Killed by police - 2015

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Killed by Police website that aggregates and counts police involved homicides counts 1,200 people killed in the year of our lord 2015.

http://killedbypolice.net/

This would probably be the floor for the amount of people killed by police this past year.

Happy New Year everyone!

So how many of those do you think were unjustified?

Isn't it hard to tell seeing that investigations and prosecutions of the shootings are dubious? Isn't that the whole point?

Many police shootings are very likely justified. But we really have no feel whatsoever as to the legitimacy. And with certain random events that happened to be recorded, it does make one wonder the circumstances for each shooting. Granted, even in those cases, there are defenders for the shooters.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So how many of those do you think were unjustified?

Police in the USA kill civilians at something like 50+ times the rate of other First World countries, so US police are clearly killing far more people (like over 5000%) than can be justified by a First World nation.

The US governments (state and federal) need to fix some obvious problems to bring those numbers down to something less insane:

1. Your police are poorly trained and resort to shooting too readily. Organise them into state-level police forces that have better training, regulation, and support.

2. Your police are scared of your heavily-armed populace. Enact laws to take most of the guns out of circulation. Fuck your obsolete, musket-age Second Amendment.

3. Your police have a military culture which encourages the use of excessive force and abuse of authority.

4. End the war on drugs that has fueled the rise of organised, well-armed criminal gangs.

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

 

[Trausti]

Police in the USA kill civilians at something like 50+ times the rate of other First World countries, so US police are clearly killing far more people (like over 5000%) than can be justified by a First World nation.

The US governments (state and federal) need to fix some obvious problems to bring those numbers down to something less insane:

1. Your police are poorly trained and resort to shooting too readily. Organise them into state-level police forces that have better training, regulation, and support.

2. Your police are scared of your heavily-armed populace. Enact laws to take most of the guns out of circulation. Fuck your obsolete, musket-age Second Amendment.

3. Your police have a military culture which encourages the use of excessive force and abuse of authority.

4. End the war on drugs that has fueled the rise of organised, well-armed criminal gangs.

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

Demographics matter.

 

[Malintent]

Looking at the gender of those killed it is incredible to see just how sexist the US police force is.

#MaleLivesMatter

Brilliant!

 

[bigfield]

Police in the USA kill civilians at something like 50+ times the rate of other First World countries, so US police are clearly killing far more people (like over 5000%) than can be justified by a First World nation.

The US governments (state and federal) need to fix some obvious problems to bring those numbers down to something less insane:

1. Your police are poorly trained and resort to shooting too readily. Organise them into state-level police forces that have better training, regulation, and support.

2. Your police are scared of your heavily-armed populace. Enact laws to take most of the guns out of circulation. Fuck your obsolete, musket-age Second Amendment.

3. Your police have a military culture which encourages the use of excessive force and abuse of authority.

4. End the war on drugs that has fueled the rise of organised, well-armed criminal gangs.

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

I'm not assuming there are no cultural differences, Loren. The four points I listed are all cultural differences. Your points are certainly a valid addendum, although I doubt many of the victims are suicide-by-cop.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

Demographics matter.

I don't think demographics has a big effect. US demographics look an awful lot like European demographics.

- - - Updated - - -

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

I'm not assuming there are no cultural differences, Loren. The four points I listed are all cultural differences. Your points are certainly a valid addendum, although I doubt many of the victims are suicide-by-cop.

I've seen estimates as high as 1/3 for how many are suicide-by-cop.

 

[bigfield]

Demographics matter.

I don't think demographics has a big effect. US demographics look an awful lot like European demographics.

- - - Updated - - -

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

I'm not assuming there are no cultural differences, Loren. The four points I listed are all cultural differences. Your points are certainly a valid addendum, although I doubt many of the victims are suicide-by-cop.

I've seen estimates as high as 1/3 for how many are suicide-by-cop.

I've seen bullshit estimates for stuff, too.

 

[arkirk]

It might be fair to say that our society is careless with guns and at the same time heavily armed. Our cops have the same condition...carelessness with a dash of racism thrown in and we have what we have...between two and three black males being killed about every day...usually, though not always shot. There definitely is something wrong with our cop system because its stats are nothing like European stats. What makes the differences stand out even more is the great amount of refugee traffic in Europe also. They definitely are not a model of perfection, but next to the U.S. they are head and shoulders superior.

Loren blames our high level of cops shooting people on "nutters" improperly treated by our inferior mental health system...and people desperately avoiding being imprisoned in terrible jails. He seemingly is not noticing that preponderance of black people falling to cop guns. He is inferring that these black people are all either nutters or criminals? That might be true if it were a crime to be a black person in America, which it technically isn't. So what is left to explain it...racism.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Demographics matter.

I don't think demographics has a big effect. US demographics look an awful lot like European demographics.

- - - Updated - - -

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

I'm not assuming there are no cultural differences, Loren. The four points I listed are all cultural differences. Your points are certainly a valid addendum, although I doubt many of the victims are suicide-by-cop.

I've seen estimates as high as 1/3 for how many are suicide-by-cop.

Where?

 

[arkirk]

How does a guy saying "I can't breathe," point to suicide by cop...unless you consider going on the street while black or perhaps selling a few loose cigarettes as a suicidal act. Nope..this suicide by cop idea is overplayed by the cops.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't think demographics has a big effect. US demographics look an awful lot like European demographics.

- - - Updated - - -

You're assuming there are no cultural differences.

Reality: We have an inferior mental health system and thus more nutters walking around.

Reality: Our prisons are harsher, we have more people willing to risk death in order to avoid going back. (Or even going there--many years ago we had a 16 year old with no rap sheet point a realistic replica gun at the cop who stopped him for driving a stolen car.)

Reality: The availability of firearms makes it easier for people to do a suicide-by-cop by provoking the cop into shooting them.


Ending the war on drugs certainly would help, though.

I'm not assuming there are no cultural differences, Loren. The four points I listed are all cultural differences. Your points are certainly a valid addendum, although I doubt many of the victims are suicide-by-cop.

I've seen estimates as high as 1/3 for how many are suicide-by-cop.

I've seen bullshit estimates for stuff, too.

I've seen estimates that bullshit estimates represent about 1/3 of all estimates that bigfeld has seen.

- - - Updated - - -

How does a guy saying "I can't breathe," point to suicide by cop...unless you consider going on the street while black or perhaps selling a few loose cigarettes as a suicidal act. Nope..this suicide by cop idea is overplayed by the cops.

In LP's limited defense, he said 1/3, not all.

- - - Updated - - -

Loren blames our high level of cops shooting people on "nutters" improperly treated by our inferior mental health system...and people desperately avoiding being imprisoned in terrible jails. He seemingly is not noticing that preponderance of black people falling to cop guns. He is inferring that these black people are all either nutters or criminals? That might be true if it were a crime to be a black person in America, which it technically isn't. So what is left to explain it...racism.

Is now the time to mention that whole NY Subway deal where there was a "nutter" going "nutty" and he was restrained and talked down by three Swede Policeman on vacation?

 

[ronburgundy]

#472 was hit by a bus while running away from the police. I don't think that counts.

You are either joking or got the # wrong, b/c #472 was a guy who beat his wife and was threatening to murder their 18 month old son, holding him at knifepoint.
Clearly an outrageous act by the cops, who should let parents murder their babies whenever they feel like it.

But your example is highly similar to many on the list, some of which are clear cut accidents where the cops were merely "involved" in a death. Some even include cops being killed by other cops.

We went through this last year, and only a small % of the instances were anything that might even possibly point to unjustified intentional killings by the cops, an even nearly all those lacked evidence of wrong doing.

In addition, many of the cases linked to the most biased misleading sources possible, ignoring more reliable news organizations whose stories make the justification for the death rather obvious.

 

[Derec]

Numbers 1098 and 1099 are especially outrageous. How dare the police.

I also found #1093. It happened on November 30th and what interested me was the fact that even though it happened in Atlanta, it didn't make much of a splash even locally. The "stupid prizes" winner this time was one Darius Smith, 18. Police noticed a vehicle driving the wrong way. After the car crashed, the police quickly apprehended the driver but Darius was made of sterner stuff and he decided to have himself a gun battle with the police. Wrong move, as he was shot dead. Seems pretty cut and dried, right? Well not according to the family:
Parents say teen who ran, shot at police was good kid in "wrong crowd"

"He was a good kid with the wrong crowd," Father Morris Smith told 11Alive's Rebecca Lindstrom.

Just like you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic, so he was not with the wrong crowd, he was the wrong crowd.

According to police records in Greenville County, South Carolina, Smith was arrested in March for carrying a weapon on school property, receiving stolen goods, and possessing drugs at school.

Good kid alright!

When Lindstrom spoke with Smith's parents by phone on Tuesday, they admitted their son had problems with the law, but still questioned police actions. They want to know why Atlanta police didn't try non-lethal methods to bring him into custody.

Perhaps because your baby was shooting at them? Just a wild guess. Do you now get the rationale behind the d-word?
And about the whole premise of the "killed by police" site: the average black person is much more in danger from thugs, especially black ones (as most murders are intraracial) than from police, especially if they are not violent thugs themselves.
Black Americans Are Killed At 12 Times The Rate Of People In Other Developed Countries
That is not because they are being killed by police. It is because of people most likely to be killed by the police, like say Darius Smith.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

#472 was hit by a bus while running away from the police. I don't think that counts.

You are either joking or got the # wrong, b/c #472 was a guy who beat his wife and was threatening to murder their 18 month old son, holding him at knifepoint.
Clearly an outrageous act by the cops, who should let parents murder their babies whenever they feel like it.

But your example is highly similar to many on the list, some of which are clear cut accidents where the cops were merely "involved" in a death. Some even include cops being killed by other cops.

We went through this last year, and only a small % of the instances were anything that might even possibly point to unjustified intentional killings by the cops, an even nearly all those lacked evidence of wrong doing.

In addition, many of the cases linked to the most biased misleading sources possible, ignoring more reliable news organizations whose stories make the justification for the death rather obvious.

Holy shit, I actually got somebody to go and look at what #472 in that list was?

I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty sure that I just won the internet.

 

[ronburgundy]

You are either joking or got the # wrong, b/c #472 was a guy who beat his wife and was threatening to murder their 18 month old son, holding him at knifepoint.
Clearly an outrageous act by the cops, who should let parents murder their babies whenever they feel like it.

But your example is highly similar to many on the list, some of which are clear cut accidents where the cops were merely "involved" in a death. Some even include cops being killed by other cops.

We went through this last year, and only a small % of the instances were anything that might even possibly point to unjustified intentional killings by the cops, an even nearly all those lacked evidence of wrong doing.

In addition, many of the cases linked to the most biased misleading sources possible, ignoring more reliable news organizations whose stories make the justification for the death rather obvious.

Holy shit, I actually got somebody to go and look at what #472 in that list was?

I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty sure that I just won the internet.

In truth, since it was you, I assumed you were bullshitting and making a joke. But what you made up is no more absurd than most of the "killings" on the list, so before I pointed that out, I wanted to verify that you were joking. It turns that the real case was even more absurd as something on a list designed to support a conclusion that cops are evil and out of control.

 

[arkirk]

Holy shit, I actually got somebody to go and look at what #472 in that list was?

I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty sure that I just won the internet.

In truth, since it was you, I assumed you were bullshitting and making a joke. But what you made up is no more absurd than most of the "killings" on the list, so before I pointed that out, I wanted to verify that you were joking. It turns that the real case was even more absurd as something on a list designed to support a conclusion that cops are evil and out of control.

Now is the time for Jimmy to mention the Swedish cops who defused a bad situation without killing anybody.

There is a problem with cop violence in America and we might as well admit it. I think it is really a matter of the cops only doing half their job more than anything. You just see enough of these incidents to tell you the cops are using a kind of summary judgment against people of color. It is not even necessarily with guns. That Garner fellow and Rodney King's barber were killed by being held in a position where they could not breathe. Something about the Garner incident made it clear to me that these cops were willing to go the extra mile and squeeze the life out of a relatively innocent "suspect." It is just that the cop had to hold the man in position long enough for him to expire. That is really nasty...not an accidental discharge of a weapon but an intentional strangling.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How does a guy saying "I can't breathe," point to suicide by cop...unless you consider going on the street while black or perhaps selling a few loose cigarettes as a suicidal act. Nope..this suicide by cop idea is overplayed by the cops.

I don't think anyone has suggested that was a suicide by cop.

I'm thinking of cases like the 16 year old kid driving a stolen car who pointed realistic replica at the cop who stopped him--people choosing death over jail.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

#472 was hit by a bus while running away from the police. I don't think that counts.

You are either joking or got the # wrong, b/c #472 was a guy who beat his wife and was threatening to murder their 18 month old son, holding him at knifepoint.
Clearly an outrageous act by the cops, who should let parents murder their babies whenever they feel like it.

But your example is highly similar to many on the list, some of which are clear cut accidents where the cops were merely "involved" in a death. Some even include cops being killed by other cops.

We went through this last year, and only a small % of the instances were anything that might even possibly point to unjustified intentional killings by the cops, an even nearly all those lacked evidence of wrong doing.

In addition, many of the cases linked to the most biased misleading sources possible, ignoring more reliable news organizations whose stories make the justification for the death rather obvious.

Yeah. I didn't go all that far through the list but on another board I was working through it--I wasn't trying to evaluate whether the shooting was justified, but the more limited issue of whether the person killed was an innocent who didn't provoke it.

There were cases I couldn't find data for but at the point I gave up I had found only one case where the victim being an innocent was a realistic option and that was a traffic accident, not a shooting. (There was also the drunk lying in the dark road and getting run over that I didn't blame the cops for. Realistically, someone in dark clothes laying on the road at night is unavoidable. I've never encountered such but I did have a close call with a African-black guy in black clothing. I knew he was in front of me but I couldn't see him--I finally picked him up again about 1 second in front of me. Had I not had a momentary flash of seeing him lit by someone else's headlights I wouldn't have been standing on the brakes and he wouldn't have had time to get out of my lane--almost certain fatality. He had dashed across the other lane and narrowly avoided being hit by a bus, that bus kept him from seeing me but it also lit him up so I knew he was there.)

 

[bigfield]

How does a guy saying "I can't breathe," point to suicide by cop...unless you consider going on the street while black or perhaps selling a few loose cigarettes as a suicidal act. Nope..this suicide by cop idea is overplayed by the cops.

I don't think anyone has suggested that was a suicide by cop.

I'm thinking of cases like the 16 year old kid driving a stolen car who pointed realistic replica at the cop who stopped him--people choosing death over jail.

False dichotomy. You cannot assume that the perpetrator wants the police officer to kill him because he is pointing a gun; it may be that the perp is simply desperate to escape, and in desperation, thinks that such an action will help him get away, even though a dispassionate third party can clearly see that's insane.

People in situations like that are far from rational actors: their actions cannot be interpreted as calculated and the result (their death) cannot be interpreted as the result of premeditation.

 

[ronburgundy]

There is a problem with cop violence in America and we might as well admit it. :

Sure. It's just that the OP list of "killings by cops" tells us nothing about that problem, and does far more to destructively distort and misrepresent the problem in both its magnitude and nature.

Most of the cases in that list would be more accurately labeled "Cops protect many thousands of innocent lives by using justified lethal force against violent criminals."
Many of the other cases should be labeled "Idiot gets themselves killed trying to flee from cops", or "Cops are also human beings, and thus sometimes do things that accidentally kill people while on duty."

Facing the problem of unwarranted police aggression is harmed by this list. It would be served by a list limited to those where the facts suggest that 1) the person killed was NOT a violent criminal, and 2) the killing occurred due to deliberate use of force against the person. IOW, lets examine deliberate use of force that causes death against people that are not violent criminals.