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Police Homicides in the United States

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Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#101

Post by Tomte »

ci5er wrote: post #96
ojbyrne wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The NRA is responsible for militarization of domestic police?

Sure, both to that and to policemen‘s fear of simple traffic stops.

In most other countries the police officer can encounter a citizen without drawn gun because the odds of the citizen wielding a gun or worse are miniscule.

In America even the drawn handgun might not be superior armament.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#102

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

stoolpigeon wrote: post #89
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…

It's not a Puritan mentality. It's the fact that any person they interact with could be armed. The reason many other countries police deal with violent criminals in a different way is because it is very unlikely those criminals will be armed. Where I live (Hungary) there is almost no gun violence. The few instances I'm aware of that do involve guns are things where violent groups are involved like organized crime or…

The proliferation of guns isn't everything. Finland has one of the highest number of guns per capita[1], yet their crime rates are one of the lowest.

There is a massive correlation between (gun) crime and poverty. Regional inequality means that those who live in poverty have a pretty poor chance of improving their lives. To me, the problem stems less from guns and more from a poor quality of life for massive numbers of people in America.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#103

Post by sintaxi »

chrisan wrote: post #75
flexie wrote: post #53

In a few hours the Americans will wake up and a bunch of them on HN will say that it's a loaded or divisive or misleading title or that the statistics is flawed. And HN is decisively more progressive than most of the country which simply ignores this kind of news. It is the way it is in America, because - as a whole - they don't care that much about gun violence. It's mostly blacks and Latinos getting killed and they…

> It's mostly blacks and Latinos getting killed and they are still minorities. And the poor white Americans that also fall victim to police and other gun violence just don't have much political influence Honest question: Couldn't this just be grouped into "poor people" Are affluent blacks and latinos being killed? I am not denying racism by any means, but it seems people of poverty are most at risk.

Even more accurate would be to say people who commit crimes are most at risk of being killed by the police.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#104

Post by vidarh »

stoolpigeon wrote: post #89
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…

It's not a Puritan mentality. It's the fact that any person they interact with could be armed. The reason many other countries police deal with violent criminals in a different way is because it is very unlikely those criminals will be armed. Where I live (Hungary) there is almost no gun violence. The few instances I'm aware of that do involve guns are things where violent groups are involved like organized crime or…

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, but still a lot of the cases we see with gunfights involving the police in the US is cases where individuals or pairs of officers go after suspects alone without waiting for backup and without trying to contain and de-escalate.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#105

Post by yorwba »

ci5er wrote: post #98
stoolpigeon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a Puritan mentality. It's the fact that any person they interact with could be armed. The reason many other countries police deal with violent criminals in a different way is because it is very unlikely those criminals will be armed. Where I live (Hungary) there is almost no gun violence. The few instances I'm aware of that do involve guns are things where violent groups are involved like organized crime or…

1) Where did you live in the US? I'm in a medium-ish sized metroplex (whatever that means) of about a million people, and I never hear live fire. 2) Why would you worry about a (remote) gun-shot that you heard? By the time you hear it, you will be already shot-or-not. If not - why worry?

> By the time you hear it, you will be already shot-or-not. If not - why worry?

If you're not shot now, you could still be shot later. So trying to assess the situation to find out whether more shots will be fired seems like a good idea.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#106

Post by __s »

vidarh wrote: post #92
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…

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,…

On that last point: people are more likely to resist arrest when they're afraid police are going to kill them during the process of arrest

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#107

Post by ojbyrne »

KGIII wrote: post #97
ojbyrne wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you elaborate on why you want to blame the NRA? I should disclose that I own a number of firearms, many of them sidearms, and don't like the NRA very much, nor have I ever donated to them or been a member. I'm just curious as to how you see them as being the source to blame.

I’m not sure what I need to elaborate. The NRA promotes wider gun ownership and more expansive concealed carry. Police use wider ownership of guns and concealed carry to justify more use of deadly force and militarization. In any other country than the US, this feedback loop would be obvious. In the US the NRA works to blur the obvious by talking about “responsible gun owners” while eliding the leakage between responsible and irresponsible owners.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#108

Post by ramonakira »

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.

Maybe interesting to compare to this video of a takedown by Dutch police of a guy who started breaking the windows of a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam.

1) keep your distance

2) use pepper spray

3) wait for the right moment when no one (not even the suspect) will get hurt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYuS6i3Ynpk

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#109

Post by krapp »

Tomte wrote: post #101
ci5er wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NRA is responsible for militarization of domestic police?

Sure, both to that and to policemen‘s fear of simple traffic stops. In most other countries the police officer can encounter a citizen without drawn gun because the odds of the citizen wielding a gun or worse are miniscule. In America even the drawn handgun might not be superior armament.

I'm no fan of the NRA but let's be honest about cause and effect. Fear by the police, the proliferation of firearms in the US and the arms race between the people and the state are all consequences of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution working, arguably, as intended.

The NRA didn't cause any of that, although they do make hay of it for their own political and financial ends.

Re: Police Homicides in the United States

#110

Post by ryanlol »

makepanic wrote: post #88
mitchellberry wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You watched the entire video? It's 5 minutes of conflicting instructions and repeated death threats by a man heavily covered in tattoos carrying an assualt rifle with the words "you're f *ed" engraved on it. How were the multiple police officers incapable of handcuffing the clearly compliant crying victim in 5 whole mins? Am amazed anyone watching that could possibly defend it.

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.

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