Thank you–while the personal anecdotes are no doubt fascinating, this is the information I was looking for, and it’s basically what I expected. (And also somewhat undermines the point that a ridealong will show me how wrong BLM is, since the events BLM is talking about are highly unlikely to occur on a single ridealong).
Here’s a coarse estimate:
in 2016, 956 people were shot to death in the US by police (cite).
There are roughly 880,000 federal, state, and local officers in the US who have “general arrest powers” (and therefore probably also are armed and prepared to shoot persons they deem a threat). (cite).
I will assume these officers are employed full-time, rather than working part-time or working egregious amounts of overtime. So 2080 hours per officer per year times 880K officers = 1,830,400,000 man-hours per year.
956 fatal shootings divided by 1,830,400,000 = one fatal police shooting per 1,914,644 hours of duty.
If you do an eight-hour ride-along with two officers, you’re observing 16 hours of duty, so your chances of seeing a fatal police shooting would be approximately 1/119,665.
Don’t know how many people survive being shot by the police - but AIUI, when the police shoot, they shoot to kill: they aim for the center of mass and generally fire multiple rounds, so I would think the survival rate isn’t terribly high. If we suppose that half of the people shot by police aren’t killed, then that means the total number shot by police in 2016 (whether fatally or not) would be about 1912, and your odds of seeing a fatal or nonfatal shooting during an eight-hour ride-along with two officers would be about 1/59,832.
Edit: Somehow I didn’t see Dr. Jackson’s post above, but managed to come up with similar odds via a totally different route…weird…
That’s how we do it here too. We have a Citizens police Academy and part of that is a ride along. The only other way to do it is to be a college criminal justice major and apply for an internship. Someone off the street would be handed a CPA application.
Yes, I have (medical students, residents etc.).
I’ve been on a few ride-alongs with police (during my days as a reporter), and the most “violent” thing that ever happened was at the end of a vice raid when I was leaving the establishment and an unhappy customer gave me the finger. 
LHOD might gain interesting perspectives from a few ride-alongs with cops in high-crime areas. Despite the popular conception of police being frequently involved in shoot-em-ups, the odds of any firearms being discharged on such jaunts would be very, very low.
It would, no doubt, be interesting–but it’s also extraordinarily unlikely that it’d change my perspective much, since I generally think most police are doing their best to do a very difficult job and want to de-escalate dangerous situations. My concerns are less about any individual cop and more about statistical tendencies. Unless I went on several dozen ride-alongs, enough to change my impression of the statistics, I don’t think my concerns would either rise or fall.
True, but from that link its the second most likely occupation for being murdered which is slightly different than general risk. Remind me never to be a taxi-driver though! I’m also surprised that ‘aircraft pilot and flight engineer’ is so dangerous.
Is there something you want to tell us or are you actually Gerry Kelly 
(local politician who took an impromptu ride on a police landrover)
I should write to the local papers and suggest it, just to see the reaction.
The events where police don’t use deadly force are part of the overall picture that helps understanding of the events where they do. A ride-along can offer insight into general police behavior, the circumstances and limited information police have to make timely decisions under, and how they deal with minority members of the population they serve. Those are important supporting pieces for the high profile use of force cases. A ride-along can directly address part of BLM’s point at the top of their guiding principles page that “Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.” There’s also parts of their principles that are at best peripheral to deadly force encounters let alone policing. A ride along probably won’t be very instructional on fighting ageism and heteronormative thinking.
Given your current opinion, it likely isn’t world changing to have that one experience. Of course your opinion on policing is already out of step BLM’s notion that the violence is intentional.
I should be clear: I think that most of the violence is not systematically intentional, in the sense that most of the unjust killings involve officers who either genuinely fear for their lives, or genuinely don’t mean to inflict lethal violence. That’s not an excuse, but an explanation. However, when an officer shouts, “We’re killing this motherfucker” and proceeds to kill the motherfucker, I find myself in agreement with BLM.
With that said, I fear I’m edging too close to the “no politics” rule, so I’ll say no more about my opinions here.