Investigation: Police Shootings • Hacker News Board

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#111

Post by kbenson » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:24 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #30

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…

Here's the data set as a spreadsheet, which I think is more helpful (I will feel dumb if they made it available as a spreadsheet themselves): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/100kWwv7vLl0ZAbtMn7lY... Oklahoma is pretty bad. California is in the top 15 for both fatal shootings weighted by population and for fatal shootings of people not attacking with a deadly weapon. Illinois, where I live, is all the way down…

It would be interesting to see how well the numbers correlate to percentage of population in the state that lives in urban and rural areas, or even what percentage of the population is in heavily/dense urbanized areas.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#112

Post by rmxt » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:25 PM UTC

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?

And people like these guys weren't pointing guns at other people or breaking the law?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff#April_12_confro...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs_Planned_Paren...

I'm certainly not suggesting that we encourage violent responses from law enforcement. (I'm relieved injury and harm were minimized in both of the above instances.) But, it's disingenuous to think that all demographics get an equally fair shake/generous response from law enforcement when they are holding (or believed to be holding) a gun.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#113

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:25 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…

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cover+your+ass

[EDIT: removed request]

I do have police family. I do want him to be safe. I don't want him to file false reports in order not to face the consequences of unlawful action.

[EDIT:] As a rural resident and citizen, if "an armed intruder" troubles my family home, the sheriffs will be called to collect a corpse. I'm not fool enough to imagine they'll get there in time for anything else. Home intrusion rates are quite low hereabouts.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#114

Post by kennelliott » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #92

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.

It's tough, because we only started investigating and reporting this data in 2015. We've just announced we will be continuing the investigation in 2016, and by 2017 the government has said it hopes to have a better system in place for reporting and tracking these shootings. We definitely hope to some day have several years' worth of thorough police shootings data to see long-term trends.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#115

Post by blisterpeanuts » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

Just for a fuller picture, here's the listing of police killed, by year, by state, etc.:

https://www.odmp.org/search?name=&agency=&state=&from=2015&t...

Sample search is for 2015, when 129 officers died from all causes including automobile accidents; 39 were killed by gunfire, 5 by vehicle pursuit, 7 by vehicular assault, etc.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#116

Post by 13thLetter » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:32 PM UTC

rmxt wrote: post #112

13thLetter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

And people like these guys weren't pointing guns at other people or breaking the law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff#April_12_confro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs_Planned_Paren... I'm certainly not suggesting that we encourage violent responses from law enforcement. (I'm relieved injury and harm were minimized in both of the above instances.) But, it's disingenuous to think that all…

"But, it's disingenuous to think that all demographics get an equally fair shake/generous response from law enforcement when they are holding (or believed to be holding) a gun."

Maybe they do and maybe they don't, but that particular argument doesn't work at all. There's a huge difference between a protest (even with armed protesters) in broad daylight surrounded by cops and news media, and a split-second confrontation between a police officer and a suspect in the middle of the night. You cannot boil down both situations to "a person may have a gun."

(To be clear, that's not to make any moral judgements about the people involved in those two different situations, or what cops should or should not do. Just saying they are different, and it's dangerously simplistic to line them up next to each other and believe you've proved anything.)

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#117

Post by unit91 » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:34 PM UTC

spikels wrote: post #70

rayiner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See Table 5: http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf . Men are offenders in 92% of gun homicides, 93% of homicides committed in conjunction with another felony, 95% of drug-related homicides, and 98% of gang-related homicides.

See Table 7: http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf . Blacks are offenders in 57% of gun homicides, 60% of homicides committed in conjunction with another felony, 67% of drug-related homicides, and 42% of gang-related homicides.

I don't understand your comment in relation to the male / female issue. Care to expound?

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#118

Post by mempko » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:35 PM UTC

What the hell is going on in California? Actually, better question is why is Illinois so much less violent?

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#119

Post by spikels » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:35 PM UTC

adam12 wrote: post #10

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.

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

I though the same thing until 9/11.

The 3,000 people killed were 20% of the 16,000 murders that year. It was by far the biggest mass murder in US history. Next biggest was 44 in the 1927 Bath School disaster.

And of course terrorism is a much bigger problem in some countries.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#120

Post by kbenson » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:36 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 is quite a difference between not faulting the police for shooting someone and saying that person should be shot. I do not think pointing a non-lethal weapon, much less a toy, should be automatic grounds for being shot. I do believe it may be the appropriate response in some situations though. That said, I suspect you don't really believe what you've said, and it's a case of poorly communicating your intent.

Unfortunately, on polarizing issues like this where clear communication is paramount to prevent people from wasting time arguing similar points, it seems people are more prone to comment without fully considering their wording (possibly due to high emotional investment).