Live data from Hacker News

Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

nj.com

261–270 of 271 posts

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#261
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those statistics are probably "correct," but missing lots of context. First of all, most police stops and arrests aren't for murder, but for various petty crimes (particularly drugs and traffic violations) that are certainly unevenly enforced, even controlling for other factors (see e.g. see e.g. https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... ), so citing murder statistics here to seems a little irre…

I appreciate your thoughtful comment! We should be careful with what we're talking about here: stops vs. arrests vs. crimes committed vs. offenders. They're all different things. The argument I'm making is basically this: the murder statistics are the most reliable, so we'll look at those. We should expect a very strong correlation between murder rates and other violent crime, though. And this expectation of much hig…

Perhaps this doesn't generalize outside my city (Chicago), and perhaps data from the CPD is not to be trusted, but here the police claim that ~50% of murders are "gang-related" and 80% are "gang-associated" (i.e. either the suspect or victim is believed to be involved with gangs). The number of suspected gang members is not so high that you would expect 80% of murders to be "gang-associated" by chance (though it's not clear which way the causality goes, it seems highly plausible that people in gangs are more generally violent, but perhaps generally violent people also always join gains). There are also second order effects--more violence around you probably makes you feel more like violence is an acceptable solution?.

Note that applying 50% to the number of 2019 Chicago murders already saturates the nationwide "Gangland killings" in the FBI UCR, suggesting that perhaps many of the "unknown" murders would fall into that category. It would also not surprise me if many of the "other arguments" killings are also gang-related or at least gang-associated. Of course, it doesn't help that ~half of murders go unsolved here (and in many other cities) and gang-related violence is especially unlikely to find cooperative witnesses.

That said, this is only place with a police department not known for its honesty. Other places might be different. Southern states all have above average white homicide rates, but only Louisiana seems to have an above-average Black homicide rate, at least according to https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/health/gun-deaths-in-men-by-s... (caveat 1: this is victims, I could not quickly find corresponding data for offenders. caveat 2: most Blacks live in the South, it's not surprising those states might drive the average.).

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#262
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...trained to shoot to kil. There’s really not another option. Shoot to wound isn’t an option. You don’t shoot to kill, you shoot to neutralize the threat. https://www.ajc.com/news/national/here-why-police-don-shoot-... https://www.forcescience.org/2006/03/why-shooting-to-wound-d...

Shoot to wound is not an option in USA. Elsewhere it is literally trained and seen as option. And I am saying that cause I personally know non-American cop that has it as regular part of training. There are also such options as shoot as warning, not shoot at all and generally use tactic that is less likely to create situation on which you have to shoot.

Shooting to warn is highly dangerous, you can't just discharge firearms in random, non-targeted directions.

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, isn't the CDC forbidden by law from investigating all types of deaths by firearms?

The CDC WISQARS database contains fatal and non-fatal injuries for many different mechanisms, including firearms. The law you are thinking of is the "Dickey Amendment" which forbade the CDC from spending its budget advocating for gun control. It was named after Republican and galactic asshat Jay Dickey of Arkansas, who thankfully has been removed from influence over national politics by his much-awaited death in 2017…

How would the CDC be allowed to advocate political positions contrary to the constitution, and without congressional approval? As far as I know, it's at least looked down upon when federal agencies advocate that sort of thing, even in roundabout ways.

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#264
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC is free. There's no charge to use the BBC. There's a TV licence, but that's payable if you watch any live tv as it's broadcast.

Or iPlayer. Really consuming any BBC media requires a TV license legally.

You do need a licence if you watch any tv live as it's broadcast, or BBC iPlayer.

But you'd need a licence if you only ever watch Channel 4 and never watched any BBC content. The licence is not tied to BBC content - you don't need a licence to use the website or listen to BBC sounds or use BBC radio.

The licence is tied to watching live tv as it's broadcast or BBC iPlayer.

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If black Americans smoke weed rather than alcohol then yes, they take different drugs. Weed is criminalised far in excess of any justification based on personal or social harms. It just seems normal to drink, in a rational drug policy it would be more controlled than many other drugs.

I'm sorry but you're just incorrect if you're suggesting white Americans don't consume cannabis at high rates.

Cannabis is typically used a pretext to police Black people for other things (that is, police assume they can get them for another crime, and even if they can't, they can still use cannabis charges).

White people consuming cannabis is not typically a police priority.

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#266
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your thoughtful comment! We should be careful with what we're talking about here: stops vs. arrests vs. crimes committed vs. offenders. They're all different things. The argument I'm making is basically this: the murder statistics are the most reliable, so we'll look at those. We should expect a very strong correlation between murder rates and other violent crime, though. And this expectation of much hig…

Perhaps this doesn't generalize outside my city (Chicago), and perhaps data from the CPD is not to be trusted, but here the police claim that ~50% of murders are "gang-related" and 80% are "gang-associated" (i.e. either the suspect or victim is believed to be involved with gangs). The number of suspected gang members is not so high that you would expect 80% of murders to be "gang-associated" by chance (though it's no…

Interesting. You've made me revise my estimate of the % of murders that are due to gang violence up.

My gut says you're right, Chicago probably doesn't generalize well to the rest of the U.S. It could be that there are huge swaths of the country where there basically are no gangs, and so all murders are not gang-related. But still, the data you're showing makes the federal numbers seem way too low...

This [0] suggests that about 1/3 of murders in the U.S. go unsolved.

0: https://projectcoldcase.org/cold-case-homicide-stats/

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#267
post #258
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those statistics are probably "correct," but missing lots of context. First of all, most police stops and arrests aren't for murder, but for various petty crimes (particularly drugs and traffic violations) that are certainly unevenly enforced, even controlling for other factors (see e.g. see e.g. https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... ), so citing murder statistics here to seems a little irre…

Parent is probably using murder rates because murder is very unlikely to be unevenly enforced, with the implicit implication that these differences extend to other violent crimes (but the data there is muddied by differential enforcement). Here is the strongest presentation of this argument that I've seen: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe... I don't have a well-formed opinion here, but IMO…

"Here is the strongest presentation of this argument that I've seen:"

This is really good

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't believe white and black people are on the same footing economically. I agree! I infer you think it has some causal connection with murder rates. I think that's probably true, but that the relationship is weak. Black people in the U.S., while poorer than average compared to the rest of the U.S. population, are some of the richest people in the world in terms of their actual material consumption. There are lot…

The vast majority of the murders are from violent gangs. That has a much stronger correlation than skin color

And, I should note, "violent gangs" are by definition going to be the gangs committing violence, so that's a circularity in your logic. And I would also wager that there is a very strong correlation between gang membership and skin color, so that's a problem too.

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#269
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this doesn't generalize outside my city (Chicago), and perhaps data from the CPD is not to be trusted, but here the police claim that ~50% of murders are "gang-related" and 80% are "gang-associated" (i.e. either the suspect or victim is believed to be involved with gangs). The number of suspected gang members is not so high that you would expect 80% of murders to be "gang-associated" by chance (though it's no…

Interesting. You've made me revise my estimate of the % of murders that are due to gang violence up. My gut says you're right, Chicago probably doesn't generalize well to the rest of the U.S. It could be that there are huge swaths of the country where there basically are no gangs, and so all murders are not gang-related. But still, the data you're showing makes the federal numbers seem way too low... This [0] suggest…

Well the FBI UCR criteria might be very different from whatever CPD uses. It's amazing how much of an outlier Illinois is in homicide clearance rate...

Re: Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but you're just incorrect if you're suggesting white Americans don't consume cannabis at high rates.

Cannabis is typically used a pretext to police Black people for other things (that is, police assume they can get them for another crime, and even if they can't, they can still use cannabis charges). White people consuming cannabis is not typically a police priority.

You're speaking with a white person who has been charged and convicted of cannabis possession. It certainly seemed like a priority for them when I was in the back of the squad car, and when they knocked on my door and arrested me at 5:30 AM in my underwear for supposedly failing to pay a fine I had actually paid.
Post reply on HN