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Comment by jdmichal | Hacker News Reader

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."

View on HN

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.

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com