Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Police Homicides in the United States

granta.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 230 posts

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#61

Post by brohee »

Shivetya wrote: post #41
always_good wrote: post #21

One of the worst videos I've seen on the internet is the Daniel Shaver execution from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M62Va6Ft2cw The Sergeant (voice in the vid) thinks he's fucking Jigsaw, and he wasn't even the guy that pulled the trigger. America is fucked.

No, America is not fucked. If these videos did not have impact then we would be fucked. That they are still so shocking shows that we haven't become police state dystopia that we see in fiction or sadly in parts of this world.

What impact did the video have? The murderer got acquitted...

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#62

Post by tomalpha »

foepys wrote: post #12

3 years ago German police officer /u/krautcop posted on reddit about his opinion on why police violence is much higher in the US than in Germany. [1] This might open a new perspective to some people. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLEO/comments/2dgwkp/what_makes_a...

That is an excellent, well thought out and well written post.

It’s not short but it’s well worth a read. I think he pretty much nails it. He also manages to be reasonably objective which can be tough for someone close to the subject matter.

To summarize crudely, through the lens of my own biases and in a way that doesn’t do it justice at all (no really, go read it in full):

- Police in Germany don’t have to shoot first or have twitchy trigger fingers because it’s so unlikely anyone will shoot at them. So they don’t.

- The problems in the US are systemic, deep rooted in the culture of the society not just the police, and gun availability doesn’t cause the deaths but does significantly exacerbate the problem.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#64

Post by masklinn »

Shivetya wrote: post #41
always_good wrote: post #21

One of the worst videos I've seen on the internet is the Daniel Shaver execution from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M62Va6Ft2cw The Sergeant (voice in the vid) thinks he's fucking Jigsaw, and he wasn't even the guy that pulled the trigger. America is fucked.

No, America is not fucked. If these videos did not have impact then we would be fucked. That they are still so shocking shows that we haven't become police state dystopia that we see in fiction or sadly in parts of this world.

> If these videos did not have impact

They don't, the shooter of that video has just been acquitted.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#65

Post by ojbyrne »

gaius wrote: post #59
keiferski wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is based on a false assumption: that the proper police response to life-threatening criminal acts is to kill the perpetrator. If you get past the they deserve it Puritan mentality, the ideal scenario is for police minimize death (of criminals and police officers) at all costs. Numerous other countries handle violent criminals in ways other than "kill them immediately"; the tendency of police officers to use imme…

the tendency of police officers to use immediate lethal violence can most likely be explained by the aforementioned Puritan "punishment" mentality It must be horrible to be an American cop. All that training, the weapons, the body armour, the radio to immediately summon a whole squad of armed goons who may or may not even have a tank , and they regularly feel so terrified by women in pyjamas or pet doggos that they m…

Blame the NRA. The proliferation of handguns and the militarization of the police are a positive feedback loop.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#66

Post by pron »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

Interesting analysis. As a counterpoint to the headline that might be little fear-inducing, my first reaction when reading it was: only so little? Things must be bad. I mean: the perfect situation is when there are no homicides at all. But in a little less perfect imaginary world, in which bad people never get the chance to hurt innocents because police stops it, some bad people might still go down resisting arrest,…

That's a good point, but much of social research breaks down when you start talking about imaginary worlds. For example, I see (mostly very young) people oppose affirmative action on grounds similar to, "but in a perfect world, skin color shouldn't matter, therefore such laws are bad." This may be true, but laws are aimed to tackle the world we actually live in, not the one we wished we lived in. I call that "spherical-cow sociology".

Similarly for most of social research; it assumes that the findings be taken in the context of other information we have about our actual world. In a perfect world, 100% of homicide deaths would be for those who "deserve" it (I don't think resisting arrest qualifies, but let's say they're killed in the course of stopping them from killing others on the spot), but the assumption of such statistics is that we don't live in such a world. It would still be interesting to know how many of those deaths were necessary, but I think that knowing what we know about the chance of the police being present during homicides, the number of perpetrators vs. number of victims etc.[1], one third seems like a high number. That it's low compared to what we'd expect in a spherical-cow world where the police have super-powers should not affect much how we view the data given what we know about the real world (although it's true that some additional data would clarify matters further).

[1]: For example, one of the few very clear cases of justified homicide is during mass shootings, vehicle-ramming and the like. The ratio of perpetrators to victims in those cases is usually much lower than 1:3.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#67

Post by usrusr »

oblio wrote: post #17
Banthum wrote: post #15

The statistical abuse in this headline is extreme. It's so meaningless, yet so carefully designed to appeal to irrational confirmation biases. Consider some extremely simple thought experiments: e.g. Imagine a world where police do their job even better, and eliminate all murder. But, in some cases, they have to kill the murderer before he takes an innocent victim. They never kill unless it's absolutely necessary and…

Well, maybe it helps to compare: Germany: 2155 homicides in 2011, 6 by the police.

2155 homicides of which the vast majority are likely by non-strangers, so they would not appear in the statistic the article is proposing.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#68

Post by jopsen »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #37
oblio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe it helps to compare: Germany: 2155 homicides in 2011, 6 by the police.

How many German police officers are killed a year? In 2011 it was 69 in the US (and another 58 died in accidents).

A Google search suggest 0-2 depending on what year you pick, see bottom of:

http://www.dw.com/en/two-german-police-officers-killed-by-fl...

In most of Western Europe it's extremely rare that police officers are killed in the line of duty.

Note: most countries count the number of bullets fired by police, as well as number of times a weapon was drawn, in the US they don't officially count people killed.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#69

Post by blattimwind »

keiferski wrote: post #45
TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

Interesting analysis. As a counterpoint to the headline that might be little fear-inducing, my first reaction when reading it was: only so little? Things must be bad. I mean: the perfect situation is when there are no homicides at all. But in a little less perfect imaginary world, in which bad people never get the chance to hurt innocents because police stops it, some bad people might still go down resisting arrest,…

This is based on a false assumption: that the proper police response to life-threatening criminal acts is to kill the perpetrator. If you get past the they deserve it Puritan mentality, the ideal scenario is for police minimize death (of criminals and police officers) at all costs. Numerous other countries handle violent criminals in ways other than "kill them immediately"; the tendency of police officers to use imme…

I think your explanation is somewhat simplistic, but the observation that societies different from the US manage without the massive police violence is of course spot on.

There was a (now deleted) comment a few minutes ago about a police response resulting in someone being shot by the police, the commenter concluded that it was overall reasonable given the circumstances, since no one else got hurt. That looks like a rather low standard to hold police to, at least from my socialization...

... and I think it is pretty clear that the relation between police and (the other) people [1] is a societal dialogue. When the majority of people think it is ok for the police to shoot people over fairly minimal whateveractions or -inactions, then the police force will act in that direction. If the majority considers that unacceptable, then the police will try harder not shooting people. It is similar to guns methinks; if a majority actually felt that regular shootings are an issue that ought to be fixed, then ... duh... something would happen. Nothing happens, though. What does that say about the society this takes place in?

[1] A word that gets used here sometimes (in mostly American, Russian or 3rd world contexts) is civil[ists], which sounds kinda strange to me (from my perspective police is a civil institution, not a para-military institution that you can contrast with civil - more differences in the same vein).

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#70

Post by usrusr »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #37
oblio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe it helps to compare: Germany: 2155 homicides in 2011, 6 by the police.

How many German police officers are killed a year? In 2011 it was 69 in the US (and another 58 died in accidents).

One source I could find is citing 118 in 30 years.

http://m.rp-online.de/politik/studie-gewalt-gegen-polizisten...

Post reply on HN