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

221–230 of 230 posts

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#221

Post by cannonedhamster »

bingly_ wrote: post #205
vidarh wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example I tend to give is the case a while back where someone was wielding an axe. Two police officers went after him, and the axe-wielding man was shot and killed because he went for one of them. Success, surely? He protected his partner, who might have been harmed. The way something like this would likely have gone down somewhere like the UK would be that the first responders would have called for reinforcement,…

The United States has areas of significantly bad crime. 4 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world (measured by murders per capita) are in the U.S. These cities have murder rates from 44 to 60 per 100,000 people.[0] For reference the United States as a whole has a murder rate of 4.88, and United Kingdom has a rate of 0.92.[1] Making matters worse the violence isn't distributed evenly in those cities, it's often c…

Perhaps the reason we have such violent cities has something to do with our gun culture. It could be the ease in which we get firearms. It could be skewed due to mass shootings. It would definitely be an interesting point to look into but just saying that we have more violent cities doesn't mean our police should necessarily have a higher rate of officer involved shootings, just a higher overall number.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#222

Post by cannonedhamster »

maroonblazer wrote: post #169
michaelt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if some of the preference for violence in the American policing tradition goes back to Western films - where outlaws are wanted dead or alive, a quick draw is the main thing a lawman needs, and the climax of the film is the lawman meeting the bad man in the street, drawing first and shooting him dead.

I think it's more likely that U.S. police are, on the whole, poorly trained for these kinds of situations. I don't have any hard evidence to support this but have heard interviews with people who study the problem of police violence say that improper training (or more likely zero training) contributes mightily to the problem.

American police officers training depends on the state. It's generally a months long process and quite rigorous physically and mentally. I have a friend who literally just went through this and I can say he definitely had a lot of training. At the end of the day what they are trained to do is come home at the end of the night. Keeping themselves safe is top priority in a job that can put them in a lot of dangerous situations. We've had many discussions about this line between police officer shootings and justification.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#223

Post by mitchellberry »

ryanlol wrote: post #110
makepanic wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a small note, the person that shouts the instructions is Sgt. Charles Langley but the shooter is Philip “Mitch” Brailsford. via https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/0...

Someone ought to make a website naming, shaming and tracking these people. Maybe the courts wont punish them, but it shouldn’t be very hard to ensure that the label of MURDERER will follow them for life.

Seen people demanding the names of jurors on various forums.

This is the antithesis of modern justice. Despite my personal feelings about their decision, jurors should never have to fear public opinion.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#224

Post by ryanlol »

mitchellberry wrote: post #223
ryanlol wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone ought to make a website naming, shaming and tracking these people. Maybe the courts wont punish them, but it shouldn’t be very hard to ensure that the label of MURDERER will follow them for life.

Seen people demanding the names of jurors on various forums. This is the antithesis of modern justice. Despite my personal feelings about their decision, jurors should never have to fear public opinion.

Jurors? Of course not. I'm talking about the police officers killing defenseless people.

Cops should very much have to fear the public opinion, it is their job to serve the public.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#225

Post by mitchellberry »

ryanlol wrote: post #224
mitchellberry wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seen people demanding the names of jurors on various forums. This is the antithesis of modern justice. Despite my personal feelings about their decision, jurors should never have to fear public opinion.

Jurors? Of course not. I'm talking about the police officers killing defenseless people. Cops should very much have to fear the public opinion, it is their job to serve the public.

Yeah fair call, just don't like the blame game that seems to escalate in cases like this.

Police should certainly worry about general opinion. They are public servants.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#226

Post by olavk »

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,…

What kind of Judge Dredd-fantasy is this?

Clearly the better outcome is that criminals are arrested by the police using the appropriate and necessary amount of force, and then sentenced in a court of law. Having the police metering out and executing death-sentences on the fly is not a good idea, regardless of how "bad" the perpetrator is.

Or are you imagining a world where crime always happen in the open where police is around, so police by shooting at exactly the right moment can prevent violence or murder?

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#227

Post by noobiemcfoob »

krapp wrote: post #167
noobiemcfoob wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The broadness of the first amendment is largely responsible for modern American society having as much personal liberty as it does by encompassing the "live and let live" concept The 2nd amendment then keeps the government from having a great justification for countless "protective" measures. Don't help me when I can help myself.

>The 2nd amendment then keeps the government from having a great justification for countless "protective" measures. Don't help me when I can help myself. Can you give any examples of such measures, or evidence that the threat of violent revolution implied in the Second Amendment, versus the political power of the gun lobby and American gun culture, has ever been effective at limiting the US government or its rational…

With what I'm talking about, you aren't going to see 1 for 1 examples of cause and effect. It's more that having these measures in place will necessarily prevent certain types of measures from even being considered since they've been excluded from the Overton window.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#228

Post by wglb »

rayiner wrote: post #176
Tomte wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NRA is the predominant defender of 2nd amendment rights, which is, arguably, the second worst idea of the US constitution (after the extreme formulation of the first amendment).

My two favorite amendments!

Curious what makes them your favorite? I kinda like the ninth.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#229

Post by vidarh »

stoolpigeon wrote: post #137
vidarh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even armed criminals are not approached this way most places in Europe. The policy in the UK is to get civilians away, contain the threat, call for reinforcements, and if possible wait and/or try to negotiate. If it quite rare for it to become necessary to shoot. You don't engage someone armed unless it is to avoid immediate and acute danger to anyone. The proliferation of guns make it harder to respond like that, bu…

I think the ability to take an approach that time and resource intensive is made possible by the fact it happens so seldom.

I don't think that makes sense, because resorting to violence so often ends up escalating conflicts to ridiculous levels.

De-escalating these conflicts costs more resources in the initial response, but tends to make most conflict end quickly.

Importantly it also gives criminals a very strong reason to avoid being pulling weapons at police - they can be confident police will not arm themselves first, and will not escalate a situation unnecessarily.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#230

Post by vidarh »

bingly_ wrote: post #205
vidarh wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example I tend to give is the case a while back where someone was wielding an axe. Two police officers went after him, and the axe-wielding man was shot and killed because he went for one of them. Success, surely? He protected his partner, who might have been harmed. The way something like this would likely have gone down somewhere like the UK would be that the first responders would have called for reinforcement,…

The United States has areas of significantly bad crime. 4 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world (measured by murders per capita) are in the U.S. These cities have murder rates from 44 to 60 per 100,000 people.[0] For reference the United States as a whole has a murder rate of 4.88, and United Kingdom has a rate of 0.92.[1] Making matters worse the violence isn't distributed evenly in those cities, it's often c…

Note that while I think there's a severe issue with US gun culture, most of what I wrote applies irrespective of whether or not police go in armed. That is not the point.

The point is whether or not you 1) go in without backup, 2) seek to de-escalate rather than escalate with armed threats from the outset.

If you're likely to meet armed resistance, then the UK strategy of getting civilians away, contain while waiting for backup and then seek to wait out and de-escalate is even more applicable exactly because the risks are higher, and indeed UK police tends to stick to that even more firmly when they come across armed resistance, while the US approach seems to be the opposite of going in more aggressively when they see a weapon.

Post reply on HN