Investigation: Police Shootings • Hacker News Board

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#71

Post by gohrt » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

Some notes: * The Guardian has a very similar feature, "The Counted": http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/0... The Guardian's feature is better in some ways; for instance, it attempts to account for all police engagement fatalities, not just shootings. Some of the worst police abuses in the US haven't involved guns, and if you read the data carefully you learn some surprising things, like how d…

> while attacking someone with a deadly weapon.

According to who?

In several cases, it was shown that the police claimed "attacking someone with a deadly weapon." that was later shown to be a false claim.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#72

Post by kennelliott » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #65

kennelliott wrote: post #57

Hi everyone! I'm a developer who worked on this project, and I appreciate the comments and suggestions. If you enjoyed this piece, you might want to check out our related story about the six most important things we learned from a year of investigating and reporting this data: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

Is there a way to get the union of "Fleeing suspect" and "deadly weapon" (or, better: "fleeing suspect" and "firearm") from the data?

The best we could advise you to do is select both "Deadly weapon" (under the "Weapon" category) and "Other" (under "Threat Level"). Deadly weapon includes all firearms, and the Other (threat level) category includes, but is not limited to, individuals who were fleeing.

There will be some information in the blurbs that may indicate if the person was fleeing specifically. We hope that in future versions we will be able to provide a more specific breakdown.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#73

Post by rodgerd » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #45

RealGeek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

93 victims were unarmed, 33 were armed with a toy, and 27 unknown. That is a lot more than Americans killed by terrorists in US.

I've seen police shoot and kill a man "armed with a toy" and it's very, very hard for me to fault them for it. It sounds bad when you say it, but armed with a toy and armed should be treated as the same thing. When a man being chased by police stops his car, gets out, takes cover behind the door and starts pointing something that looks remarkably like a gun at police, he should be shot.

There are regularly displays by men armed with AR-15s around cities in the US. Yet the police seem to be disinterested in shooting them. I wonder why?

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#74

Post by krapp » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #68

I remember reading an article by a former military guy who was deployed in the middle east. Back home he had to deal with the police and basically said: "they reminded me of myself when I was deployed and operating in enemy controlled areas". The guy goes on to explain on, according to him, the problem is that there is a narrative that cops should be allowed to do anything to protect their life, as opposed to protect…

>Cops should not be allowed to kill someone on suspicion that maybe there is a possibility that they will start shooting at them.

Civilians in the US often have this right, so why shouldn't the police?

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#75

Post by gohrt » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #45

RealGeek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

93 victims were unarmed, 33 were armed with a toy, and 27 unknown. That is a lot more than Americans killed by terrorists in US.

I've seen police shoot and kill a man "armed with a toy" and it's very, very hard for me to fault them for it. It sounds bad when you say it, but armed with a toy and armed should be treated as the same thing. When a man being chased by police stops his car, gets out, takes cover behind the door and starts pointing something that looks remarkably like a gun at police, he should be shot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/us/long-taught-to-use-forc...

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#76

Post by cbr » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #58

harryh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is our war on cars? We do have a war on car fatalities. It's been remarkably successful: http://www.donerdesigns.org/_/rsrc/1376697199749/other-cause...

That graphic is rather misleading. Our success in reducing traffic fatalities is rather mixed and not nearly so dramatic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._traffic_deaths_as_fr...

The first graph shows that we have made driving far less dangerous over time. The second graph shows that driving has become far more popular over time, popular enough to outweigh this effect until the early 70s.

The recent improvement in car accident rates is pretty impressive.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#77

Post by rodgerd » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

_asdf_asdf wrote: post #52

hackuser wrote: post #13

Number of people killed last year by police in England and Wales: 3. That's the highest since 2008. [1] Why doesn't law enforcement seem to care? The government doesn't even track police shootings (one reason the Washington Post created its database) and, generally, law enforcement's reaction expresses no concern for the victims or for reducing this appalling behavior and widespread failure. [1] http://www.inquest.or…

Wow! And England and Wales are entire countries! Except... They are much, much, much smaller countries, and so... One would actually expect a much, much, much smaller number for them. Even combined. Whether by land area or population, they are considerably smaller.

Given the population of the UK is about a fifth of the US, your post is so ridiculous it's hard to consider it anything but a troll.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#78

Post by knowaveragejoe » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #51

tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the police in the US are clearly more violent than those in the UK, it's also the case that there is more crime in the US, more variance in the population, and way, way, way more gun availability. So we may not have very much to learn from your simple comparison.

> So we may not have very much to learn from your simple comparison. You mean that I didn't write a dissertation on it in an HN comment? We don't have much to learn from your simplistic dismissal of a serious issue, based on simplistic speculation about the causes. Have a nice day.

What terrible reasoning.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#79

Post by gohrt » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

dccoolgai wrote: post #37

jessaustin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we find out if e.g. Laquan McDonald is included in the "64%"? If not, I'd expect he was before the video came out. This is why I hesitate to consider "mitigating circumstances". Public safety officers should be judged by their effect on public safety, not by how well they cover their own asses.

I wonder if you would feel that way if one of your loved ones was serving as an officer of the peace - would you want them dealing with dangerous situations on a daily basis people with no regard for "covering their own ass"? Would you feel that way if there were an armed intruder in your home and one of those officers had to respond to protect you? Would you want them to intervene to protect you or your family or si…

> We don't need to excuse unwarranted police violence as a society

and yet you felt compelled to write this post.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#80

Post by shkkmo » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:06 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #48

shkkmo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you agree that the general lack of prosecutions for vehicle caused fatalities is a failure of justice? The only difference between murder and suicide is if the person who dies chose to die.

We don't prosecute people for "fatalities". We prosecute them for homicide and manslaughter , which are offenses in which the prosecution must prove intent to commit harm . Meanwhile we do in fact prosecute car fatalities when they are caused by recklessness, and, of course, when they're caused intentionally.

You engage me in a semantics debate in a condescending tone and then are wrong. Manslaughter does not require 'intent to commit harm'.

Yes, there are prosecutions of reckless/negligent drivers. However, the fact remains:

1) Most traffic fatalities are the result of human error.

2) Most traffic fatalities do not result in prosecution.

I can't find numbers to back up #2 but this semi-anecdotal evidence is telling:

http://www.wnyc.org/story/283394-killed-while-cycling-why-so...

This quote in particular makes my point:

> “We as a society have chosen to drive these big cars," said Joe McCormack, Assistant District Attorney for the Bronx. It’s his job to prosecute traffic crimes. "And we also as a society have chosen not to criminalize every single small mistake that just has a dramatic consequence because you're driving a car,” he said.