Out of these 385 million estimated police-citizen contacts, officers made 11,205,833 criminal arrest charges according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports Out of these 11,205,833 arrest charges, officers were assaulted roughly 48,315 times, but only 990 deaths of citizens occurred. These deaths occurred in only 0.0003% of all police-citizen contacts, only 0.009% of all arrest situations, and in only 2.1% of assault on officer situations. Deaths from police use of force are very unfortunate, often unavoidable, and extremely rare.
Same report - One citizen death for every ten attacks with deadly weapons on officers.
2016-2019 30 million arrests: 0.0000326 of those arrested are shot and killed by the police.
Less than 2% of all police contacts result in any use of force or even a threat of force.
So, it is not “what they do” except in rare circumstances.
Rare (excuse me… extremely rare!) compared to what? US LEOs kill 20 people every week. Rare compared to other police forces? Rare compared to some imaginary impression of how often police could theoretically use force?
In other words, 7.7 MILLION uses and threats of force every year. But there’s no problem with overuse of force?
My comment was directed at a poster who falsely claims people are feigning surprise at police violence. The reaction is always either “that’s an outrage” or “they deserved it for resisting arrest.” Whichever way you respond, nobody is ever surprised.
I am not impressed by stats suggesting low deaths per contact or low deaths per arrest, when we know that many of these contacts and arrests were illegitimate and illegally instigated by police in the first place.
Yes I agree, we should do something about the gangs…
Dissolving a dysfunctional policing organization and replacing it with something that works seems like a great idea. I know, I know, it’s just a few ‘bad apples’. Put a few bad apples in a bag and all the apples will be rotten in pretty short order.
So what happens when the counselor shows up and the guy is drunk, the wife is bleeding from the head, and the guy picks up a baseball bat and tells the counselor to get the fuck out of there and now knows that his wife secretly called 911? Or better yet, tells the counselor to have a seat on the couch so he doesn’t inform anyone and then “quizzes” the counselor on how long he has been fucking the guy’s wife and Mr. Baseball Bat will get a hit until the counselor gives the “right” answer?
Is there going to be more or less violence in that situation than if a police officer showed up with the ability to use force to stop the guy?
Instead of “defunding” cops how about “rein in” cops. Much, much, better framing.
Put a stop to spending on military equipment for cops. Boys and toys. If they have them, they’ll want to use them. Or put another way, when you have a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail that needs hammering down.
Create civilian review boards with real power including the abilities to compel testimony and to fire police who have abused the public or violated the law .
Lying on a report should be grounds for automatic dismissal from any police force. A culture of lying breeds a culture of abuse.
Lying under oath by a cop should carry a greater perjury punishment than that given to ordinary citizens. This might actually help police credibility in court when it is known that a cop testifying falsely can be severely punished.
These things are mostly state and local issues. The sales of military equipment to cops can be curtailed by Congress if they reduce military funding.
To follow up: It is not a situation for a counselor, it is a law enforcement situation.
If the two are just arguing and no violence or no threats of violence are happening, then nobody should have responded it the first place. It is legal in this country to have marital arguments (ask me how I know )
If there has been violence or threats of violence, someone should go to jail. If not, nobody should have been there in the first place.
The problem that we are experiencing is when a police officer with the ability to use force shows up at situations where force isn’t needed. We have police officers who see themselves as hammers and everyone else as nails. (Or maybe everyone who is brown as a nail.)
Ideally, we’d have a program where unarmed monitors show up at the situations where that’s the best response, mental health counselors show up at the situations where that’s the best response, trained investigators show up at the situations where that’s the best response, armed police officers show up at the scenes where that’s the best response, assault teams in armored vehicles show up at the situations where that’s the best response, and costumed superheroes show up at the situations where that’s the best response. All of these different situations exist (okay, not the last one) and we need to throw out the “one size fits all” mentality.
I don’t disagree that too many police escalate force too quickly or have an irresponsible attitude that force is a proper response to disrespect. We can all (I think) agree upon that and institute reforms to that object today.
But nobody is stopping there and some people want something more than that–which is illustrated in your second paragraph. You simply do not know before you get there and ascertain facts (which is why I objected earlier to abandoning an investigation role entirely) what type of response is needed.
For example, 911 gets a call and says that the neighbors are a married couple and arguing and the husband is screaming very loudly. Simply from that, you are unable to ascertain what crime is occurring. Perhaps it is just a noise complaint. Perhaps it is severe domestic violence.
But that is inherently a law enforcement function. Current protocol is to make the man show his hands with the officer’s hand on his gun. I think that is terribly provocative. However, there should be an officer there with a gun in holster.
If it turns out that there was no violence, then tell them to keep the noise down because they are bothering the neighbor, but other than that, argue away! This is the United States of America. The wife is free to tell her husband to get off his lazy ass and carry the trash to the curb while the husband is free to tell the wife to quit nagging him for drinking so much. No counselors needed, requested, or proper. Live your life.
If it is determined there was violence then (at least under current law) one or both must go to jail. That requires someone with the ability to use force in case one or both decide they ain’t going to jail.
A properly trained police officer is the perfect person for such a role. He (or she) can investigate, make a determination, and can enforce that determination. Again, the problem is the poor training and/or poor selection of people, and the tribal attitude of some officers, not the entire system itself.
Let’s have the actual discussion of what NEEDS an armed and trained LEO and what doesn’t, rather than just send a cop because he’s the only person available to send out on calls.
Does a noise complaint, an argument, need a LEO (or two) to be first on the scene? An emotionally distraught person, a wellness check?
Is it possible for a government employee to knock on a door without their other hand on a firearm?
It’s sort of what I said in my last post. You don’t know what you are facing when you get the call. If you knew a priori that it was simply people having a loud party, then perhaps you could send someone besides an armed police officer to the house.
But that requires a lot of needless administration (e.g. who makes that decision to route this call to a different department, and who do we keep on staff just to tell people to turn the music down when the police in the area could do the same thing?)
All of the scenarios you mentioned may be relatively innocent or very harmful. That’s why we (in an ideal world) train the police to first ascertain the facts when they arrive and then take (in an ideal world) an appropriate response to them. As I said above, they shouldn’t have their hand on a firearm for any of the situations you describe unless and until they are ready to shoot someone in lawful self-defense.
Further, I would go one step further and prohibit them from snooping for crimes under a pretext. If a family member calls and says that they are worried about Uncle Bob because they haven’t heard from him in a week and the officers arrive at the house and Bob answers the door drunk telling them to fuck off because he never liked his family anyways and that he doesn’t want to talk to them, then, “Have a good day, Bob!” and leave.
No asking to come in and see if Bob is using illegal drugs as a pretext to an arrest. No telling Bob that his family is thinking of getting a mental hygiene warrant against him and it is in his “best interests” to come outside and talk and before they do that pat him down “for officer safety.” None of that.
And I think that is something most people, especially now, could agree on. Not the more radical stuff.
I did mention that issue. I’m sure when a police officer in Toronto or London or Tokyo shows up in response to a domestic call, the possibility of there being a gun at the scene is very remote in their mind.
But this is America. Everyone has a gun. My florist has a gun. And when the police are trained to put the highest priority on their own safety, they assume the people they are encountering have a gun, are ready to shoot them, and they should defend themselves by shooting first. So a lot of people get shot because they have a cell phone or a comb or a screwdriver or hands. Or maybe even an actual gun.
We really dont have good numbers for India, China, Russia and a few other nations. India has it’s “police encounters”-433 in one six month period in one State. But the wiki page shows less killings than that for the whole nation for a whole year. Apparently the police encounters, which are a type of judicial murder- arent counted for soem reason.
And we are 20th from the top, of 60, so “our law enforcement kills a lot of people compared to other countries, both per capita and in total” is not true.
Mind you, I am not saying that is good. But it’s not like America stands out from the crowd, we are right in the middle half.
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