Is there a REAL problem with "Police Killings"?

2015-06-10T12:02:51-04:00

From "The Guardian"

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries

By the numbers: US police kill more in days than other countries do in years

It’s rather difficult to compare data from different time periods, according to different methodologies, across different parts of the world, and still come to definitive conclusions.

But now that we have built The Counted, a definitive record of people killed by police in the US this year, at least there is some accountability in America – even if data from the rest of the world is still catching up.

It is undeniable that police in the US often contend with much more violent situations and more heavily armed individuals than police in other developed democratic societies. Still, looking at our data for the US against admittedly less reliable information on police killings elsewhere paints a dramatic portrait, and one that resonates with protests that have gone global since a killing last year in Ferguson, Missouri: the US is not just some outlier in terms of police violence when compared with countries of similar economic and political standing.

America is the outlier – and this is what a crisis looks like.

EDITORIAL COMMENT:- Do you agree with The Guardian's characterization of (roughly) 350 deaths per year (that's roughly 0.000097% of the US population) as a "crisis"?

By the numbers: US police kill more in days than other countries do in years

The Guardian has built the most comprehensive database of US police killing ever published. Compare our findings to those from the UK, Australia, Iceland and beyond

Response by CMSgt Mark Schubert made Jun 10 at 2015 12:06 PM

2015-06-10T12:06:21-04:00

As long as there are criminals with guns, both will be killed

Response by SCPO David Lockwood made Jun 10 at 2015 12:08 PM

2015-06-10T12:08:05-04:00

We really don't know the entire story. The media shows you what they want you to know. Like that officer who drew his gun on teenage boys. In my opinion he did the right thing. It wasn't about race, he had two male teenagers coming up to him in an aggressive manner. He didn't know what they were going to do. On the other hand what he did to the girl I whink was a little excessive. But then we don't know what happened prior to that.

Response by PO3 David Fries made Jun 10 at 2015 12:18 PM

2015-06-10T12:18:49-04:00

This seems like an apples to oranges comparison. Personally, I believe that LEOs here face more life threatening situations here. We have more guns, more crime. It makes sense. Until we get a lot more information, we can't really draw any conclusions.

Response by SGM Mikel Dawson made Jun 10 at 2015 12:21 PM

2015-06-10T12:21:29-04:00

I think unless you are eye witness to an event the fact are hard to get. Look at what happened in Missouri - a cop who later was found to just be doing his job was found to be in the right, yet the press, people, news media, politicians all had him guilty before all the facts were in. I'm sure there are instances where cops are wrong, but we are dealing with humans. Just think what the country would be like with out the "thin blue line"? These officers put their lives on the line every day so people can some what have some peace. As long as the criminal element is out there the cops need to be on the job. Plain and simple.

Response by CSM David Heidke made Jun 10 at 2015 12:33 PM

2015-06-10T12:33:18-04:00

If you look at the first graphic it compares fatal police shootings of a country whose police don't carry firearms to a country whose police do carry firearms. In fact there are several countries listed where the police don't carry firearms.

And it also compared the entire country of Iceland, to the city of Stockton. If people don't live within 40 miles of each other than of course the rate would be much lower.

There may well be a problem, but I am more inclined to think that it's because criminals are more heavily armed and police respond in kind.

I don't think there is enough information to decide from this article.

Response by Col Joseph Lenertz made Jun 10 at 2015 12:36 PM

2015-06-10T12:36:35-04:00

If by REAL problem, you mean a statistically significant portion of deaths in the US, then definitely no. Gang on gang murder rates are orders of magnitude higher...and those people are just as dead, yet I hear no outrage. The article compares raw numbers against cherry-picked nations where there is no right to bear arms and extremely low police shooting rates. If you do some simple division (# of police shootings or killings per capita), US numbers are still high relative to these nations, but miniscule compared to highway deaths, stabbings, heart disease, cancer, drowning and a large number of other ways to die. Should we continue to hold police accountable for their actions? Yes. Should this be in the top 10 of our nation's priorities? No.

Response by Cpl Jeff N. made Jun 10 at 2015 12:37 PM

2015-06-10T12:37:53-04:00

This is a really shoddy piece of hit journalism. They would have been far more honest had they compared "unjustified police shootings" in the US to other countries. In many cases, most cases, law enforcement is engaging an armed felon bent on killing them and/or others.

They use the shooting in Ferguson as an example of a police shooting. I think the cop was cleared on that one too.

Comparing the U.S. to countries like Finland and Iceland (and others) without any analysis on the level of crime cops might face is disingenuous at best. IF the crime rate in California is 5X what it is in Canada (for example) then those numbers are far closer than this story reflects.

The Guardian is not exactly a journalistic bastion of integrity and fair story writing.

Response by SGT William Howell made Jun 10 at 2015 12:58 PM

2015-06-10T12:58:33-04:00

So I read this and it is obvious they picked and choose what countries they selected for the shock factor. They left out Central American countries where the police actually murder people all the time.

You have to look at homicides and violent crime for the whole country and then compare it to police shootings. If we only had 1000 murders in the US and the police were killing 500 people then that would be unacceptable. It would mean that the police were much more violent than the country as a whole. It is not the case. To have a real understanding of police killings you would have to compare total population to violent crime to police involved shootings. Heck, Iceland only has 329,740 people in the entire country.

Last you have to look at the source of this information. The statistics are correct, but the way they compare is used to try and sway the reader to believe that the boys in blue get up in the morning wondering who they are going to kill today.

Response by CPT Ahmed Faried made Jun 10 at 2015 1:01 PM

2015-06-10T13:01:52-04:00

Yes

Response by SFC Mcglen Odom made Jun 10 at 2015 1:35 PM

2015-06-10T13:35:54-04:00

If you haven't had or known anyone that has been killed by the police for no reason. I guess not. But if is someone you've know or your family then it would be a problem. It not your problem until its your problems.

Response by SSgt Charles Edwards made Jun 10 at 2015 1:37 PM

2015-06-10T13:37:26-04:00

For about the first six to seven months of 2008, morning news reported at least one homicide (non-cop related) in the southern Philadelphia and Northern Delaware region. That's a lot of deaths in a small portion of the country. Needless to say, I don't agree with this article's view.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 10 at 2015 3:27 PM

2015-06-10T15:27:37-04:00

Looking at these statistics in a vacuum is misleading in my opinion. If you're going to use police shootings as a metric to paint a picture of police being out of control and trigger happy, it's only fair that you post violent crime statistics right beside them. If Iceland, Finland, and UK don't have a high rate of violent crime, then guess what? Police shootings will be lower. Why do those countries have a lower rate of violent crime than us? Well, that's another topic entirely.

Now I'm not suggesting that the isolated incidents that we've seen in the last year were justified or not. Every police shooting needs to be investigated and vetted to ensure our law enforcement agencies are applying the proper amount of force to do their jobs safely. Are there incidents of unjustified shootings and excessive force? Yes, and hopefully those individuals are punished.

I'm growing tired of the bashing that police organizations are taking, especially from the media. Some of these guys operate in areas that would rival some combat zones. Violent crime in America may be on a steady decline, but most of these officers face dangers everyday and when it comes down to either your life, the life of your partner, or the life of an innocent bystander, a pull of the trigger may be the only thing stopping a violent offender from causing irreparable harm.

Response by WO1 Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 10 at 2015 3:56 PM

2015-06-10T15:56:10-04:00

Just skimming some of the responses.
Even if every Police shooting is justified, and the officer did nothing wrong, the numbers in the article are disconcerting.
I've seen similar articles in the past, the number look the same. So maybe on the Police side, maybe on the civilian side, maybe on both sides, something has to change.

Response by MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca made Jun 10 at 2015 4:05 PM

2015-06-10T16:05:15-04:00

I think we're seeing a bad trend emphasized by equally bad media escalation. Yes, I believe there is some root cause to this recent rash of "Police behaving badly" but every municipal department is run and trained differently. What is the watch commander telling their officers before they go out on patrol? I'm sure no one's telling them to go out and mess people up, but could they being filled with paranoia about what "could" happen out there? I'd tend to think officers are being told that cameras are everywhere and watch your behavior in light of the past few months.

Response by CPL Victor Dakiyai made Jun 11 at 2015 6:52 AM

2015-06-11T06:52:50-04:00

The real problem is actually policy and use of lateral force escalation develop since the Regan get tough on crime and drugs years . policy makers gradually implemented those policy's . Granted some few police officers maybe incapable , but the majority are just following those rules of angement in their PD . it also those not help when the top lawman in the nation makes comments to inflame and decide police and its communities.

Response by TSgt David L. made Jun 11 at 2015 6:57 AM

2015-06-11T06:57:59-04:00

Not really. Of course there are many bad examples in the news because it's the flavor of the week/year. With 24/7 news there is an over-saturation of information every time it happens.
Not to excuse the police as there have been too many bad examples of police behavior which only serves to infuriate the communities where it happens. And rightly so in too many situations, but if you break the law you should expect a police response, albeit not bad policing. As long as a few idiot cops and in most situations over zealous media coverage we will continue to see "activates" being baited into burning their own communities to the ground. Just my 2 cents of course.

Response by SPC Americo Garcia made Jun 11 at 2015 8:51 AM

2015-06-11T08:51:16-04:00

There are those who are innocent and get caught doing something that may look like a misjudged case. If the person being asked to stop or questioned by police the best thing to do is just relax and obey, nothing happens in that case. It is a place where cooler heads prevail when talking it out. An officer of he law has very little reaction time, and never know when a suspect is armed. Unless the suspect is already shooting people or wielding any weapon out in the open. The whole thing comes down to control over the situation through either peaceful means talking it out, or use of deadly force. Is it wrong to just empty a clip some would argue and say yes. But the truth is they are trained to fire and empty the clip and if need be reload and continue till target is no longer a threat to the officer or anyone around the area. check out this video and tell me would you do the same or use it faster. https://youtu.be/yfi3Ndh3n-g comply and it may just save your life.

Activist critical of police undergoes use of force scenarios

We've seen protests all across the country after police officers have been accused of shooting people who aren't armed. Jarrett Maupin, a vocal critic of pol...

Response by Cpl Rc Layne made Jun 11 at 2015 8:58 AM

2015-06-11T08:58:05-04:00

As a complete aside, they don't mention the number of law enforcement officers killed in those countries during the years specified. I have read that murder rates in England and Australia rose sharply after they outlawed guns in those countries. While handgun murders far exceed those committed with a rifle or shotgun in the US, you are four times as likely to be beaten to death with personal weapons than you are to be killed with a rifle or shotgun in the US, according to the FBI crime statistics.

Response by PO1 John Miller made Jun 11 at 2015 8:59 AM

2015-06-11T08:59:22-04:00

I picked "Yes, but..." because it lies closer to my opinion. If a person is a convicted criminal they don't have the right to keep and bear arms.

I do believe there is a problem with police killings, but the numbers don't differentiate between justified and unjustified, especially when it comes to "killing unarmed black men." Way to go for throwing the race card in there by the way The Guardian.

Justified - Michael Brown
Unjustified - Freddie Gray, Walter Scott (just off the top of my head)

Response by SPC Nathan Freeman made Jun 11 at 2015 1:02 PM

2015-06-11T13:02:37-04:00

I study propaganda for the army. This is a perfect example. The comparisons they make are absurd. They cherry pick certain areas that don't have our ethnic variety or urban culture. They carefully ignored most communist countries (who would have fudged their numbers anyway). The Guardian is well known for their far left socialist leanings. Urban African Americans kill far more black people than cops do, but that information is absent.

Response by SGT Kristjan Rahe made Jun 11 at 2015 1:49 PM

2015-06-11T13:49:27-04:00

The answers do not fully answer the issues at hand. Lt. Col. David Grossman has written extensively on the issue and in a boo " Stop teaching our kids to kill" hits the nail on the head. We have desensitized our children to violence, we have given our children a sense of entitlement that they are not due and there is a lack of respect for authority and others everywhere. I speak from 30+ years of law enforcement experience. Everyone with a camera is suddenly walter Cronkite and Johnny Cochran in one. You must own YOUR actions. Comply, be courteous and you would be amazed how smooth and non confrontational everything is

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 11 at 2015 2:23 PM

2015-06-11T14:23:20-04:00

The problem is that we, as a government, train cops to be a paramilitary force, and recruit heavily from the military ranks. I think that's a mistake. You can't take war fighters and sit them at home, telling them to patrol the place. Cops need to be all about conflict resolution rather than force. It's one more in a list of bad decisions we made as a nation post-9/11.

Response by CPT Pedro Meza made Jun 19 at 2015 3:37 PM

2015-06-19T15:37:03-04:00

COL Ted Mc, the US is a big country with a huge population of divers people compare to small smaller country with smaller populations of less divers people, so this makes the data questionable. Also lets look at police as having good and bad cops; bad cops are their 1%.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 20 at 2015 2:53 PM

2015-06-20T14:53:16-04:00

This does a very incomplete job of showing the true impact of the numbers. How many police officers are killed in those other countries? There were 3(!) officers who died in the line of duty in the UK in 2014. 2 had heart attacks and 1 was involved in a crash. There were 134 line of duty deaths in the US. There is strict gun control in the UK and most cops don't carry guns.

This article is so one sided it is sad that it is posted here because some young easily influenced person will read it and say "wow a COL wrote and posted this"! "It must be true!" The police in the US are out of control! How about crime is out of control? How about the criminals are out of control? Do LEO have some responsibility in this? Of course! But this article, IMHO seeks to inflame.

Response by SPC Thomas Baldwin made Jun 20 at 2015 9:15 PM

2015-06-20T21:15:09-04:00

If you only look at the number of people killed by cops and not the the population of the county it can certainly look that way. But its not. when you compare the number of police contact to shooting its less than 0.5 of 1%. Their was an article with the stats on this not to long ago. People seen to think they have a right to assault LEO and the LEO cant fight back. I am not saying that some cops are shooting when they shouldn't but even the Race batters who challenged the and failed the shoot don't shoot training.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Jun 22 at 2015 1:38 PM

2015-06-22T13:38:23-04:00

Many of the police will be prosecuted by the Law of Land Warfare, if they were serving in the military.

Response by SCPO Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 22 at 2015 4:53 PM

2015-06-22T16:53:59-04:00

I make no apologies for the length of this response because this issue is extremely complicated. And yet, it is easily answered by readily verifiable government statistics, most of which I have provided for the reader. All you past or present LEOs, I'd love your feedback.

I am a retired Law Enforcement Officer. As such, I would like to throw out some fairly representative statistics about police work that bears mightily on this rather "noisy," and current, social issue. You do the math as we go along. BTW, for many years, in different police capacities, I was also saddled with compiling the monthly and annual Uniform Crime Reports to the FBI. So, I have crime stats and associated daily personnel stats coming out the Ying Yang!!!

Today, there are over 1 million LEOs in the US, from FBI and other Feds down through state levels, down through county levels, down to the local levels. One million, just to round things off. Roughly, 70% are on duty on any given day. That's 700,000 suits and uniforms. Here's where it gets into grey areas: an AVERAGE LEO, irrespective of job assignment, can have anywhere from (literally zero), but ON AVERAGE, (remember that were talking Fed or NYC cop down to a one-man, part time, tiny town marshal), ten to forty contacts with the public during his shift, ON AVERAGE. Just eight hours for, ON AVERAGE, about 220-230 days a year. That's Self-Initiated Activity and Calls-for-Service, the latter kind that come from Dispatchers and usually require a written report, or two, or three!!! As a traffic cop, I could easily have 75-80 SIA contacts a day because my main job was traffic law enforcement. Hell, I could get that many, and often did when teamed up for spot survey sites, in three-four hours. Then, I just played around...I had my quotas and then some. NO, WE DIDN'T HAVE QUOTAS!!!

So, back to that one fellow: he now has had, ON AVERAGE, in a given year, approximately 5,750 contacts with the public...from murder, rape, and robbery down through and including checking on the welfare of an elderly person to a benign and friendly contact with a kid on a bike with no helmet.

Remember the ONE MILLION suits and uniforms: well, that means police of all types and statutory levels have nearly SIX BILLION contacts with the public, ON AVERAGE, EVERY YEAR. I'll let that sink in. Average. Truth is, I have no doubt, whatsoever, that that number is closer to TEN BILLION contacts per year...and climbing steadily.

Just so you know my numbers are not made up in my head, in 2008, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there were approximately 120,000 federal police-types, and approximately 765,000 state, county, and city coppers. That total number has been estimated by the BJS to increase annually by 57,000 LEOs. We are easily over a million today, like I said.

Now, to the issue of police shootings. Out of nearly SIX BILLION public contacts on average every year, the percentage of VIOLENT CRIMES or routine contacts that turn violent or deadly (which, BTW, account for the highest number of on-duty police deaths every year), where guns or other deadly weapons are involved, someone has been or may be killed, someone has been or may be seriously assaulted, hostage situations, fleeing felons, resisting lawful arrests and the like, amount to, ON AVERAGE, 1.44 million violent crimes in 2014, according to the FBI, which, by the way, was a 4% drop over the preceding year. Once again, let's do the math. SIX BILLION contacts a year of which 1.44 MILLION last year were violent...someone was murdered, assaulted, raped, drug crimes, etc. That means of all those annual LEO contacts, only 0.00024% of ALL POLICE CONTACTS were violent. Of all those contacts, police resorted to deadly force (where a perp(s) was actually killed by police) will amount to a total of 930 times, according to BJS estimates for the year 2015, or 1122 deaths by police, if one accepts THE GUARDIAN'S estimates for 2015.

The first calculation would figure police killings in 2015 (based upon 2014 UCR data and a BJS estimate of 2015 numbers), based upon SIX MILLION contacts and 1.44 MILLION violent crimes, at 0 [login to see] % of all SIX BILLION police contacts. Using The Guardian estimates, that ratio is 0 [login to see] of 1% of all police contacts.

Hell, by now I can't remember the original question. But I believe any rational individual should now be able to see how microscopically minute the number of deaths annually committed by police in the performance of their lawful duties. Are there a handful of bad shootings, perhaps. I was not there nor did I investigate a single case. My point is that police in the United States are NOT on a violent ramage, killing innocent people, shooting first and asking questions later.

I did this job for twenty-eight years. Ninety-percent of the time was spent writing reports; ten percent of the time is left to patrolling or performing good old detective legwork. I say to anyone who thinks they know a better way to do the job with 315 BILLION people, apply for a job as a cop and have at it. You will be shocked to learn that the MEDIA loves to make mountains out of ant hills, and that the job has ZERO resemblance to television and movies.

I'm done now. I really think I need my nap.

Response by CW2 Carl Swanson made Oct 31 at 2015 6:01 PM

2015-10-31T18:01:51-04:00

This read as a skewed and biased article against American law enforcement. Many of the numbers mentioned here don't really correlate to try and match up statistics.

There are techniques used in other countries that we would never consider. Have you ever seen a Polizei knock the crap out of someone with one of their spring loaded batons? Kind of takes away your willingness to act a fool. And their police normally carry Uzi's in the open when they are doing crowd control. Again, takes away the desire to act foolishly. Other country's laws are much different about the freedoms and rights of the accused compared to the U.S. as well.

My overall answer is NO, we do not have a "Police Killings" issue in the U.S. We just have a media that feeds off of negativity and trying to spin everything that occurs into a major catastrophe.

Response by SGT Jose Perdelia-Torres made May 9 at 2016 2:15 PM

2016-05-09T14:15:26-04:00

You break the law and do not follow commands and reach for something on your persons (could be anything), you are going to get shot. Period, plain and simple.