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

[RTFirefly]

@Doctor_Jackson

Please don’t think I’m belittling the events in Ferguson, by any measure it is a tragedy where one life was ended and many were changed forever. I don’t know enough of the facts to determine who was wrong, my experience says there is enough blame to go around. And I am aware of sporatic, community based protests against crime in general - but those are exactly that - local and sporatic.

But they are there. Despite no single flash point, these protests happen - even in a time of rapidly declining crime rates, for black on black crime as well as all other kinds - and they wouldn’t if black people didn’t give a damn about crime within their community.

The shooting in Ferguson and the incident in NY are a national obsession and flash point. Even if we permanently solved the issue of police of one race shooting civilians of another, we would have made a very small dent in homicide deaths.

As a geek, it’s been something about human nature that I’ve always had trouble with, but it’s a real thing: people are going to get mad about some specific incident, and not about a pattern, though it will help if they buy into its being part of a pattern.

And Bouie’s point is IMHO inarguable: the actions of the state are fundamentally different from those of one’s fellow citizens. If the state murders people who look like you, and doesn’t even try to rectify the injustice, it calls the legitimacy of the state into question. Why should you be loyal to a state that’s okay with killing you?

[JustinC]

I thought tasers were suitable for this type of incident?

Reading the earlier report, it’s saying he shot at them and they left the building. A negotiator was called.

Deputies retreated when they heard what they believed to be gunshots, but shots have not been confirmed at this time, Martinez said. Police believe the man to be armed.

A later report doesn’t say if he was armed with a gun or not. Very sad situation, all round. I don’t know why they had to shoot him with real bullets, if they’d had time and it wasn’t all over in a split second. If he’d been a tiger, a vet could shoot a tranquiliser gun - is this, in the case of a human, totally impossible?

[Doctor_Jackson]

@RTFirefly

As a geek, it’s been something about human nature that I’ve always had trouble with, but it’s a real thing: people are going to get mad about some specific incident, and not about a pattern, though it will help if they buy into its being part of a pattern.

This is exactly what bothers me about the whole thing. No idea what to do about it, but post on a message board. Sigh, that’ll help…

[Fallen]

@drachillix

A cop is about 15 times more likely to be killed by a citizen than the average citizen is by a cop.

I trust this is an innocent mistake of an extrapolation by virtue of simple math, but it’s one that suggests wilful ignorance (as to one of many things, it presupposes that each citizen interacts with police whereas in truth there are many people who never interact with police). It also suggests something that is untrue: that being a police officer is a very dangerous job as compared to others. Luckily, this is just a message board and not a policy discussion.

Police officers are in a pretty safe line of work as compared to numerous other jobs, and that includes injuries. A cop is at least several times more likely to commit suicide than be killed in the line of duty as a result of someone else’s intentional (or even unintentional) act that causes his/her death.

[Acsenray]

Watch a Cop Punch a 15-Year-Old Girl in the Face, Pin Her to the Ground: “I Can’t Breathe”

Cop in Mesa, Arizona punches 15-year-old girl in the face. —

Santiago says the police tried to delete the video off his phone. And when he told a second officer at the scene what he witnessed, “the cop said the female cop acted correctly and if she needed to she can shoot her dead.”