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Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

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Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#21

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

weberc2 wrote: post #4

This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn't find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn't find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between…

I understand the issue is the loose definition of "innocent" - if you take it to mean someone shot by police who is absolutely innocent of any charge - or if you define it as someone who was doing something criminal or suspect but the situation did not initially warrant their shooting. Hence the emphasis on deescalation training.

Consider a hypothetical: two separate scenarios of kids shoplifting, one white the other black: the white kid gets called out by an officer, is pursued and apprehended without arms drawn, the police officer writes-up a citation and the kid spends the night in jail as a warning before being released. A black kid does the same thing, but the officer decides to draw their sidearm and orders them to freeze - the kid turns around to look and is immediately shot by the officer (search online for "shot for turning around police"). The officer can (at present, justifiably) say they feared for their life because they thought they were about to be charged or expected their target to draw their own firearm. Or take the same scenario but both kids do actually fight back somehow - I believe the average white police officer would still be more hesitant to use lethal force against a white assailant than a black one.

I won't deny the usual statistics ("blacks commit more crimes per-capita", etc) but don't think that's where I believe the problem is. I'm not content with the sentiment that "black lives matter" - I'd much rather it be "criminals' lives matter" (I'm aware of the straightforward racist implication - that's why I dare not say it too loudly).

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#23

Post by ethanhunt_ »

apeace wrote: post #16
weberc2 wrote: post #4

This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn't find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn't find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between…

You didn't research very hard. From the Washington Post[0]: > White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black…

That's not the right comparison, statistically. You'd want to compare the number of police encounters vs the number of police encounters that result in death, broken down by race. The statistic that you quoted would skew if one race has less encounters with police than the other group (which if I recall is the case here. I think NYT and WSJ both ran articles several months ago about this.)

Not that this changes the rough idea here which is that someone changing a license plate on a car shouldn't have a gun pointed at her and have to depend more on her de-escalation skills than the officer's.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#24

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

asdfpoiuqwer wrote: post #20
apeace wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't research very hard. From the Washington Post[0]: > White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black…

I believe The Guardian also ran a project to count people murdered by law enforcement because there are no strict requirements to record this across the country: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/...

Obligatory: "Murdered" != Killed.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#26

Post by bsder »

dTal wrote: post #13

The most alarming thing about this story, apart from the suspected racism, is the sheer amount of confirmation bias on display from someone who is quite prepared to shoot you. She offered corroborating evidence from the get go, and even the 911 dispatcher confirms her story, yet the officer is too busy waving his piece around to get off his power trip. I'd be mad too. Some element of this volatile combo of deadly wea…

We need to have a set of cops who are clearly marked, wired with a body camera, and who don't carry weaponry. Put them in blaze orange or something so criminals can see them coming and run away. You should have to go through this period for some number of years until you get to carry a gun.

Most cops go their whole lives without firing their gun--adding an extra gun rarely makes a situation better. While TV and movies like to portray heroic feats of gunplay, in reality, 90+% of the bullets go errant in situations where a gun was actually useful and required.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#27

Post by weberc2 »

apeace wrote: post #16
weberc2 wrote: post #4

This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn't find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn't find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between…

You didn't research very hard. From the Washington Post[0]: > White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black…

> You didn't research very hard. From the Washington Post:

Actually, that very quote was what inspired my research. I wanted to know if the quote was misleading in favor of one narrative, so I filtered out cases where the suspect was armed and otherwise viably threatening.

Here's the link to the harvard study: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399

> It is a fact: black people are shot and killed more often by police than white people.

I don't dispute that. I'm skeptical that black people are unjustifiably shot more frequently than white people, or at least with the frequency the media would have me believe.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#28

Post by sturgeongeneral »

op00to wrote: post #5

How is property worth pointing a gun at someone over? It's a car. Cars can be replaced.

It may be just a car to you, but I have a valuable sports car, and if I caught someone attempting to steal it I wouldn't hesitate to point a gun. Not for a moment. Would the intent be to kill? Of course not. It'd be to deter.

Edit for the downvotes: it's not just a car to me, and it's not just about the monetary value. It has sentimental value and I wouldn't be able to replace it easily. I don't see what's so controversial about attempting to protect one's property. That said I did find this story disturbing and I'm not trying to imply that the woman did anything wrong. I was simply replying to the point above.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#29

Post by dTal »

bsder wrote: post #26
dTal wrote: post #13

The most alarming thing about this story, apart from the suspected racism, is the sheer amount of confirmation bias on display from someone who is quite prepared to shoot you. She offered corroborating evidence from the get go, and even the 911 dispatcher confirms her story, yet the officer is too busy waving his piece around to get off his power trip. I'd be mad too. Some element of this volatile combo of deadly wea…

We need to have a set of cops who are clearly marked, wired with a body camera, and who don't carry weaponry . Put them in blaze orange or something so criminals can see them coming and run away. You should have to go through this period for some number of years until you get to carry a gun. Most cops go their whole lives without firing their gun--adding an extra gun rarely makes a situation better. While TV and movi…

For anyone who thinks this is a silly idea, this a pretty close description of the average UK police officer.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#30

Post by gozur88 »

apeace wrote: post #16
weberc2 wrote: post #4

This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn't find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn't find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between…

You didn't research very hard. From the Washington Post[0]: > White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black…

>White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Which is meaningless, since black people commit more serious crimes than white people.

If you break it down by people suspected of having committed a felony, you're actually more likely to be shot as a white guy.

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