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

Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 45 posts

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#31

Post by Pxtl »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #23
Pxtl wrote: post #9

"first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation " emphasis mine. As much as Iceland seems like a lovely place, I'm sure officers there have killed people in the line of duty before and it's more just the "armed police operation" that represents the difference.

Pathetic. Seriously, I've encountered these kind of denialist reactions all over the place, and it so pisses me off. It's not normal for cops to shoot at people in any civilized country ("not normal" as in "national news if it happens"), and for a country the size and nature of Iceland it's perfectly plausible (not to mention simply true) that this is the first time someone was killed by the police. The ultra-violent…

I'm Canadian. And I'm not saying it's normal for cops to shoot people. I'm saying that I'm working on the assumption that it has happened at least once at some point in the (googles) 69 years of the modern country's history.

It will take more than one ambiguously-qualified offhand sentence in an article to convince me of otherwise.

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#32

Post by DamnYuppie »

Loughla wrote: post #14
TillE wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few weeks ago I was reading in a local paper (Berliner Morgenpost, I think) about how the police in Berlin had shot an armed person in the leg, thereby succeeding in arresting him without any further injury. Made me quite happy, because I was reminded of all the Americans who vehemently insist that shoot to kill is the only option ever, even if the person only has a knife.

It's not that shoot to kill is the only option, ever. It's that center-body-mass is the largest target to shoot at, and therefore the safest to shoot at in a public area. Safest for everyone except the one being shot at, that is. God, does that make sense? It's hard to explain that. You want the largest part of the bad-guy to catch the bullet, to make sure the people around him don't. Therefore, shooting at the (rela…

Shooting people in center mass has nothing to do with the safety of people around them. There is no part of the human body that is going to stop a bullet. A bullet fired from even a small pistol will rip right through a human being and pretty much anything that is behind them.

The reason people shot center body is that it is largest part of the body and it contains the most vital organs. Thus a shot there is most likely to be fatal and to keep that person from continuing to be a viable threat.

Given all of that it is easy to see that shooting an armed and dangerous individual in the leg is not a good way of dealing with them. It makes for a great feel good story but in reality it is not a good tactic.

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#33

Post by scarletham »

Pxtl wrote: post #31
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pathetic. Seriously, I've encountered these kind of denialist reactions all over the place, and it so pisses me off. It's not normal for cops to shoot at people in any civilized country ("not normal" as in "national news if it happens"), and for a country the size and nature of Iceland it's perfectly plausible (not to mention simply true) that this is the first time someone was killed by the police. The ultra-violent…

I'm Canadian. And I'm not saying it's normal for cops to shoot people. I'm saying that I'm working on the assumption that it has happened at least once at some point in the (googles) 69 years of the modern country's history. It will take more than one ambiguously-qualified offhand sentence in an article to convince me of otherwise.

Police in Iceland are unarmed. [1]

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22288564

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#34

Post by markolschesky »

vijayr wrote: post #30
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pathetic. Seriously, I've encountered these kind of denialist reactions all over the place, and it so pisses me off. It's not normal for cops to shoot at people in any civilized country ("not normal" as in "national news if it happens"), and for a country the size and nature of Iceland it's perfectly plausible (not to mention simply true) that this is the first time someone was killed by the police. The ultra-violent…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforce... so far, in 2013

Wow. If you ever want to read something that's a major downer in the afternoon.

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#35

Post by [deleted] »

mixmax wrote: post #29
Pxtl wrote: post #9

"first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation " emphasis mine. As much as Iceland seems like a lovely place, I'm sure officers there have killed people in the line of duty before and it's more just the "armed police operation" that represents the difference.

While I don't know the facts it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the police has never killed anyone in Iceland. It's a small and peaceful country. I'm from Denmark, which is culturally fairly close to Iceland and we still talk about the riot in 1993 where the police fired 111 shots in the most violent encounter with rioters since the second world war (noone was killed or seriously injured). We're a country of 5 m…

[deleted]

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#36

Post by jacalata »

rayiner wrote: post #19

For context, the U.S. has about 1,000 times as many people as Iceland, and here police kill about 300-400 people per year. Moreover, Iceland is a much less violent society to begin with. Apparently the country had just one murder in 2011, which would be equivalent to about 1,000 murders in a country the size of the U.S. In actuality, the U.S. has 14-15,000 murders per year. A more interesting statistic might be to co…

This article[0] refers to 1.8 homicides per 100,000 people per year, or about 5 per year. So the ratio is much much lower than the USA.

edit: [0] http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22288564

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#37

Post by Pxtl »

mixmax wrote: post #29
Pxtl wrote: post #9

"first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation " emphasis mine. As much as Iceland seems like a lovely place, I'm sure officers there have killed people in the line of duty before and it's more just the "armed police operation" that represents the difference.

While I don't know the facts it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the police has never killed anyone in Iceland. It's a small and peaceful country. I'm from Denmark, which is culturally fairly close to Iceland and we still talk about the riot in 1993 where the police fired 111 shots in the most violent encounter with rioters since the second world war (noone was killed or seriously injured). We're a country of 5 m…

Canadian.

And I just meant that I would assume that, unless the article further elaborates on this "first", at some point in the entire history of the country of Iceland, somebody had died at the hands of law-enforcement. Even at a rate of once per decade.

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#38

Post by gaius »

davb wrote: post #8

I wonder if crime really is as rare at this BBC article suggests: Why is violent crime so rare in Iceland? ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22288564 ) Would any negatives of living in Iceland (every country has negative points) be outweighed by this seemingly very safe environment?

The flip side of equality is Jante law.

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#39

Post by rayiner »

jacalata wrote: post #36
rayiner wrote: post #19

For context, the U.S. has about 1,000 times as many people as Iceland, and here police kill about 300-400 people per year. Moreover, Iceland is a much less violent society to begin with. Apparently the country had just one murder in 2011, which would be equivalent to about 1,000 murders in a country the size of the U.S. In actuality, the U.S. has 14-15,000 murders per year. A more interesting statistic might be to co…

This article[0] refers to 1.8 homicides per 100,000 people per year, or about 5 per year. So the ratio is much much lower than the USA. edit: [0] http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22288564

OECD says 0.3 per 100,000, or about 1 per year: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/iceland. Your article says "never went above 1.8" but apparently in 2009 and 2011, they had just one homicide each year. So maybe there was a freak year with 5...

Re: Icelandic Police kill someone for the first time.

#40

Post by tzs »

mixmax wrote: post #29
Pxtl wrote: post #9

"first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation " emphasis mine. As much as Iceland seems like a lovely place, I'm sure officers there have killed people in the line of duty before and it's more just the "armed police operation" that represents the difference.

While I don't know the facts it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the police has never killed anyone in Iceland. It's a small and peaceful country. I'm from Denmark, which is culturally fairly close to Iceland and we still talk about the riot in 1993 where the police fired 111 shots in the most violent encounter with rioters since the second world war (noone was killed or seriously injured). We're a country of 5 m…

Per capital, though, police in Denmark kill more people per year than those in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, or England. [1]

[1] http://www.politi.dk/NR/rdonlyres/20DE43AF-33F4-48C5-A710-6A...

Post reply on HN