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Investigation: Police Shootings

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#91

Post by enraged_camel »

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.

>>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.

How often does this happen?

A much more common occurrence is when someone sees a suspicious-looking dude walking down the street, calls the cops and says "I think he is armed!" and the cops arrive and shoot him without first verifying if he's actually armed with a real weapon.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#92

Post by gfodor »

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...

Absolute numbers in the last year are interesting, but much more interesting would be trends over a longer period. There's a widespread perception that there is an epidemic of police killings right now, but I haven't seen anyone use data to analyze how novel the current rate is with the past.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#93

Post by cbr »

_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.

They're smaller, but not that much smaller. With a combined population of 56M to the USA's 319M, we could scale their shooting numbers by 5.7x to get something adjusted for population. So if they were as big as the USA they would have ~17 shootings to our 984.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#95

Post by b_emery »

grb423 wrote: post #44

Note to self: When uniformed officers approach to serve my arrest warrants, drop cellphone and put hands up. These dudes are dangerous!!

It actually is good advice to keep your hands visible at all times. It's a step in the right direction of keeping the officer at ease.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#96

Post by notdonspaulding »

DanBC wrote: post #53
hebdo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that a knife threat should never call for a firearm response then I recommend this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xpcrDzy344

If we're trading youtube clips here's a police force who disarm a man armed with a machete. Armed police are available, (the UK has armed police, especially in London) but those police are not needed because our police force is not fucking incompetent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX5CPx4RKWw Here's another video of a man wielding a knife and approaching police. In the US he's much more likely to be killed. https:…

With no clips to trade, I'm merely spectating at a tennis match, but I remain unconvinced that the UK response is in any way better.

In all 3 clips (your two, plus the parent's) what I see is that a person holding a knife is an immediate and real danger to anyone within 15 feet of them.

Also, if I'm seeing correctly, both assailants had already been pepper-sprayed, is that right?

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#97

Post by spikels »

_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.

Not that much smaller:

                   Population    Killed
                   (mid-2012)    by Police
  United States    314,102,623     984
  England & Wales   56,567,800       3
  Ratio                     6x    328x
Don't think land area makes sense. However adjusting for crime rates and demographics would make a big difference.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#98

Post by kennelliott »

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?

A more roundabout way might be to go here https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo... , look at the second point about fleeing individuals, and look around for those who were brandishing a firearm. Some you will also find showed signs of mental illness. Apologies for not having an exact count of that particular union.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#100

Post by notatoad »

enraged_camel wrote: post #91
notatoad wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>>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. How often does this happen? A much more common occurrence is when someone sees a suspicious-looking dude walking down the street, calls the cops and says "I think he is armed!" and the cops arrive and shoot him without first verifying if…

In your scenario the victim would be classed as "unarmed", not "armed with a toy". The point i was trying to make is that people identified as "armed with a toy" in stats should be grouped along side armed people, not with unarmed ones like the person i replied to was doing. Because odds are, if you're interacting with police and carrying a replica weapon, the whole point of that weapon is to fool people into thinking you're armed.
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