be the one to explain why a mass shooter wasn't stopped because we told police they don't have the right to use deadly force? You're not thinking this through.

> Just because it doesn't happen as often in other wealthier western countries doesn't mean it only happens in the US.

Ok, but you're looking at the rank #1 member of a power law distribution.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/

> Moreover, statistically it's still very rare despite the increase in sensationalized media coverage.

Police killings are just the tip of the spear. The US also locks up an enormous swath of its population... comparable to El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Rawanda... even 2x the rate of the country we're told is so dangerously authoritarian: Iran.

Because an enormous swath of its population is dangerous, unfortunately. The only way in recent history the US managed to lower its violent crime rate was by locking up more people via the 1994 crime bill, which is now panned as "racist". America has an underincarceration problem, and is seeing double to triple digit increases in murder over the past year following bail reform and prosecutorial discretion putting more future recidivists into the streets instead of jail.

If you believe the us has a more violent population than anywhere else in the world, have you ever bothered to interrogate as to why that is?

Or could it be the us has an issue with whay and for How long we allow police and our court systems to punish people? Could it be the us is simply over policed?

No shortage of research on this. I ask you take the time to look into this

Perhaps we’re subject to demoralization and whipped into fear and agitation by our own news media, goaded into street violence, justice warriors fighting law enforcement, our culture more or less in tatters. I doubt all that’s caused by over policing seems like cultural social problems to me. But if you believe that overpolicing is the root problem, the easiest way to reduce policing is not to call them. All it would take is a concerted effort in the high crime areas to boycott the police; fewer crimes reported leads to fewer cops.

Otherwise, politicians are always going to feel obligated to add police to areas where folks are getting robbed, raped, murdered, etc... Seems underreporting of crime, citizens boycotting 911, is the only way forward if the problem is overpolicing. Am I mistaken?

> Am I mistaken?

Yes, we can defund them.

Here in Pennsylvania, numerous rural (read: white) communities have disbanded their local police departments. Lack of tax dollars and, as I like to think, it's stupid to pay for overtime, SUVs and army gear so that police can harass people for traffic violations and drug possession.

The problem now is that these communities don't pay any extra for state police emergency coverage... so they get to have their cake and eat it, too. (That is, they get to whine about how "defund police" is a communist plot while everyone else pays for their emergency coverage... money which is supposed to be spent on road repairs.)

Places without high crime (armed robbery, murder,etc) can decrease policing because those areas don’t have high crime. Those are not the areas where police violence is an issue. So your solution effectively does nothing.

I would argue that police in inner cities are a bit like the drunken reveler looking for their keys under the street light because they can't see anything elsewhere.

Could certainly use a few more detectives poking around Wall Street...

think a bit more on why lots of police could possibly generate high crime rates

If more police _caused_ more crime to occur you would see it quite clearly in in small wealthy suburban communities where over policing is very real (think about places where the police mostly focus on truant high school kids and rich people with domestic disturbances). Rather, police violence is a problem in dangerous high crime areas like the Oakland Bart station, not in undeniably over policed areas like Beverly Hills. As long as a lot of violent crime is reported in these places, politicians will be obligated to have police there to protect the public. Bart without police won’t fly with anyone. You can defund the cops in Beverly Hills, for sure, but that seems counter productive if your concern is police violence. Private security will just move in a soak up those dollars with even less accountability to the public.

There's a very good, entertaining movie that is great rebuttal to this take. It's called Beverly Hills Cop. give it a watch and then reread what you wrote here lol

You're saying that the US, which is also number one on incarcerated population per capita, doesn't put enough people in jail?

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

If recidivism is the issue, then the way the US treats prisons, prisoners, and especially ex-convicts is the source. The entire system is built around punishing people for the rest of their lives, after having placed them in facilities with a social structure that encourages repeated issues.

Yes.

>The entire system is built around punishing people for the rest of their lives, after having placed them in facilities with a social structure that encourages repeated issues.

The problem is, we're not doing that anymore, and crime is returning to its worst levels in history, as bad as the 70s and 80s. A man on parole for killing his mother just beat an Asian woman half to death in NYC. There's currently a manhunt for a man in Texas who raped a 16 year old, spent a little over two weeks in jail before bailing out some paltry sum, then proceeded to shoot 2-3 people. This is a daily reality.

> Because an enormous swath of its population is dangerous, unfortunately.

I know! Wage thieves, environmental criminals, bankers, the Sacklers...

I'd love to lock them up too.

This always makes me think the people who scream this have never been to jail/prison.

I'm sure solutions exist, I'm sure what we have now doesn't work.

We need rehabilitation instead of the 'gladiator schools' we have now.

America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The historical reduction in crime started before 1994, so there's not good evidence for a causal connection (controversially, Dubner and Levitt in Freakonomics argued it was Roe v Wade that was largely responsible).

Regardless, any system by which 8 percent of adult black men are in prison clearly has bigger problems. It would be much cheaper to tackle the problem at its source: structural racism and poverty.

>Regardless, any system by which 8 percent of adult black men are in prison clearly has bigger problems

Agreed. Any chance they're committing more crimes? Or over half of all murders?

We can control for poverty, which has been found to have a much weaker correlation with criminality than race. Systemic racism is a meaningless act of circular reasoning, because it seems to be defined only by statistical disparities, which themselves are attributed to systemic racism.

American racism is clearly systemic/institutionalized...

>And according to exoneration data, innocent African American suspects are 7 times more likely to be falsely convicted of murder than innocent white suspects.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26840501

Unfortunately spreading misleading information without second thought is yet another feature of white supremacist systems, not a bug.

From your source:

"Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people. A major cause of the high number of black murder exonerations is the high homicide rate in the black community—a tragedy that kills many African Americans and sends many others to prison. Innocent defendants who are falsely convicted and exonerated do not contribute to this high homicide rate. They— like the families of victims who are killed—are deeply harmed by murders committed by others."

7x more murders per capita, 7x higher rates of false conviction. It's simple scaling. That means the system is being perfectly equitable.

>7x more murders per capita

Source?

> Official misconduct is more common in murder convictions that lead to exonerations of African American defendants

> 87% of black exonerees that were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct

You should read the rest of the report because they make it clear institutional foulplay is a key component of the overcriminalization.

Disagreement with the systemic racist ideology is a feature of white supremacy! How convenient!

Unfortunately, people in cults get brainwashed and don't know it either. Here we have a prime example of how Jamestown and certain 1930s youth programs came into existence. Which color kool-aid are you going with?

Fallacies of elimination are fun...

Try forming an actual argument instead of just labeling everyone you disagree with as a white supremacist. Someone who so freely throws the word racist around, clearly doesn't think it holds much meaning.

- Define 'structural racism' and why it forces blacks to be far more criminal and violent than the rest of the population.

- Can poverty explain, for example, why blacks in Wisconsin commit 2/3 of all violent crime while they are only 7% of the state's population? There are wholly White and Native American cities in Wisconsin that are dirt poor - the poorest - and yet they are not committing insanely high levels of crime.

Criminalizing an underclass isn't a new concept, its been done in many places to many races around the world with varying success.

>why it forces blacks to be far more criminal

I think the fact that UK blacks commit crimes at a far lower rate than US whites throws a wrench in this type of oversimplification of the racial landscape.

Citation badly needed.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/black-murder-victims-and-susp...

3% of the population and 13% of the murders in the UK.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41887-020-00055-y

5-6x homicide victimization rate vs whites, and 24x in males 18-24.

These multiples are fairly consistent globally.

You may have misread the original statement. I'm comparing the US white crime rate to the UK black crime rate.

It is clear US whites are far more likely to commit crimes.

Source? It doesn't seem to be true for homicide. The US white rate is consistently between 3-4 per 100k, and the UK black rate is often above 5 per 100k.

Either way, all this proves is that the UK is overall a safer country than the US. But the racial disparities within each country are remarkably similar.

It also points to the fact that a privileged (at least in regards to wealth/opportunity) race in the US commits crimes at the same or higher rate (depending on category) than an underprivileged race in the UK.

We can't remove bias and false criminalization from stats but the contrast between two sister countries is interesting nonetheless.

If the simplified overarching premise is "Blacks are uniquely criminal regardless of circumstance", why am I more likely to be a victim of criminality in a room filled with 1000 white Americans than 1000 black Brits?

You still haven't provided a source.

Are you arguing that Iran is more safe due to the fact they lock up less people?

You've provided a list of obviously more dangerous countries and then tried to use that as example of why incarceration, police, the system is corrupt in the US....

I'm confused. You think less police and less incarceration will suddenly make the US a less dangerous place?

he's not, but I will. our prison system creates repeat offenders, and makes violent offenders out of previous nonviolent offenders. less policing and less prison will absolutely make the US a safer place

Stats and facts please. Sounds like a lot conjecture from certain sources pushing an agenda.

There are very specific areas where this violence keeps happening and to claim it's due to the fact that they're being locked up more seems pretty dubious and simplistic to me.

> Are you arguing that Iran is more safe due to the fact they lock up less people?

No, I'm stating the fact that the nytimes (and the like) will repeat US gov propaganda about how Iran/terrorist-org-du-jour is so authoritarian that we need to "fight them over there to protect our way of life over here"... while nytimes (and the like) completely ignores the story of how our police are trained. And if you google "killology" for ten seconds, I think you'd agree a great way to describe it is "authoritarian".

> You think less police and less incarceration will suddenly make the US a less dangerous place?

No, it will take time. I mean there are entire generations of black males missing from their familial units. That kind of trauma don't heal "suddenly".

Not sure how you look at charts like this and not see that is is a rather unique issue to one country

https://static.prisonpolicy.org/images/policekillings_rates....

You realize that chart only shows 10 1st world countries right and conspicuously very specific wealthy nations? Seems like someone is pushing an agenda.

Maybe try a source that calculates every country? https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki...

lmao "Uh, actually, the US is ranked the same as syria and brazil, sounds like someone has an AGENDA" isn't the red hot rebuttal you think it is

I agree the US has a violence problem on par with third world and war torn nations. However, the US is neither of these. Why does the violence persist?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com