Over 1,000 People Killed by U.S. Police so far this Year

In My Humble Opinion
41

Well…it would, to you, wouldn’t it? You’re American. Your cops just seem to think differently to cops nearly anywhere else in the world. It seems like, in America, if anyone does anything that a cop could conceivably construe as threatening the lethal force card immediately becomes a viable card to play, and you guys have just gotten used to that. It’s really, really weird. I can’t emphasise enough that cops in other countries just don’t think like that. In the UK, for instance, cops are expected to refrain from shooting citizens unless there is literally no other choice in the world, and when a cop breaks that rule all hell breaks loose and heads fucking roll.

Do you know how many citizens have been killed by cops in England this year? One. Last year English cops managed to do their jobs without killing a single citizen anywhere in the country. In 2012 cops killed two people. This was considered high. At this rate it will be the year 2514 before English cops kill more people than American cops killed in the last eleven months.

I have a great deal of respect for English cops, and I’d always feel safe approaching one for help. If I were visiting America, I’d be every bit as scared of the police as the criminals.

42

Yes. I’m an American, I love many things about my country, but we are really failing in this area.

43

When it’s the Midland County Sheriff’s Office’s mental health unit? Yes, armed.

44

I thought that would have been obvious from the fact that he was shot, but upon reflection I decided the question was being asked for unworthy reasons. YMMV.

[QUOTE=IvoryTowerDenizen]

Not if there’s no intent.
[/QUOTE]
And this changes the danger of being attacked with a machete and the need to subdue him - how, exactly?

Regards,
Shodan

45

Excellent analytical point. Feel free to find, analyze and post those stats, I posted what I could find as a counterpoint.

46

That’s one possibility, albeit unsupported by anything but your guess.

All I’m saying is that these threads almost always devolve into unsupported opinion (hey, that’s why it’s in IMHO) and mostly one sided. Very few facts and little scrutiny of the flip side of the scenario.

47

It will be interesting to see what kind of response you get to this post, which I happen to like very much. I doubt if it will be very much; we’re not very good at stepping back and looking at ourselves from a larger perspective.

We are way too comfortable with the application of lethal force here in the U.S. and we don’t care very much (as we don’t in too many other areas) that alternatives have been uncovered elsewhere.

48

Are you playing games? It changes whether they are a criminal or not, which was what I was responding to. A car with broken brakes careening down the road and a drunk driver careening down the road are both dangerous, but only one is a criminal.

I’ve addressed the safety issue multiple times. Feel free to read the thread.

49

Those UK death rates in custody are a matter of some debate, and the lack of effective investigation into them is an even greater concern

The investigations are often cited as being a waste of time, with former police officers investigating their own, and the IPCC not having the power to compel Officers to attend and give testimony under oath.

In other words, we in the UK are not especially shining in this regard,

of course our figure look much better because we have ways of excluding inconvenient facts

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rate-of-deaths-in-custody-is-higher-than-officials-admit-6297270.html

We all have to hit out Key Performance Targets (KPIs), and this is how our police do it, how do your police achieve their KPIs, in a similar way I expect

50

I agree. They learned what they needed to know, so there’s no reason for them not to retreat from the house if they can do so safely.

51

I note that this is something you’re bringing into the conversation, Doctor Jackson, and doesn’t necessarily reflect your own opinion.

But that said, one must wonder why “police officers feel they are increasingly under attack from the public.” While the year-to-year numbers for police fatalities bounce around like a knuckleball thrown into a headwind, the overall trend has been down for the past 40 years. And taking 5-year averages, the 2009-2013 period averaged 136 police fatalities per year. The last time there was a 5-year period with that low an average was 1959-1963, before most cops on the street today were even born.

And 2014 is on track to continue the trend: there have been only 113 police fatalities so far this year, which is on track to be the year with the second-, third-, or fourth-lowest number of police fatalities since 1959.

And while the press release makes a big deal of the fact that the numbers are up since last year, last year had only 100 police fatalities - the fewest since 1944. (And excepting 1943 and 1944, it had the fewest police fatalities since - get this - 1910. So last year had the third-fewest police fatalities in a frickin’ century.)

If the police feel they’re increasingly under attack, I can only conclude that the key word is feel, and that the solution is psychotherapy, not weaponry.

52

So having learned that he is violently insane, and a danger to himself and others, he needs to be taken into custody. So there is every reason in the world to not retreat.

You do understand what generally happens in a police welfare check, don’t you? Someone, in this case the man’s family, calls up the police and says that someone else may present a danger to himself or others. In fact, in this case it was because he was refusing to take his medications. So the police go to that person’s last known address and check if they are all right. If the person attacks them with a machete, that is usually one of the warning signs that they are not, in fact, all right.

[QUOTE=IvoryTowerDenizen]
Are you playing games?
[/QUOTE]
No, I am not. I am pointing out what I would have thought was obvious in a thread discussing cases where the police killed someone - it matters not whether the person coming at you screaming is doing so because he is a bad person, or because he is crazier than a shithouse rat - you are still being attacked with a machete, and need to take steps, which may include bean bag rounds or real bullets, but do not include letting him off with a warning (or running away and hiding) because he couldn’t help himself.

Regards,
Shodan

53

Then you’re arguing against yourself. Of course everyone gets that. I got that from my first post. My point is that mental illness and criminal behavior deserve to be treated differently in attitude and response.

Someone who is mentally ill may not be rational so won’t respond logically to commands. Someone having delusions may not even recognize who you are. Someone who is ill could benefit from a moment of cooling off, as I was discussing early on (stepping out of the house as long as no one in the house is in danger and if they can leave safely) and waiting for paramedics or additional help or until he’s calmed down.

Cops should respond to criminals differently than someone who is mentally ill. Not a lack of response to the ill, but a response that takes into account what’s going on with them. I can’t imagine this is a controversial stance.

54

As one big guy who had to HELP wet sheet a small woman, I feel that a lot of people have no clue what it is like & how fast & how strong those sick people really are.

Do we know if anyone else was in the house?

Just how crazy was the guy acting?

What kind of officers were these on average & should they be out on this kind of call?

How many were in the house and were any outside?

Just criticizing from the other side of the world does not influence me in the least.

The UK is no where near like the US.

UK has had its people under Kings & Queens for at least 900 years give or take. Still have them but they are technically not that powerful anymore but if the Queen wanted something real bad, what would the population do if the whole country voted on it?

That is a lot of years taking orders from a higher authority that is firmly entrenched in every nook & cranny of the country & people. How many years since the UK land was stolen from a native or previous occupants?

Now look at the US & what our history is and the importance of self reliance is to them. How long ago was it that we took the land by force? Were there any people from the UK lands that took part in that?

Now, lets take every firearm for everyone in Detroit. Remove every Detroit police officer and replace them with English police with no more firearms than they have in England. On a one to one basis with the same number of years on the force as those they are replacing.

Just how do you think this is going to go?

What if we compare the US to Brazil? To Colombia?

This particular case can be arm chair quarter backed all the people want to. What are the permanent solutions to make the US as safe as the UK is touted to be?

I’m not claiming that there were no options other than what happened but these silly comments about how the UK is so much better, well, I am so tired of it.

I really would like to know more about this story. Not enough information for me to make an absolute statement.

55

OK, please describe how the police should respond to a criminal who attacks them with a machete vs. a mentally ill person who attacks them with a machete.

Should the police take four hours, call in a special negotiator, and use non-lethal rounds first? Should they send in the mental health unit first, and only call in the cops when that fails? Should they attempt to negotiate for hours? Should they try to get people to take their meds?

Regards,
Shodan

56

No, you are right Shodan, they should definitely just shoot them dead and go home in time to watch the game. No use wasting time trying to help the public or anything.

57

Australian police will negotiate for hours.

Example

I remember this incident from a while back, where police shot a man wielding a knife on Bondi Beach. I’m pretty sure American police would get a pass in that situation, but here, the community outrage was sky high. The feeling was not that police can’t defend themselves, but that they are the ones with all the power so they need to manage situations better. Shooting someone should be an absolute last resort. Maybe I’m wrong here, but I feel like the community’s intolerance for police shootings forces police to do things in a different way.

58

[quote=“cochrane, post:2, topic:706211”]

According to the article, the man swung at officers with a machete and struck one with the flat side of the blade. They attempted to subdue him with beanbag rounds before shooting at him. They did try to use less-than-lethal means. I don’t know what more they could have done before resorting to deadly force.

[QUOTE]

How about dis-engage?

59

Well put, UncleRojelio-about time these bleeding hearts understand that our tax dollars are to keep the cops safe and happy, not the other way around!

60

It’s a controversial stance because unless you have actually lived through a psychotic break, it’s effectively impossible to understand what is happening when someone has gone off his nut. You can try to teach people what it looks like, and to expect unexpected reactions to logic, that your world is only trivially intersected with theirs, and that normal psychological tools like assuming a position of authority to bring a situation under control–that none of that might work, and in fact is more likely to backfire. But it is really hard to understand it if you’ve never lived it, or even seen it in a loved one. I’m not certain Johnny Law could ever really booklearn it well enough to manage such a person effectively. Or maybe he could learn it, but the powers in charge don’t have any patience for that kind of nonsense–bullet in the head is best for everyone, right? Hastens the inevitable, right? Mentals are weak-minded anyway.