Ferguson

[Sigma_Orionis]

It also helps that the "victim" was armed and clearly approaching the police with the knife. Kind of hard to claim the neo-Nazi jackbooted police thugs gunned down an unarmed man when he is carrying a knife and shouting "shoot me".

That helped because it was captured on video by a third party, otherwise it would have been a "they said" vs "we said".

Of course, if you're conspiracy minded enough, you could argue that the the "third party" was in cahoots with the neo-nazi jackbooted police thugs. But it's harder to argue. So at least it's not adding fuel to the fire....

[FZR1KG]

Cops with tazers shoot man with knife slowly approaching them.

Most countries have situations with a guy approaching them with a knife in a threatening manner.
The US police however consistently shoot them dead while the rest more often arrest them.

http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/ ... nnual.html

In 2011, according to data I collected, police officers in the United States shot 1,146 people, killing 607

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/m ... ntally-ill

According to a new report from the Australian Institute of Criminology, there were 105 fatal police shootings between 1989-90 and 2010-11 and 44 of those people had a mental illness, with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia being the most common.

105 in 22 years vs 607 in one year.
To top it off, the US doesn't keep statistics (according to the first link) on the number of civilians the police shoot per year, so these were collected from news feeds.
Obviously that figure is going to be on the low end and it's about 65 times the rate per capita over that of Australia per year.
Just think about that, 65 times the rate.

Australia thinks it's figure is too high and is retraining police.
The US doesn't know anything about the dead civilians since they don't record the data, so doing anything is going to be pretty hard.

Realistically, police shoot more citizens dead in the USA than all the mass killings per year.
And they want more fire power and no one is keeping records.

Something isn't quite right here.

[geonuc]

The US doesn't know anything about the dead civilians since they don't record the data, so doing anything is going to be pretty hard.

What makes you think the US doesn't track fatal police shootings?

[Sigma_Orionis]

Cops with tazers shoot man with knife slowly approaching them.

Most countries have situations with a guy approaching them with a knife in a threatening manner.
The US police however consistently shoot them dead while the rest more often arrest them.

http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/ ... nnual.html

In 2011, according to data I collected, police officers in the United States shot 1,146 people, killing 607

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/m ... ntally-ill

According to a new report from the Australian Institute of Criminology, there were 105 fatal police shootings between 1989-90 and 2010-11 and 44 of those people had a mental illness, with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia being the most common.

105 in 22 years vs 607 in one year.
To top it off, the US doesn't keep statistics (according to the first link) on the number of civilians the police shoot per year, so these were collected from news feeds.
Obviously that figure is going to be on the low end and it's about 65 times the rate per capita over that of Australia per year.
Just think about that, 65 times the rate.

Australia thinks it's figure is too high and is retraining police.
The US doesn't know anything about the dead civilians since they don't record the data, so doing anything is going to be pretty hard.

Realistically, police shoot more citizens dead in the USA than all the mass killings per year.
And they want more fire power and no one is keeping records.

Something isn't quite right here.

Zee, how did you arrive at a rate per capita 65 times larger?

[FZR1KG]

The US doesn't know anything about the dead civilians since they don't record the data, so doing anything is going to be pretty hard.

What makes you think the US doesn't track fatal police shootings?

To top it off, the US doesn't keep statistics (according to the first link)

[FZR1KG]

Zee, how did you arrive at a rate per capita 65 times larger?

Deaths according to the figures in the links:
Oz = 105 in 22 years
US = 607 in one year

Oz/year = 102/22 = 4.77

Population of US = 300 million
Population of Oz = 22 million

So 300/22 * 4.77
= 65

I just went on rough figures I knew, the actual population of the US is 314 million
Oz, 22.68
So the real figure is about 66:1
I did say about...

[Sigma_Orionis]

Zee, how did you arrive at a rate per capita 65 times larger?

Deaths according to the figures in the links:
Oz = 105 in 22 years
US = 607 in one year

Oz/year = 102/22 = 4.77

Population of US = 300 million
Population of Oz = 22 million

So 300/22 * 4.77
= 65

I just went on rough figures I knew, the actual population of the US is 314 million
Oz, 22.68
So the real figure is about 66:1
I did say about...

Call me thick, but how does that ratio relates to the 607 deaths per year in the US?

[FZR1KG]

The US doesn't know anything about the dead civilians since they don't record the data, so doing anything is going to be pretty hard.

What makes you think the US doesn't track fatal police shootings?

To top it off, the US doesn't keep statistics (according to the first link)

As it was late last night and I was tired I just put down that the link claims this.
Having done the research this morning however, it seems the link is correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ki ... ted_States

The lists below are incomplete, as the annual average number of justifiable homicides alone is estimated to be near 400.[1] Although Congress instructed the Attorney General in 1994 to compile and publish annual statistics on police use of excessive force, this was never carried out, and the FBI does not collect this data either.[2]

The reference for [2]: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01 ... -live?lite

Apparently the database that I first linked to is the closest that the US has to something that is realistic and the guy did it himself by compiling news reports together over the course of a year.

These are extraordinary figures that to me at least suggest that something is really messed up here.

[FZR1KG]

Zee, how did you arrive at a rate per capita 65 times larger?

Deaths according to the figures in the links:
Oz = 105 in 22 years
US = 607 in one year

Oz/year = 102/22 = 4.77

Population of US = 300 million
Population of Oz = 22 million

So 300/22 * 4.77
= 65

I just went on rough figures I knew, the actual population of the US is 314 million
Oz, 22.68
So the real figure is about 66:1
I did say about...

Call me thick, but how does that ratio relates to the 607 deaths per year in the US?

My bad.
Late night last night and too early for maths this morning so I just repeated what I did last night instead of checking my work. lol

607/66
= 9.1 :1

Still a really high figure and it comes from news reports rather than any official statistics so will be higher.

Thanks for the correction.

[SciFi Chick]

So it turns out one of the eyewitnesses was able to take a video of the police officer shooting Michael Brown while Michael Brown was about twenty feet away from him with his hands up begging the officer not to shoot.

I suspected the officer was the bad guy in this story. It doesn't matter what Michael Brown did leading up to that point. To be shot multiple times while you're hands are up and surrendering is flat out murder.

P.S. The link does not show the murder of Michael Brown. It merely confirms that these eyewitnesses took a video of the cops shooting Michael Brown. Nothing graphic is contained in the video.

[Sigma_Orionis]

My bad.
Late night last night and too early for maths this morning so I just repeated what I did last night instead of checking my work. lol

607/66
= 9.1 :1

Still a really high figure and it comes from news reports rather than any official statistics so will be higher.

Thanks for the correction.

Yeah, that's more or less what I got out, 9 to 1 per capita is still pretty bad. I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but might have to do with the same reason the jail population in the US is so high, as a result of public outcry for law and order as a result of the loopholes criminal law had in the 60s and 70s, it looks like it went the other way..

[Swift]

The US doesn't know anything about the dead civilians since they don't record the data, so doing anything is going to be pretty hard.

What makes you think the US doesn't track fatal police shootings?

Just to confirm what Zee said, I heard similar information on NPR from a Professor who studies such things. There is a mandate that the FBI track information about police shootings, but police departments have never been good about reporting such information to the FBI (and some have actively resisted it) and the FBI has done very little to get the data, and has done nothing with what data they are sent.

There are standardized reports on criminal activity that are filed with the FBI (that's where all those stats on crime come from) and departments are pretty good about filing that data. That data includes the shootings of police officers, but not the shooting by police officers, justifiable or not.

[FZR1KG]

Yep, that's what I've read as well. The mandate was issued decades ago but was never enforced and no one has made waves into why not.

[Cyborg Girl]

Yep, that's what I've read as well. The mandate was issued decades ago but was never enforced and no one has made waves into why not.

Because if they did they might just get shot?

Kidding, but only just. The US is supposed to be "a country of laws, not of men" as John Adams put it. If the people who are supposed to enforce those laws can only be relied to enforce them as they see fit, then we do not have a country of laws at all.

[FZR1KG]

You all read the thing about police stealing money from citizens, legally?

[Swift]

Yep, that's what I've read as well. The mandate was issued decades ago but was never enforced and no one has made waves into why not.

Because if they did they might just get shot?

Kidding, but only just. The US is supposed to be "a country of laws, not of men" as John Adams put it. If the people who are supposed to enforce those laws can only be relied to enforce them as they see fit, then we do not have a country of laws at all.

Actually, I suspect that has little or nothing to do with it (the getting shot bit).

According to the Professor on NPR, at least some of the police departments and some of the city governments for which they work, are nervous about the bad PR this would generate. And you know that it would generate bad PR. You know Time Magazine or whoever will come up with the top 10 list of cities with the most people shot by police and there will be all kinds of protests and bad press. You also know that the general public will make little or no distinction between justifiable shootings and non-justifiable shootings.

The unfortunate reality is that we live in a violent, gun-focused culture, and that cops are often in situations where they have to counter this with violence. Yes, non-justifiable shootings happen, but I suspect they are a small minority. I would still rather have the cops walk around with guns than 2nd Amendment vigilantes.

But yes, I think this is information that the government and citizens need to have and it should be collected. I'm just saying I understand the fears of the police departments. I don't think you need to attribute it to malice.

[FZR1KG]

If the police departments thing that the public will be outraged by the amount of citizens being killed, then I suggest that they do something about it rather than sweeping it under a rug and letting it get worse.
Or is the militarization of the police what they are doing about it, preparing for civil revolts?

[SciFiFisher]

If the police departments thing that the public will be outraged by the amount of citizens being killed, then I suggest that they do something about it rather than sweeping it under a rug and letting it get worse.
Or is the militarization of the police what they are doing about it, preparing for civil revolts?

Well, if you study cases like the Watts Riots then one of the things you do is prepare for civil unrest. And if you really think that it takes something really egregious to spark something like that you would be wrong. It doesn't always take the beating of a racial minority or the shooting of a poor unarmed black man. Look at some of the riots they had in Brazil or Spain after a freaking soccer match.

The "militarization" of the police is actually not the problem. The police have needed to be "militarized" for a very long time. They just didn't have the budget. Then the war on terror was declared over and DOD suddenly had all this extra equipment laying around. And it's not like they are going to sell it to North Korea or give it away to the Black Panthers or the Aryan Nation.

The problem is that the police got all this lovely equipment and they still forget a few very important things. Like how to do true community police work. Or how to "win hearts and minds". To put it in military terms. They also forget to do things like training to deal with the situations in a way that de-escalates instead escalates tensions. They forget to deal with the people they serve as if they are real people and human beings instead of seeing them all as perpetrators, criminals, and thugs. They get all this lovely military equipment and then no one really trains them to use it effectively.

They become entrenched with a "war zone" mentality and they become reactive instead of proactive. And some of that is because the people who are screaming the loudest about what a crappy job the police are doing won't cough up one thin dime or effort to help change things and help create the type of law enforcement they claim they want.

You are actually looking at two different things and thinking they are connected. And they aren't really. Except by the fact that both of them originate within or have something to do with law enforcement.

[Swift]

The problem is that the police got all this lovely equipment and they still forget a few very important things. Like how to do true community police work. Or how to "win hearts and minds". To put it in military terms. They also forget to do things like training to deal with the situations in a way that de-escalates instead escalates tensions. They forget to deal with the people they serve as if they are real people and human beings instead of seeing them all as perpetrators, criminals, and thugs. They get all this lovely military equipment and then no one really trains them to use it effectively.

Yes

On NPR the other day they were talking to the Police Commisioner from Philly, who is also the chair of some national organization. He was basically saying the same thing. One thing they do is that all new officiers have to walk a beat for their first year or so. Not ride in a patrol car, walk an actual beat. Not only is it very effective for fighting crime, but it gets them to meet ordinary people under ordinary circumstances.

[squ1d]

Interesting discussion on this and the militarization of the police in the USA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTWy8tjTiTw

[FZR1KG]

Can't watch this right now, too many other things to do.

But I find it interesting that the USA is one of the few countries that I know of where their armies can't be used on domestic soil.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1385

The solution of course is to militarize the police.
Duh.

[brite]

It's because the civilians are afraid that the standing Army will take over... Wimps... LOL

[Sigma_Orionis]

Ah yes, the Posse Comitatus act. Part of the messy love/hate state government vs federal government relationship the US has.

[SciFiFisher]

Ah yes, the Posse Comitatus act. Part of the messy love/hate state government vs federal government relationship the US has.

Which was passed after the civil war because using the US Army to occupy the South for about 10 years after the civil war ended left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. especially because the US Army occupied the South badly. We sucked at winning hearts and minds back then too.

We always were much better at letting god sort them out.

[Sigma_Orionis]

So, when push comes to shove, yer a bunch of whiny pinko commie liberal bleeding hearts

Rutherford Hayes in 1878
[Imitating Zee pretending to be Fran Drescher]
OMG!, the Southern States are mad at us because we won the war and occupied them!. Let's appease them by promising no to ever ever ever again use the Armed Forces internally, and let's call it the "Jumping Jim Crow" act. No, wait, we used that one already. How about the "Sore Losers" act? hmmm no, they might dislike us in the future for that and when one of our politicians decides to do a "Southern Strategy" they'll try to get even by attempting to put religious fanatics in the White House... I know! I know!, let's call it the "Posse Comitatus" Act, it has a nice half-Redneck, half-Learned ring to it, a perfect description of US!.