Police Shootings in Black America: The 2018 Data Is In


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17 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

That reminds me of two things:

1. So, I Married an Axe Murderer? where Charlie's father says that Colonel Sanders is part of the secret cabal.  As justification he says,"He puts an addictive substance in his chicken that makes you crave for it nightly."

That's one of my favorite all-time movie quotes.

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15 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

And that's okay.  We have a difference of opinion.

Do you also feel that Jeronimo Yanez was rightfully acquitted, even as his actions were caught on tape?

I can see both sides of it, but in my opinion, in that type of situation, it should never have even been a factor.  If he had no gun, but had to spend a minute or two going back to his vehicle to get it from the trunk...I think it could have changed a LOT. 

Almost anyone else who was not an officer at the time of the event would have been convicted in my opinion.  Does that mean he was wrong or should have been convicted?  I don't think there is a clear cut answer.  His training implied for certain situations and he had to make a judgment call at that specific instant.  If he had to take a little longer to get his gun...who knows what the outcome may have been.  These are the types of things that sway me to feel (and it is how I feel, not necessarily anything more) that perhaps there could be a better way of doing things.

Are you prepared to include in your sentiment South Korea, Japan, China, & NORTH Korea?  Or are you only going to include anecdotal evidence that supports your position?

Korea, Japan, & China all outlaw or severely restrict guns among the population and allow them among the police.  They all have murder rates lower than the UK.

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6 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Are you prepared to include in your sentiment South Korea, Japan, China, & NORTH Korea?  Or are you only going to include anecdotal evidence that supports your position?

Korea, Japan, & China all outlaw or severely restrict guns among the population and allow them among the police.  They all have murder rates lower than the UK.

I'm not sure about your statement but will strive to answer your questions.

Sure, I'll include them.  I know Japanese police carry firearms.  They also have a MUCH LOWER USAGE than in the US.  Reasons given for using them by an officer in the US would place a Japanese officer in prison for life.  As a result, they are MUCH LESS LIKELY TO USE the firearms in the same situation.

This is why I said that US officers could take the Japanese force as an example of how to respond in many of the situations.  Japanese officers are trained in martial arts excessively.  They are so well trained they are considered some of the best martial artists in the world.  In situations (as placed in the article linked by Mirkwood, where physical violence without a weapon was threatening to the police officer) a Japanese officer normally resorts to their training in hand to hand combat.  It is a matter of superior training in that arena that allows them more options in reacting to the same type of situation without resorting to pulling a firearm.

I could see this as a viable option...IF departments would allocate the resources necessary for such training.  It MAY be that it is a matter of better training being necessary, but without police departments being willing to devote the type of training that nations such as Japan (and I think South Korea) devote, what options do you suggest?

I'm not sure what your point of China and North Korea are?

 

PS: If you are referring to the murder rate, that is a matter of culture rather than police enforcement in my opinon, so I'm not sure if that's what you are implying or not.

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43 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

1. So, I Married an Axe Murderer? where Charlie's father says that Colonel Sanders is part of the secret cabal.  As justification he says,"He puts an addictive substance in his chicken that makes you crave for it nightly."

"Crave it fortnightly".  Dang Carb, ain'tcha got no culture?

 

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26 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

"Crave it fortnightly".  Dang Carb, ain'tcha got no culture?

I'm going to check that out on youtube when I get access.  (I'm not sure if I trust the quotes on IMDB).

I always heard "for it nightly" (and it makes more sense).

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55 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

I'm not sure about your statement

Your statement to which I responded was that if police didn't use deadly methods, then criminals wouldn't use deadly methods.  My reasoning then was that if "deadly methods" was the thing to stay away from, wouldn't the murder rate be a good metric?  (this is with my understanding that "use of deadly methods rates among criminals" is not exactly a statistic that is kept -- or at least I can't seem to find it.

Based on that premise, it would seem that this does not effect the outcome like you indicate.

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Sure, I'll include them.  I know Japanese police carry firearms.  They also have a MUCH LOWER USAGE than in the US.  Reasons given for using them by an officer in the US would place a Japanese officer in prison for life.  As a result, they are MUCH LESS LIKELY TO USE the firearms in the same situation.

This is why I said that US officers could take the Japanese force as an example of how to respond in many of the situations.  Japanese officers are trained in martial arts excessively.  They are so well trained they are considered some of the best martial artists in the world.  In situations (as placed in the article linked by Mirkwood, where physical violence without a weapon was threatening to the police officer) a Japanese officer normally resorts to their training in hand to hand combat.  It is a matter of superior training in that arena that allows them more options in reacting to the same type of situation without resorting to pulling a firearm.

Partly true.  But let's take a closer look at that.  (And see how you moved the goalposts?)

The Japanese police training includes kendo -- specifically used with the clubs thy carry. True. they tend not to resort to using a firearm.  But they do use clubs.  While movies tend to dismiss blunt weapons as non-deadly, I assure you that a club can be just as deadly -- or if not deadly, it can be just as violent or more.

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I'm not sure what your point of China and North Korea are?

They were just a couple more countries comparing police having guns vs violent offenders.  And their numbers tended to refute your premise. -- And I tend to have a thing for Asian countries.  And if you think really hard, I bet you can guess why. :D

Now, to your other point about training, I'd agree.  We could certainly spend more time and money on police training.  And if they could all be trained in non-deadly techniques, I'd be all for it.  But the fact is that we spend a LOT less on police training and salary (per officer) than do Japan or Korea.

You also brought up culture.  That, more than all these other factors, controls these statistics in each country.  That's why guns or use of them doesn't have much of a correlation with violent crime rates or police violence rates.

We, too easily, become locked into this idea that "a change in government" will change crime.  Some, yes.  But the best bang for your buck is to restore the family with parents who teach their children good morals and values.  And we're completely destroying that in this country.

When you look at other countries with high or low crime rates, ask what their culture does with families.  I'd agree that there isn't a 100% correlation (because there are multiple factors).  But MOST countries will see a tremendous correlation between numbers of intact families vs rates of violent crime.

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I admitted that it may lead to more dead police officers, but that does NOT make this a bad idea. 

I saw that, however, that attitude advocates the death of police officers.

 

 

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It is NOT that I am against police officers at all, but I think when you have violent means you are more likely to resort to violent means rather than trying to think of ways that are non-violent but achieve the same end.

 

No, it means you have the tools available to you immediately to handle those occasions where a level of violence is required.  Just because an officer carries a tool, does not make it the go to tool of choice as you are making it out to be.  You are imposing your OPINION in an area where FACT disagrees with you.  In 2015 53.5 million people had contact with the police.  814,800 of those contacts resulted in an arrest.  985,300 of those incidents involved some use of force.  Use of force includes threatening use of force, pushing or grabbing, handcuffing, hitting or kicking, using chemical or pepper spray, using an electroshock weapon, or pointing a gun.  986 of those use of force incidents resulted in a fatality (I have been unable to determine if this is only shootings or all use of force fatalities.)  That is 0.0184% of all contacts that involved any sort of use of force.  Remind me again how this equates to all these incidents of violence you are claiming?  Police rarely use force during contacts.  You are wrong, very wrong.

 

 

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There are several very successful (and some would say MORE successful as crime rates are lower, but I see that as more of a CULTURAL item that causes this rather than that the police go around without guns) police forces in the world that carry no guns.  In the UK they carry no guns on their persons, but they can call back up.  There are those who are able to deploy weapons for a back up when the situation warrants, but it is an extreme, not the norm.

 

Comparing the UK’s crime culture with the USA’s crime culture is an apples to oranges comparison.  The UK isn’t the USA and the USA isn’t UK.  They do not think like Americans and we do not think like Brits.

 

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I am not advocating something quite as severe as that, but that a routine action the officer does not carry a firearm.  It could be more like Norway where they do not have the firearm on their persons, but they DO have it in their vehicle.  If the situation warrants firearm usage they are either told about it en route (live fire or someone with weapons going in) or they need to request to use them in the situation. 

 

Norway, see above discussion about the UK.

 

 

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We have different situations.  I think ONE DEAD CHILD shot by accident from a police officer is TOO HIGH.  You may find it acceptable, I find it abhorrent.  There is no excuse, there is no reason a mistake should have been made like that.  I understand WHY police are taught to react like that, but it has caused the refrain that some repeat today that police are NOT there to protect and serve, but rather to merely enforce the law.

 

Of course accidents are abhorrent, your implication that I might think otherwise is abhorrent too.  Neither of which change anything about whether or not a police officer should be carrying a gun as the norm.

 

 

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The training to react has come around BECAUSE in many ways there have been dead officers.  It is done to try to find a median where you can protect others but at the same time you can protect the police officer.  Some areas even teach that the most important resource they have are the police officers.  I would disagree.  That's is not the purpose of the police, the most important resource they have is their community.  it is the ENTIRE purpose they are supposed to be in existence in the first place.

 

I agree with most of this, except I would categorize public safety services as one of several important resources.

 

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Someone who is a volunteer for the police force should be one we hold to the highest ideals and who would be willing to live the highest ideals of society.  They should have a belief that they are willing to lay down their life in their service (not someone who seeks it, that's suicidal, but rather cares enough that they would rather die than kill an innocent by accident).

 

Most police officers feel this way.  If you think they don’t you are ignorant of the facts.

 

 

 

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Most reasons for a police officer to have a weapon are not situations that will be unknown going in, or occur rarely enough that I do not feel it supports their position.  If the situation warrants a weapon, it can be available as a back up (such as in a trunk with a lock on the trigger and the ammo out of the weapon) or they can call back up, or they can collect a posse (like the good old westerns), or various other options.  Having a sidearm at all time while on duty I feel is excessive.

 

 

This doesn’t work because many calls the police respond to escalate and needing to go back to your car to get your gun leads to dead people, including cops.  People are volatile and you never know what is going to cause them to escalate.  That would be like buying fire insurance after your house caught fire.  Your opinion is not based in facts, it is based on your feelings.

 

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Now obviously, the question is (if we look at your link) WHY the guns are used in many of those situations.  When we look at the numbers, Japanese officers (who do carry sidearms, at least occasionally) rely less on their guns.  The police force is required to spend a LOT more time in hand to hand combat (and perhaps officers would like this if they had a little less paperwork but had to spend more time in the gym and learning martial arts).  Their police are renown for their hand to hand skills (perhaps one of the last people you would want to meet in hand to hand, even if you had a weapon on you and they did not).  More training in combat is a way to make police more able to protect and defend themselves with resorting to lethal means.

 

Hand to hand is one of a variety of skills taught to police officers.  There are many tools in the bag of an officer.  The skill to master hand to hand combat is time consuming.  It would be great it that was afforded to the police.  Maybe you can lobby the government to fund such training, it would be beneficial.  It would not however be a substitute for a firearm, or other tools that are carried.

 

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Of course, that probably STILL will result in more officer deaths.  AS I noted in the post you responded to (but curiously no one actually seems, at least I did not notice) I pointed out that with them numbers, it would seem that 97.5% of the deaths seem to indicate they were armed encounters, meaning that it was very highly likely that the officer was shooting in defense and being attacked with a firearm.  I am not against police using fire arms, but I think that any deaths of innocent individuals is TOO HIGH.  If someone else committed it, even if it was an accident, it would be normally at the minimum manslaughter.  There is a higher tolerance for this than we like to admit as a society.  I FEEL that we need to find a way to rectify this in some manner.  Police are supposed to be there as volunteers.  AS it takes so much time, this is why many felt they should be paid (rather than how it was in the past with no police force but a few officers and many civilians who could be rallied up in time of crisis).  I feel that we are a culture enamoured by violence and though a majority of Police are there for a good purpose, they are not immune to this either.  I FEEL we can do better, and seek for ways that we CAN do better.

 

Yes, I saw that, but you follow it with “too many deaths”.  I will point out that the criminal dictated the outcome of the police contact, not the other way around.  You are also wrong about “someone else”, I presume you meant non police officer, would be charged at minimum with manslaughter.  There are numerous self defense shootings that do not result in charges.  Texas just had one the other day where the homeowner shot five home invasion robbery suspects.  I will predict right now: no charges will be filed.

 

 

 

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And that's the key to it, it's merely how I FEEL an opinion of mine.  I understand that there are various opinions on this.  We may see very differently on this.  I'm not going to try to rally for anyone to take the police's sidearms away from them, and I am open to other thoughts and opinions.  Right now, though, I ponder about what is too much and what is too great.  I use firearms in a civilian capacity, so I am not against fire arms.  I just FEEL that there are many ways we could do better in how we deal with firearms in our daily lives.  It's merely what I feel on the subject.

 

Your feelings do not trump facts.

 

 

 

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I am not anti-police or against the police forces.  I try to support our local force and the boys in blue when I can.  Different feelings, thoughts, and opinions are part of what makes America such a great place, that we can all have these thoughts and yet get (hopefully) get along and find a way to talk with each other and communicate our concerns, out thoughts, and perhaps come to viable solutions that we can all agree upon, or at least see with a better understanding the other points of view.

 

I’m glad you are not anti police.  That does not make you as well versed on the topic of police use of force as you think.  Again, your feelings on the topic are not facts.

 

Edited by mirkwood
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4 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

"Crave it fortnightly".  Dang Carb, ain'tcha got no culture?

Golly gee willikers. You're right!  All this time I had it wrong. 

Do you realize how many times I've (mis)quoted that thing?!?!  I don't know if I can show myself in public anymore.  What will my wife think when she hears that I didn't quote a 1990s Mike Myers movie accurately?

Ohwww the SHAME!!!  Ohwww the disGRACE!!!

So, JJ wants police officers to die.  Ok...  Whew! Nice deflect.

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If I wanted to destroy the United State of America - because the USA is a super power I would not attack the country with military force.  Such an attack would likely fail.  Instead, I would create chaos within the trusted institutions.  As a youth I trusted all our government institutions - both federal and state.  I grew up thinking our two political party system was the best political system in the world.  My father was a very important person in the Republican Party.  I was introduced to the political process in my youth and when I returned home from the military and serving a mission I was placed as an assistant campaign manager for the express purpose of becoming a campaign manager and then running for a state or county office.  But things did not work out.  Laws were being broken (ballot counting) and I became a whistle blower.  I was so soured I renounced the Republican party.  I tried to become a Democrat but I felt that there was more corruption there.  Our two political party system is corrupt and broken - and at crisis. 

Later in life I was audited by the IRS - Again I trusted our government institutions but quickly learned that, for whatever reason there was corruption in the IRS.  The amount of money in question was $250.  But out of principle I fought it.  It ended up costing me about 10 times that and it would have been more if the IRS had not dropped their charges just before going to court.  Thought I do not know and cannot prove it - I am suspicious that the reason I was audited and hassled was because of the problems I caused when I was a whistle blower.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but I believe that there are elements in our country and government that are doing two things.  #1. A cover up of corruption at the highest levels of our federal government.  #2. a deliberate effort to discredit all institutions outside of the control of those that have corrupted much of our federal institutions.

 

The Traveler

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5 minutes ago, Traveler said:

If I wanted to destroy the United State of America - because the USA is a super power I would not attack the country with military force.  Such an attack would likely fail.  Instead, I would create chaos within the trusted institutions.  As a youth I trusted all our government institutions - both federal and state.  I grew up thinking our two political party system was the best political system in the world.  My father was a very important person in the Republican Party.  I was introduced to the political process in my youth and when I returned home from the military and serving a mission I was placed as an assistant campaign manager for the express purpose of becoming a campaign manager and then running for a state or county office.  But things did not work out.  Laws were being broken (ballot counting) and I became a whistle blower.  I was so soured I renounced the Republican party.  I tried to become a Democrat but I felt that there was more corruption there.  Our two political party system is corrupt and broken - and at crisis. 

Later in life I was audited by the IRS - Again I trusted our government institutions but quickly learned that, for whatever reason there was corruption in the IRS.  The amount of money in question was $250.  But out of principle I fought it.  It ended up costing me about 10 times that and it would have been more if the IRS had not dropped their charges just before going to court.  Thought I do not know and cannot prove it - I am suspicious that the reason I was audited and hassled was because of the problems I caused when I was a whistle blower.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but I believe that there are elements in our country and government that are doing two things.  #1. A cover up of corruption at the highest levels of our federal government.  #2. a deliberate effort to discredit all institutions outside of the control of those that have corrupted much of our federal institutions.

 

The Traveler

Well, gee.  Uhmm.  Thanks for telling us that story . . . again. . .

But what does that have to do with the thread?

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2 hours ago, mirkwood said:

 UK’s crime culture with the USA’s crime culture is an apples to oranges comparison. 

It's like reading a John Grisham book than thinking you could pass the bar exam by doing so. JJ is a very nice guy who is way, way, way off on this. 

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7 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Well, gee.  Uhmm.  Thanks for telling us that story . . . again. . .

But what does that have to do with the thread?

There is a reason the police are being targeted with a political effort to make them look bigoted and unreliable.  It is to force local police to have to answer to Washington and not their local community.

 

The Traveler

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14 minutes ago, Traveler said:

There is a reason the police are being targeted with a political effort to make them look bigoted and unreliable.  It is to force local police to have to answer to Washington and not their local community.

 

The Traveler

OK. 

I don't think I would have been able to distract that meaning from your previous post in a million years of combing through every last jot and tittle of it.  I still don't see that message in the post even knowing what to look for.

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11 hours ago, mirkwood said:

I saw that, however, that attitude advocates the death of police officers.

Not necessarily.  As we are posting articles, here's one that is supposedly from a Police officer who says many thing similar to what I've stated already.

I was a cop in Australia (next portion of title may be offensive so not writing it)

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Standards of training need to be universally enforced

We’re not perfect in Australia. We have our own police shooting fatalities. I don’t think there’s any police officer out there who wants to kill another human being. But compared with the US, our situation is considerably better. To see the differences in American versus Australian policing, it’s worth looking at several big factors.

The first is training standards. In Australia, there are highly centralized large policing services in each state that all share a common standard of training and protocols. And in Queensland in 2014, when there was a series of fatal police shootings, the commissioner ordered a review of police training and concluded “...changes would be made to how police officers were trained to emphasize using minimal force to de-escalate situations.”

That’s not the case in the United States, where police services are often small municipal departments that lack both resources and a standard of training. Take the police in Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown was shot in 2014: Among its scant 72 personnel, 18 are civilian support staff for a city with a population of nearly 21,000. With limited resources and numbers, small police services don’t have the same wide pool of experience and expertise to help train responses to encounters.

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The warrior cop: the move toward militarization of the police

The question as to the use of weaponry is not just limited to criminals. The rise of the “warrior cop” also a concerning trend. Such a culture lends itself to an “us versus them” approach to policing. The blurring of the line between the military and the police, especially in the US, is now on the political agenda.

Now I do not agree with all his assessments of the US, for example I AM pro-gun (he is for removing guns in the US).  Many would say Australia and the US are different cultures (and I agree, that they are and this causes a great deal of differences) but he is an example of other police looking at the US and feeling that something the US is doing in it's policing is not working out correctly.

Now let's compare more supposed statements of police officers in the UK and their views on carrying firearms. 

It would change the Power Dynamics; Police Officers on carrying guns

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Former police officer, with 15 years experience, in East of England

Before entering the police I was in the army and served in south-east Asia. To this day, I still remember the look of fear on so many people’s faces when they saw men with weapons. I also look to the USA where the norm has become for police officers to shoot first and ask questions later if they are at all “concerned” about their safety. I would be totally opposed to arming all officers and I can’t think of any benefits.

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Former police officer with 20 years experience

I still think that arming all police officers is a huge mistake; not everyone is capable of carrying and safely using a firearm and there will be more deaths as a result. Look to America as an example of why all police should be armed - it takes away any incentive for officers to try and talk through a situation. Granted, there will be times when an officer will need a gun during their career but not many. Officers should receive more conflict management training and be equipped with non-lethal weapons as well as improving their self-defence techniques.

I used firearms in the military so have some experience, but I would not trust most of my former colleagues with a baton, never mind a Glock. My main concern is the capability of all police officers to carry and use weapons. I have worked with officers who have left radios in victims homes and instead took the TV remote. Firearms would obviously be useful as a last resort defensive tool but it would mean that terrorists have managed to force us across a line that armed criminal gangs have not yet achieved - it would be a tragic overreaction.

These are merely a reflection of other police officers in the UK looking at the US.  These two reflected their ideas of why guns should not be allowed in many ways have the US as one of the influences on the negatives of officers with guns.

Not all of them were anti-gun, there was one officer who was one of the few armed officers (the UK normally has unarmed officers, but they can call for armed back up or armed officers to react to certain situations if needed.  One of those who responded was one of the armed officers who arming officers was actually positive.

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I underwent firearms training, am armed and make a point of conducting regular foot patrols in urban areas with a pistol clearly visible at my side. The reaction from members of the public has been universally positive. I am often approached and thanked for what I do. Families approach me regularly so their children can ask questions about what we do and what kit we carry. I take time to explain our role and have been welcomed into cafés and shops carrying guns. There has been no discernible apprehension and the public tell me it’s a reflection of the times in which we live.

Some start firearms training and withdraw early in the process. The job is not for everyone and is different to everyday policing. We appear to be nearing the point at which all those wanting to carry guns, and with the ability to do so, have put themselves forward. Tasers, on the other hand, offer a less-lethal option which should be universally available to prevent serious injury to officers and subjects.

For all officers to be armed, training would have to be lower to ensure all recruits got through. It would then be of no use to anyone and would simply lead to multiple investigations of improper firearms use. At the moment we have training every 12 weeks to re-test our shooting ability as well as learn new tactics and techniques. Provided training remains at its current high standard the public should only feel reassured.

Even with this it appears that he feels that there may be problems by arming ALL police. 

So what gives the appearance of such opinions of the US and it's armed police force by OTHER POLICE?

You would say it is the article, I would say it is the information that comes out with such information as follows...

Police commit 1 in 13 gun deaths in the US

That reflects a pretty bad indicator to some. 

So, the question is what is the solution?

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America's law enforcement officers have shot and killed upwards of 385 people so far this year, according to a new Washington Post investigation. That's a rate of about 1 every 9 hours, or 2.5 shootings per day. That's a lot compared to other countries -- cops in Germany killed only 8 people in 2013-2014, for instance. British police didn't kill anyone last year.

Through June 1, there have been 5,099 gun deaths in the U.S., according to up-to-date numbers maintained by the Gun Violence Archive. Based on the 385 figure, that means that American police are responsible for about 1 in every 13 non-suicide gun deaths in the country, or 8 percent.

Many of these killings are undoubtedly justifiable acts of self-defense. The Post database shows that 317 of the police shooting victims were carrying guns or other weapons at the time of their death. On the other hand, that leaves 62 police shootings where the victim didn't have any weapon at all, and another six where the presence of a victim's weapon is still unknown.

Almost universally one answer seems to pop up again and again...

More police training key

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Former police officer David Klinger heads the Criminology Department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He's written a book about police shootings and is a research fellow at the National Police Foundation. Because police often have to make split-second decisions in situations where guns are involved, he says, good training is essential.

"And one of the points of training should be that merely because an individual has a firearm or some other weapon does not mean that they are an individual who needs to be shot," says Klinger.

Researchers and media databases say police fatally shoot about a thousand people each year. Many of those shootings are considered justified.

So, it would seem there is an obvious answer?

Right?

But then why is it that there are many police departments that DO NOT increase training to a satisfactory point of many who disagree with police tactics in the US, much less police commentators of the US police in other nations?

With a lack of will to give sufficient training in many departments (which also means there ARE departments out there that HAVE increased training sufficiently, the problem is that many have not) what could be a solution at drastically changing the attitudes and reactions?

I don't think at this current time we are going to get to the point where police have the training in the US to a level satisfactory in dealing with violent situations.  Instead it is going to be very uneven where some will have good training and good reactions, and there will be some that do not.  Unfortunately, with such uneven application of training, it hurts both the police officer AND those that are shot or killed. 

My thoughts are that adding barriers to police handling weapons would be one aspect.  Unpopular opinion on this board, but disarming officers creates a barrier to resorting to the fire arm at first.  It truly makes it something one has to resort to AFTER other means have been used typically.  There are some officers that already do this, but there are also officers in the US that are not trained in that manner, even if they should be.

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There's a flaw in this debate, and in that Vox article.

We tend to discuss policing in the U.S. as if it were one single, monolithic entity that was exactly the same everywhere you go.  So a bad shooting in one area reflects on cops everywhere.

That isn't the reality at all.  The way @mirkwood describes his experiences makes me wish I had worked in an area where he and his department has jurisdiction, because it sounds like his department, and others in the area, are really good.  On the other hand, I think if he came to my neck of the woods and I took him up to Baltimore to see how the police department works up there, he'd be disgusted. 

Even within Maryland the quality of policing varied wildly.  Maryland State Troopers are pretty professional, competent, and I never feel nervous around them, even when one's got me pulled over.  (Which NEVER happens...  :angel:)  Anne Arundel County (where I live) has really good cops too.  Several live in my neighborhood and it actually makes me feel more safe.  Meanwhile, not all police in Maryland are so good.  Prince George's County is pretty hit or miss.  Baltimore City is atrocious.  I'd rather be arrested by a Maryland State Trooper than pulled over by a Baltimore cop.  Any day of the week.  

So articles like that Vox one and what @JohnsonJones is saying would make a more effective argument if they were specific about exactly where they're talking about.  I'm really not interested in what people in Australia think of policing in the U.S. because, as it says right in the article,  their police are centralized so it's understandable why they'd see policing at a national level.  We in the U.S. don't do it that way (which I think is a good thing) so it means you really need to be specific about who you're talking about, because "policing in the U.S." is a phrase that is next to useless by itself.

Edited by unixknight
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@JohnsonJones nothing you posted refutes anything I said, and frankly I do not care what cops in other countries have to say about American policing.  I'm pretty sure they don't care how we do things either (with the exception of a couple of Brit cops I talked with once who wished they could carry guns).  

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  • 4 weeks later...

A few years ago I wanted to do a paper for one of my college courses, the topic being cops killed in the line of duty.  I did a lot of research on it, and changed the topic after losing the data I had collected.  What I found is that in the past 100 years, until very recently (within a few years of present) cops killed in the line of duty has gone down.  At the same time, people killed by cops "in the line of duty" has actually gone up tremendously.  As for civilian on civilian killings, it really has not changed an awful lot.  There are up swings and down swings, but when you look at it per capita, it really has not changed all that much.  School shooting, until recently, the same thing- per capita, until recently, it really had no increased.  The numbers increased, yes.  Just as the population increased.

And in a lot of the school shootings you will likely find the perp(s) were on psychotropic drugs.

If I ever find those files, I will likely finish the paper "just because".

 

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4 hours ago, pwrfrk said:

A few years ago I wanted to do a paper for one of my college courses, the topic being cops killed in the line of duty.  I did a lot of research on it, and changed the topic after losing the data I had collected.  What I found is that in the past 100 years, until very recently (within a few years of present) cops killed in the line of duty has gone down.  At the same time, people killed by cops "in the line of duty" has actually gone up tremendously.  As for civilian on civilian killings, it really has not changed an awful lot.  There are up swings and down swings, but when you look at it per capita, it really has not changed all that much.  School shooting, until recently, the same thing- per capita, until recently, it really had no increased.  The numbers increased, yes.  Just as the population increased.

And in a lot of the school shootings you will likely find the perp(s) were on psychotropic drugs.

If I ever find those files, I will likely finish the paper "just because".

 

If you do finish that paper, make sure to do some more research.  These kinds of studies frequently fail to include a number of factors.  Things that usually get overlooked are the number of assaults on officers has climbed.  The number of vest saves.  The number of shots fired that never hit the officer (example below...WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO.)  The hits on officers that are saved through our incredible Trauma One facilities.  I've been shot at several times over the last couple of decades, but you will probably never find that in the statistics anywhere...  Violent crime is up, including those attacks on officers, so yea, you see more police shootings.

 

GRAPHIC VIDEO WARNING

 

 

 

 

Edited by mirkwood
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  • 1 month later...
On 1/21/2019 at 7:36 PM, Godless said:

 

I'm hopeful that the bipartisan prison reform bill that Trump recently pushed will help with this. 

 

It won't do a thing until Black families start staying together. Something they did before LBJ's "Great Society" started paying women for having babies.

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