1114 People Killed By Police in 2014
1. Up 30% from 2013 even though violent crime is at record lows
2. 58 officers were killed by violent assault
, roughly 50% of all officer deaths in 2014.
2. 58 officers were killed by violent assault
, roughly 50% of all officer deaths in 2014.
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How about letting the courst do their jobs and ferret out the mistakes, and recognize that we need to be focusing time effort and enrgy on REAL problems where we can get a big BANG for the buck in fixing problems. Like drunk teenagers who are responsible for far more deaths, injuries and cost to our society than the miniscule number of potentially racist cops,.
Even with flaws in Law enforcement you are still so close to that 99.999% Six Sigma perfect, that indicates you do NOT NEED TO FIX something that is NOT BROKEN.
1) The killings are the result of those who feel they can behave violently and continue what they're doing, whether the police are around or not. Ultimately, they're going to encounter superior firepower when the police radio for backup.
2) The increase of the number may be due to the fact that there are increased numbers of people who disregard the law and feel violence is justifiable.
3) Perhaps the police are reacting with greater prejudice out of concern for their own lives. They do have a very difficult job that persistently puts them in harm's way.
Most likely it is a combination of the above and eventually cooler heads will prevail. Even Ayn Rand felt that lawlessness will never benefit a country and that originating force exerted by anyone or any organization should be put down by authority.
FBI Statistics 2013:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri...
11,302,102 Arrests in 2013.
That is a percentage of .0098% of arrests translate to a death by officer assuming that these deaths occur while an officer is trying to arrest someone.
Now if you decide to add ALL times where police are responding to something then that percentage is even lower.
Seems to me they have a really good record there.
Now let us look at another profession and make a comparison:
The medical profession.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/inpatien...
The CDC estimates approximately 51.4 million procedures performed per year in the USA.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...
The Scientific American estimates that 210,000 people die every year during and/or from surgery and specifically medical mistakes.
That is .408% chance you will die from a mistake by a medical professional with numerous years of higher education.
You are FAR, FAR more likely to die at the hands an incompetent doctor, or one that made an "oopsie" than a cop anytime of the day or year. Then lets add, for the most part YOU MUST BE DOING SOMETHING WRONG or at least wonky to be "engaged by a cop."
Time to STOP picking on cops and let them do their jobs.
The reason I say that is because there was a huge uproar in my city when a teenager got pulled over for speeding and ended up dead. The kid had initially stopped, but refused to cooperate with the officer and ended up attempting to drive off with the officer at his window. He dragged the officer more than 30 feet until the officer shot him and killed him instantly.
This story was all over the local news for months, but since both the teen and the cop were white, we were spared from hosting Al Sharpton. We had peaceful protests and an investigation, but it all happened peacefully and thankfully ended without any more blood shed.
My point is that we need to establish how many of these deaths were the product of resisting arrest, etc., and how many were a result of overly aggressive police. Without determining causation and tracking that, we are left with pure speculation - hardly a scientific pursuit.
One thing is clear from the recent deaths; waiving a gun, committing a crime or resisting by not obeying an officers instructions, can cause serious bodily injury or death. The police don’t know who you are and can only assume the worst so as to protect their lives. You have nothing to fear if you don’t commit a crime, waive a weapon in front of the police, or disobey them.
Another comment noted two university researchers that say that the numbers being published to date are from 50% to 100% shy of actual numbers. It just looks like there is no way to come up with the actual numbers.
But whether it's 1 or 10,000, it's too many unless it's a shootout situation, and way too many of those reported are not. I personally do not wish to support a police state that kills it's citizens. I want suspects brought to a judge and a trial of their peers. I don't want Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp out there 'resolving' these issues for us--that's not the jobs they are hired for.
I prefer the cop to be dressed in a clown outfit (with the floppy shoes and big nose) riding in a clown car and the only weapon he has is a squirt daisy pinned to his clown tie.
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