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Investigation: Police Shootings

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#101

Post by [deleted] »

rodgerd wrote: post #73
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.

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?

[deleted]

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#102

Post by drumdance »

13thLetter wrote: post #89
rodgerd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Simple: because they aren't pointing the AR-15s at anyone or breaking any laws. Hope that answers your question -- anything else you need help with?

Look at this guy: http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/11/25/laquan-mcdonald-chic....

He was walking away from the police when they shot him -- 16 times! Fortunately this was caught on camera, but a lot of shootings are not.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#103

Post by newman314 »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #62
DanBC wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

In the first clip I wouldn't call that "competence" so much as "overwhelming force", something US police use frequently. It's worth noting that at the beginning of the video, an officer is trying to ram the perp with a trashcan found at the scene... It's also worth noting that in the US an officer is much more likely to be killed. Hence why regular people are more likely to be killed by police. It's a fearful, kneeje…

Source please for "in the US an officer is much more likely to be killed"?

I took a quick look and found this. [1][2] Looks like number of cop deaths are at a 50 year low but can't find a country by country comparison.

[1] http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2014/09/i-saw-posting-on-facebo...

[2] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131230/15411225716/numbe...

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#104

Post by adrr »

rayiner wrote: post #3

Worth reading through these. A lot of people with mental illness shot just for holding guns or knives or "driving toward police." Recently, an au pair we know (from Germany), had a gun pulled on her because she reached into her purse to get her ID when she was pulled over. The fact that Maryland's finest are totally mental and she could get killed for doing that never occurred to her.

Its all cops, we had guns pulled on us when our car matched a stolen car. Pulling a gun out should be last resort. Unless you intend to kill the someone, guns shouldn't be pulled out. Accidents happen as we seen in SF when guns are pulled out.

Risk mitigation seems to favor police officers even though they picked their occupation with the known risks. An innocent person didn't chose to have a gun pointed at them in order for the officer mitigate risk to themselves.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#105

Post by 13thLetter »

cryptoz wrote: post #14
adam12 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, this highlights how overblown the terrorist problem is.

About 30,000 Americans die in car crashes every year. That's about ~400,000 Americans killed by other Americans in their cars since the 2001 terrorist attacks. It's pretty clear that the emotional appeal is what people seem to care about ("someone wants to kill us") and it has absolutely nothing to do at all with Americans dying. Terrorism has never been a problem. The same number of people died in car accidents duri…

This is an argument that gets wheeled out a lot, and I'm afraid I don't see the logic in it at all. More Americans died in car crashes in December, 1941 than were killed at Pearl Harbor, too; are you going to assert that, therefore, Japan bombing Pearl Harbor was not a problem?

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#106

Post by idbehold »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #25
rayiner wrote: post #3

Worth reading through these. A lot of people with mental illness shot just for holding guns or knives or "driving toward police." Recently, an au pair we know (from Germany), had a gun pulled on her because she reached into her purse to get her ID when she was pulled over. The fact that Maryland's finest are totally mental and she could get killed for doing that never occurred to her.

Once got pulled over while driving through a narrow alley. I had seen the police officer turning the corner behind me at an extremely dangerous speed (wheels spinning) so I assumed he was responding to an active shooting or something. I accelerated to cover the last 20 yards or so and then immediately pulled over once I was out of his way. He came up, gun drawn, thinking I had tried to escape. The reason for pulling…

Wait, are license plates required to be lit? I thought that was just a curtesy to other drivers, not a legal requirement.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#107

Post by jessaustin »

tptacek wrote: post #43
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.

It's not in the data set, but the correct category for McDonald is "Deadly weapon" but not "Attack in progress". McDonald is the reason I'd like the "firearm" breakout, because "deadly weapon", "no firearm", and "no attack in progress" describes a somewhat common class of police fatalities that are probably mostly unjustified.

Yes I agree. The standard for "deadly weapon" has deteriorated to the point at which anything that any conceivably imaginative movie plot might suggest could cause a death in very particular circumstances, is thought to qualify. Yes it's possible that a two-inch penknife might be able to sever the vein of an immobilized person, given several minutes of sawing. That doesn't mean that such a tool is considered a "deadly weapon" by reasonable people, in any situation which includes police firing guns.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#108

Post by shkkmo »

cbr wrote: post #76
shkkmo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yet it is misleading to support the claim of a "war on traffic fatalities" with a graph that measures something else.

The first graph show we have made driving far less dangerous per mile.

The second graph shows the likelihood that any given person will die due to traffic.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#109

Post by notdonspaulding »

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…

First: citation needed.

Second: In almost the entire US, being armed is not against the law.

Third: If it's as much of a "common occurrence" as you claim, please paste here one example from the list of shootings on the article's main page where an officer shoots a civilian without any provocation.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#110

Post by drumdance »

notdonspaulding wrote: post #96
DanBC wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't know the numbers but it seems to me the relevant question is, in X number of incidents in the UK vs. the US, how many perpetrators die? How many cops die?

If the UK police are able to subdue these people without killing the perpetrator or getting killed themselves, on a per capita basis, I'd say the UK response is better.

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