Why are American police more violent than in other first world nations?

[Tigers!]

According to this site (http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014) in 2014, 127 law enforcement officers in the US were killed in the line duty. Here is the distribution by type of death:

Line of Duty Deaths: 127
9/11 related illness: 1
Assault: 2
Automobile accident: 26
Drowned: 2
Duty related illness: 3
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 47
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 19
Motorcycle accident: 4
Struck by vehicle: 5
Vehicle pursuit: 5
Vehicular assault: 10

The amount killed by gunfire 47/127 = 37% is, it seems to me, an extraordinary amount. Presumably in confrontations with criminals. That might tend to engender a shoot early, shoot accurate mindset.

 

[Hickdive]

The necessary assumption that the criminal will have a firearm combined with an unfortunate tendency to recruit ex-military as police officers.

 

[laughing dog]

According to this site (http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014) in 2014, 127 law enforcement officers in the US were killed in the line duty. Here is the distribution by type of death:

The amount killed by gunfire 47/127 = 37% is, it seems to me, an extraordinary amount. Presumably in confrontations with criminals. That might tend to engender a shoot early, shoot accurate mindset.

There are over 500,000 law enforcement officers in the USA. 47/500,000 is less than 0.0001 chance of getting killed by a gun during a year.

No, our police are more dangerous because we allow, expect and excuse their behavior.

 

[Bronzeage]

The amount killed by gunfire 47/127 = 37% is, it seems to me, an extraordinary amount. Presumably in confrontations with criminals. That might tend to engender a shoot early, shoot accurate mindset.

There are over 500,000 law enforcement officers in the USA. 47/500,000 is less than 0.0001 chance of getting killed by a gun during a year.

No, our police are more dangerous because we allow, expect and excuse their behavior.

Our police are more dangerous because we are more dangerous.

We have never found(and likely never will) found a way to limit a criminal access to guns, without limiting access for law abiding citizens. We pay a high price for this and police violence is just a small part of this cost. In any situation, a policeman can expect to be confronted by a gun.

Our compromise over our gun rights and the danger of guns is to concede that policemen may use lethal force to respond to any perceived threat. There is no other viable solution.

 

[laughing dog]

There are over 500,000 law enforcement officers in the USA. 47/500,000 is less than 0.0001 chance of getting killed by a gun during a year.

No, our police are more dangerous because we allow, expect and excuse their behavior.

Our police are more dangerous because we are more dangerous.

We have never found(and likely never will) found a way to limit a criminal access to guns, without limiting access for law abiding citizens. We pay a high price for this and police violence is just a small part of this cost. In any situation, a policeman can expect to be confronted by a gun.

Your response does not explain police shooting obviously unarmed people. Your response does not explain our police beating obviously unarmed people. Your response assumes that people in the US are more dangerous. And your response ignores the obvious - that we allow the police to get away with their unnecessary violence. As a society, we could crack down on. Obviously as a society, we implicitly condone their actions. Hell, reading the apologia in some of these threads, we have a portion of the population who not only defends their violence but applauds it.

Our compromise over our gun rights and the danger of guns is to concede that policemen may use lethal force to respond to any perceived threat. There is no other viable solution.

Of course there are viable solutions. An obvious one is to crack down on their unnecessary violence. Another is to refocus their efforts from protecting their asses from any conceivable threat regardless of its realistic possibility to dealing with actually keeping the peace.

 

[Shadowy Man]

According to this site (http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014) in 2014, 127 law enforcement officers in the US were killed in the line duty. Here is the distribution by type of death:

The amount killed by gunfire 47/127 = 37% is, it seems to me, an extraordinary amount. Presumably in confrontations with criminals. That might tend to engender a shoot early, shoot accurate mindset.

What percentage were killed by unarmed people who thought they had good odds trying to take out the policeman rather than risk going to jail, as per Loren's suggestion? How often has this been successful and why would anybody think this is actually an approach likely to give the best outcome?

 

[ronburgundy]

There are dozens of factors, so any answer of "because X" is just blind ideology.

Here is a very short list of major factors.

1). Our cops are more violent, because our people are more violent. Cops in the US are more likely to be assaulted and shot. People in general in the US are more likely to be killed or assaulted by other citizens than in most developed nations.
This reasons entails the factors that make our people more violent, which includes inequality, poverty, historical impacts of racism, and the illegal drug market.

2). because the violent people cops encounter are more likely to have guns. This applies even to all instances where the perp happens to not have a gun. If in general cops encounter way more armed citizens, they have a higher expectation of it, which will increase their defensiveness and lower their threshold for a violent response.

3). because the US has more urban areas of extremely high crime concentration, which makes them more akin to a "war zone", where everyone, including cops, treat most others like a threat. I have traveled in most of northern and western Europe and Cananda, and my tastes in food brings me to the "worst" parts of those cities, which don't compare in the pervasiveness of criminal activity that you find in pockets of many US cities where you simply do not go unless you live there.

4) because our cops are increasingly ex-soldiers trained for killing, violence, and viewing all those not sharing their uniform as the enemy.

 

[ronburgundy]

Look at the number of cops killed by bad guys here vs other countries.

According to this site (http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014) in 2014, 127 law enforcement officers in the US were killed in the line duty. Here is the distribution by type of death:

Line of Duty Deaths: 127
9/11 related illness: 1
Assault: 2
Automobile accident: 26
Drowned: 2
Duty related illness: 3
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 47
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 19
Motorcycle accident: 4
Struck by vehicle: 5
Vehicle pursuit: 5
Vehicular assault: 10

While estimates vary, there are easily over 500,000 law enforcement officers in the USA, so the chances of an officer being killed in the line of duty is pretty low.

Those numbers reflect a tiny fraction of the number of attempted assaults and murders on cops. Only a small % of cops getting shot or assaulted result in death, and only a small % of attempting shootings or attempted assaults even cause injury. Cops were vests and are trained to avoid getting killed, and are much much better shots than the untrained criminals shooting at them. The reason many more cops than that do not die is precisely because they react with counter violence. They same things that save their lives and lead to less than 100 assault or gunfire deaths per year are the same things that lead them to sometimes overuse violence beyond what was needed to subdue the threat. IOW, it is absurd to say that cop shouldn't need to react with violence because they rarely get killed, when in fact it is their counter violence that prevents them from getting killed by the very frequent attempted violence against them.

 

[Angry Floof]

For those of you saying cops are more dangerous because we are more dangerous, how does the fact that crime rates are lowest in 40 years bear on your opinion?

 

[ronburgundy]

For those of you saying cops are more dangerous because we are more dangerous, how does the fact that crime rates are lowest in 40 years bear on your opinion?

How does the fact that crimes rates were so high that despite the recent drop they are still higher than most developed nations bear on your opinion? How does the fact that a cop of 20 years reacts to 20 years of experience and not solely to the most recent years stat bear on your opinion?

The question posed is why US cops are more violent compared to other countries, not why they are more violent now then in the past, which isn't actually the case.
They are completely different questions with different answers. Actually the latter presumes that US cops are more violent now than the past, which may not be true. The number of people killed by cops now is still lower than the early 90's, and the recent increase since 2000 tracks closely with the 15% increase in the raw number of cops, meaning there is more violence being committed by cops in general because there are more cops.

 

[arkirk]

For those of you saying cops are more dangerous because we are more dangerous, how does the fact that crime rates are lowest in 40 years bear on your opinion?

Yesterday, I witnessed an arrest of a black man in the street in front of a big window in the gym where I was working out. The man was wearing tight jeans, a tee shirt ,sox and shoes. There were eight cop cars and at least 20 cops. The suspect got on the ground with both hands open and widely spread. He was completely subdued simply by taking the position he was ordered to assume. No fewer than six cops kept their pistols trained on the man...even when two of their number approached him to cuff him. There was a short period where the cops were pointing their guns at their own fellow cops. This arrest was ridiculous, almost regardless of anything the suspect might have done. It took a few of the cops more than five minutes after the guy was cuffed and still on the ground before they put away their guns.

I feel these cops were completely out of line in terms of their drawn armament. To make matters worse, there was a regular peanut gallery on our side of the gym window and all those guns....wow. After the bust, one cop came into the gym and appeared to be looking for someone. Our gym has a physical recognition system for admitting you for a session and the people at the front desk can see who is in the gym. The cop just blew past the front desk (the only way in) and went throughout the gym, seeking someone or something....never inquiring for a name or anything at the front desk. After about five minutes of looking around, he headed back out. These LA cops are something else.

 

[bilby]

I think that this is the root of the problem. Not that this is actually happening, but that cops go out onto the streets with the attitude that it's happening.

Look at the number of cops killed by bad guys here vs other countries.

That's the problem right there. Americans really think that 'bad guys' is a valid and useful category.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Why are American police more violent than in other first world nations?

Religion.

 

[Angry Floof]

Look at the number of cops killed by bad guys here vs other countries.

That's the problem right there. Americans really think that 'bad guys' is a valid and useful category.

Not Americans - conservatives. You guys have pretty much the same mentality running amok in your country, only you call them liberals.

But you're also upside down, so...

 

[bilby]

That's the problem right there. Americans really think that 'bad guys' is a valid and useful category.

Not Americans... conservatives.

#NotAllAmericans

 

[arkirk]

Not Americans... conservatives.

#NotAllAmericans

How about what the OP is about? Cops. There is a mindset that follows from living in the U.S. and also living with a pistol strapped to your side.

 

[Bronzeage]

Our police are more dangerous because we are more dangerous.

We have never found(and likely never will) found a way to limit a criminal access to guns, without limiting access for law abiding citizens. We pay a high price for this and police violence is just a small part of this cost. In any situation, a policeman can expect to be confronted by a gun.

Your response does not explain police shooting obviously unarmed people. Your response does not explain our police beating obviously unarmed people. Your response assumes that people in the US are more dangerous. And your response ignores the obvious - that we allow the police to get away with their unnecessary violence. As a society, we could crack down on. Obviously as a society, we implicitly condone their actions. Hell, reading the apologia in some of these threads, we have a portion of the population who not only defends their violence but applauds it.

Our compromise over our gun rights and the danger of guns is to concede that policemen may use lethal force to respond to any perceived threat. There is no other viable solution.

Of course there are viable solutions. An obvious one is to crack down on their unnecessary violence. Another is to refocus their efforts from protecting their asses from any conceivable threat regardless of its realistic possibility to dealing with actually keeping the peace.

What is an "obviously unarmed person"? How do they differ from a "probably unarmed person," or a "likely unarmed person"?

We could crack down on police, but we won't, because we will not do anything to correct the real cause of the problem, which is there simply a lot guns and a lot of people have guns.

How do we "refocus their efforts from protecting their asses from any conceivable threat regardless of its realistic possibility"? There is no defensive value in a gun. It cannot protect anyone from a bullet that is already in the air, on its way to whatever it hits. The only protection it offers against being shot, is the chance to shoot first and straight, at the other gun owner.

"Refocusing" begins to sound like, "Stand still and present a better target, while you figure out if the other guy is armed and has hostile intentions."

 

[laughing dog]

What is an "obviously unarmed person"?

A naked person is an obvious example.

How do they differ from a "probably unarmed person," or a "likely unarmed person"?

They're naked. The others are not.

We could crack down on police, but we won't...

That is my point.

, because we will not do anything to correct the real cause of the problem, which is there simply a lot guns and a lot of people have guns.

That is not the real cause of the problem. The real cause is that we tacitly encourage the police to be violent and we won't crack down on it.

How do we "refocus their efforts from protecting their asses from any conceivable threat regardless of its realistic possibility"? There is no defensive value in a gun. It cannot protect anyone from a bullet that is already in the air, on its way to whatever it hits. The only protection it offers against being shot, is the chance to shoot first and straight, at the other gun owner.

When you are finished splitting hairs, you cannot fire a gun if you don't have one. If there is no defensive value in a gun, then the police would not carry one.

"Refocusing" begins to sound like, "Stand still and present a better target, while you figure out if the other guy is armed and has hostile intentions."

Then clean out your ears and begin to really think. Like the police who are the subject of this thread - Another "they managed to not shoot him" knife-wielder arrest


A

 

[Loren Pechtel]

According to this site (http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014) in 2014, 127 law enforcement officers in the US were killed in the line duty. Here is the distribution by type of death:

The amount killed by gunfire 47/127 = 37% is, it seems to me, an extraordinary amount. Presumably in confrontations with criminals. That might tend to engender a shoot early, shoot accurate mindset.

Once you add the other deaths due to bad guys it's 46%.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For those of you saying cops are more dangerous because we are more dangerous, how does the fact that crime rates are lowest in 40 years bear on your opinion?

Yesterday, I witnessed an arrest of a black man in the street in front of a big window in the gym where I was working out. The man was wearing tight jeans, a tee shirt ,sox and shoes. There were eight cop cars and at least 20 cops. The suspect got on the ground with both hands open and widely spread. He was completely subdued simply by taking the position he was ordered to assume. No fewer than six cops kept their pistols trained on the man...even when two of their number approached him to cuff him. There was a short period where the cops were pointing their guns at their own fellow cops. This arrest was ridiculous, almost regardless of anything the suspect might have done. It took a few of the cops more than five minutes after the guy was cuffed and still on the ground before they put away their guns.

I feel these cops were completely out of line in terms of their drawn armament. To make matters worse, there was a regular peanut gallery on our side of the gym window and all those guns....wow. After the bust, one cop came into the gym and appeared to be looking for someone. Our gym has a physical recognition system for admitting you for a session and the people at the front desk can see who is in the gym. The cop just blew past the front desk (the only way in) and went throughout the gym, seeking someone or something....never inquiring for a name or anything at the front desk. After about five minutes of looking around, he headed back out. These LA cops are something else.

Until they've searched him they aren't going to be confident there's no hidden weapon.