Are Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I enjoyed having my ignorance fought by the article What’s the racial breakdown of people killed by cops? but it never got around to answering the OP.

The stated question was:
Dear Cecil:
I keep seeing a stat saying Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist. How does this data break down into black, white, Hispanic, and Asian-American?
— Eric Ward

So, the question remains unanswered.

Cecil states that the FBI reports of Americans killed by police officers is “surprisingly steady over the years, fluctuating between 300 and 462”, so let’s take an average of of 386 per year. That means, from Jan 1st 2001 to Dec. 31st 2013, we’d expect about 5,018 total, which is more than the 2,605 Americans killed in the September 11th attacks, but not 8x more. So it looks like a safe bet that a random American in the past 13 years is roughly twice as likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist.

Now let’s see how the answer changes if you are black. Cecil says about 30% of the police killings are black people, who make up 13% of the population.

If we assume that 13% of the 2,605 Americans killed on Sept. 11th 2001 were black, that’s 339. And if 30% of the 5,018 police shootings were black, that’s 1,505. It’s still not 8x as much, only about 4.4 x as much.

2

Police killings are more likely to be directed against criminals than not.

Terrorists, on the other hand, kill relatively indiscriminately; the 9/11 attacks killed people of all sorts.

3

Why are you limiting the data to the period 2001-2013? That arbitrarily skews the numbers. How many have been killed by terrorists from 2002-2013? What does that make the ratio?

Is there really any period whatsoever that would make this question legitimate? Probably not. That’s the real answer. Anything else is lying with statistics.

4

I think you have to omit - or at least correct for - 9/11. What is the average number of Americans killed by terrorist acts and activities, worldwide, for the last 25 years? Far, far lower than 400, I’d wager, once the spike of that one day is removed.

5

I have a feeling you are eight times as likely to be killed by just about anything than you are by a terrorist, unless we count criminals who take hostages as terrorists, and serial killers like the Zodiac who are more interested in keeping a city in the grip of fear, than in thrills (a la Ted Bundy). No, even then you are probably more likely to get killed by just about anything else, save, say, a rabid kitty-cat, a giant irradiated ant, or a falling anvil.

Seriously, other unlikely, but real, causes of death are probably more likely, such as being in a bus accident as a pedestrian, dying of anaphylaxis the first time you are exposed to an allergen, drowning in an ornamental fish tank, or dying of an infection from a minor cut.

A lot of people died in one day from a single cause on 9/11, which is what makes it shocking, but the cause, however deadly is really, really uncommon. Other very common but rarely deadly things probably claim more victims, like falling down a short flight of stairs (as opposed to being pushed), or dying from food poisoning because something with eggs was left out too long (as opposed to poisoned food, as when someone puts cyanide in your chocolate milk, or pathogens that are present before the food goes to market, like E. coli in beef). Each of those kills about 1,000 people every year in the US, out of about half a million instances each, with a huge number of different causes, not one single instance of conspiracy.

As far as “eight times more likely,” if some frequent, but infrequently lethal incident, like a short fall, causes 1,000 deaths every year, then it was 1/3 as deadly in the year 2001, but we don’t had a grand-scale terrorist attack every year. if we had one every 24 years, you’d still be 8 times more likely to die in a short fall. Did we have another terrorist attack in the US between 1977 and 2001 that was as deadly? 168 people died in Oklahoma City in 1995. Have we had an attack as deadly since? only a couple of people died in Boston.

So I don’t find the idea that you could be killed by a police officer before you’d be killed by a terrorist particularly shocking. Being killed by a terrorist is really, really unlikely. It’s entirely possible that you are more likely to be killed as a bystander or as collateral damage in a high-speed police chase (as opposed to being shot by a cop) than you are to be killed by a terrorist.

6

Another factor is defining who’s been killed by a terrorist.

The 2977 people killed by the 9/11 attacks? Okay, they were definitely killed by terrorists.

The approximately 1000 people who’ve died of health problems associated with responding to the 9/11 attacks or participating in the post-attack clean-up? Maybe.

The 2335 Americans in the armed forces who died fighting in Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks?

7

A person killed in a terrorist attack is exactly what it sounds like. 9/11, OKC, the letter bomber in his underwear, etc. These don’t exactly happen every day. However, there are Americans killed by police officers in justifiable as well as murderous instances EVERY DAY. So yes, you are absolutely more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist. Whether it is 8X or 2X is irrelevant.

Police oppression and violence can be reduced by simplifying the job of a police officer. We have too many laws on the books and that leads our law enforcement officials to not have a clear understanding of who the “good guys” are. We are the good guys. The public and the individual human beings belonging to the public. Libertarian philosophy holds a live and let live policy that allows the public to engage in conduct they see fit so long as they aren’t hurting anybody else… Smoking marijuana? Go ahead so long as you don’t blow smoke in my infant’s face. Carrying a loaded weapon around? Sure as long as you keep it in your holster and don’t point it at people. Driving faster than the speed limit? Not really a big deal at 4AM when there isn’t traffic and you don’t crash into somebody’s property.

Killing people? Go straight to jail. Raping? Go straight to jail. Stealing from people? Go straight to jail.

You see if we cut the bullshit and simplified our legal code with a straightforward philosophy that fits well into the popular religious ideologies as well as supports our constitutional doctrines we can live safely and with liberty. We need not sacrifice one for the other.

Go ahead, vote Libertarian. You’re only wasting your vote if you vote for the other guys.

8

How many police officers are there in America and how many terrorists ?
Plus the penalties for the police causing death are less severe ( if punished at all ) than for terrorists caught causing death.

9

Strangely, on closing this tab the next in line was a page I had open from looking into Alabama history.
Back in the olden times a special deputy sheriff shot a young white man in 1965 and got home free to the cheers of a grateful nation.

Thomas L. Coleman, who killed an unarmed civil rights worker [ Jonathan Myrick Daniels, 26, an Episcopal seminarian from Keene, N.H. ] then won a jury acquittal by claiming self-defense, died on June 13 at his home in Hayneville, Ala., the scene of the infamous 1965 killing. He was 86.*

…

Mr. Coleman, an engineer for the highway department and a member of one of the county’s oldest families, was at the courthouse when Mr. Daniels, Father Morrisroe and more than 20 black companions were released from the Lowndes County jail, where they had been held on vague charges after a demonstration.

As members of the group recounted it, they were suspicious of the circumstances of their sudden release. While a young man sought a phone to call friends to pick them up, some of the others moved off toward a little store a few blocks away to buy sodas.

As the two white men and two black young women neared the store, witnesses said, Mr. Coleman, an unpaid special deputy sheriff with a pistol at his side and a 12-gauge shotgun in his arms, barred the way, telling them the store was closed and cursing the young women.

Then, as he aimed the shotgun at one of the young women and began to pull the trigger, she and other witnesses said, Mr. Daniels pushed the young women to the ground and used his body as a shield just as the gun went off, nearly tearing his body in two. A second blast struck Father Morrisroe in the back.

In the furor that followed, local officials were so openly supportive of Mr. Coleman that the Attorney General of Alabama, Richmond Flowers, outraged that a grand jury had indicted Mr. Coleman on a charge of manslaughter rather than murder, took over the prosecution. But he was thwarted by the trial judge, who refused to delay the trial until Father Morrisroe was able to testify, then removed Mr. Flowers from the case. It took the jury two hours to find Mr. Coleman not guilty.
New York Times 1997
Mr. Coleman was in fear of his life because he thought the Catholic priest was gunned up and the Episcopal seminarian had a knife ( although, come to think of it, this wouldn’t be reason to shoot the black girl first ).

10

What’s more important than how many, is…justified or unjustified?
Some police killings are justified. I don’t think a single one of the victim deaths of 9/11 were justified, though.

11

I do appreciate that Cecil attempted to look at justifiability and at crime rate differences for the different racial groups to evaluate whether the disparity had a bigger cause than racism.

Of course, the basic point is that terrorist acts are downright rare in this country. Even if deaths by cop are at 0.001% of the number of police officers in this country, that’s still going to be more than the number of terrorist acts in this country.

12

…suggesting anyone justifiably killed by a cop is automatically guilty.

Why the objection? If it’s justifiable, doesn’t that means the perpetrator was determined to have been trying to attack a cop and therefore has committed a felony and is therefore a felon?

13

We generally reserve “felon” for people actually convicted of a crime, as opposed to just accused of a crime. Yes, even if witnessed by a cop, or a judge, or half the country. “Innocent until proven guilty” and all that.

Plus, as the incident in Ferguson points out, sometimes a situation arises where it isn’t clear that the cop was justified, but it’s not like the dead “felon” can give his testimony.

A “slain felon” would be someone who was previously convicted of a felony and is then slain in some followup incident.

A first offender slain in the act of a crime, even justifiably, should be labeled something a little more benign. “Slain suspects” would probably work.

14

The shooting is justified if the cop had reasonable and sincere reason to believe that it was necessary for self-defense. But a belief can be reasonable and sincere without being true.

15

I still remember from my teen years a cop shooting a guy who was pulling his wallet from his pocket. The victim wasn’t a felon, and I’m sure it was filed under “justifiable” since the cop was not charged.

16

You’d have to break it down not just by race but by demographics as well. What are the odds that a middle or upper class black person would be killed by police in the US, compared to a poor white person in the inner city? Also, since US service personnel are also ‘Americans’ you’d need to specify whether we are talking about US citizens in the states or just US citizens in general, since regardless of your definition, a non-zero number of US citizens (soldiers mainly, but civilians as well) have been killed by ‘terrorists’ overseas on a fairly regular basis for the last 10 or so years.

I’d guess that if you took a longer view and looked at 20-50 year time scales then it’s probably true that Americans are 8 times more likely to be killed by police than terrorists, but they are orders of magnitude more likely to be killed by cheese burgers, coal fired power plants or simply driving to work (along with myriad other things) than either police AND terrorists combined, even for the highest risk Americans (i.e. black/minority in inner cities or high crime zones), and even in the highest years of 9/11 attacks and US wars overseas.

17

To summarize this: most American deaths are caused by other things than being killed by the police.

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And deaths by terrorist are exceedingly rare.

19

So, you’re saying that police kill people due to over regulation of banks?

Drink and drive? Perfectly fine as long as you don’t hit anyone! And, go ahead and text while you’re at it! I’d rather the laws try to stop dangerous behaviors before people get hurt rather than wait for the courts to figure it all out.

You’re basically taking the laws out of people’s hands (via their legislature) and depending upon courts to draw them up. What’s the speed limit? We don’t know! Here’s a case where someone was going 60 mph down a street and was thrown in jail for hitting a pedestrian. Here’s someone going 15 mph down that same street. They didn’t go to jail. The speed limit must be between 15 to 60 mph. Maybe it’s 25. Maybe it’s 40. We’ll have to have a few more court cases before we can find out.

Laws give safe harbor for actions. If I am driving at the speed limit, and I am not texting, and a bicyclist jumps out of a side street without stopping, and they had a stop sign, I probably won’t be charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment, or any other crime. I was obeying the law. If I was revving down the street at 60 mph, I could be charged with manslaughter, and if my blood alcohol was above .8%, second degree murder. It doesn’t matter if I felt it was safe or not. The law gives the boundary. If you’re zooming down my street at 60mph at 4am, and you hit someone, is it still okay because you thought it was safe?

Let the courts decide whether or not deer hunting downtown with a automatic rifle is a personal right or a reckless endangerment! Let’s let the courts decide whether or not you have a right to drill for oil in your own backyard, or run a smelting operation! Are those deadly toxic fumes? Let’s ask the judge!

No trial? Just the police pick someone up and toss them in the hoosegow? Okay, maybe a trial first, but what would be the charge? What would be the sentence? Is that completely up to that judge? You want to charge me with Murder? Hey, I have a right to fire off my rifle! It was self defense! Besides, he’s the one who got in the way of my bullet! I aught to sue him! He owes me a bullet!

20

Hey! He was black at the time! Isn’t that good enough?

Seriously, shouldn’t we take the word of the officer over that of someone who was doing something illegal? If the police say someone was resisting arrest, and endangering their lives, it’s probably true.