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Post by nils on Jan 10, 2015 21:48:23 GMT -6
Don' ShootAmerica’s police kill too many people. But some forces are showing how smarter, less aggressive policing gets results From The economist If it is to work well, the relationship between police and policed requires mutual trust. “Public safety without public approval is not public safety,” says Bill Bratton, New York’s police commissioner. After Mr Garner’s death, which was captured on camera, complete with his last words (“I can’t breathe”, gasped ten times or so), and the shooting by a policeman of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August, public approval is in short supply. Both cases involved white officers killing unarmed black men, and neither of the officers has been indicted for wrongdoing. The two cases are not the same, however. Mr Garner was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes in the street and posing no threat to anyone. Mr Brown’s case is murkier, since there is no video footage. A friend of Mr Brown’s, with him when he robbed a convenience store shortly beforehand, says that the policeman shot him in cold blood. The policeman says he acted in self-defence, after the 292lb Mr Brown attacked him and tried to grab his gun. The forensic evidence tends to support the officer. Public opinion divides along racial lines. Nearly all African-Americans think the failure to indict the officers involved was wrong in both cases. Whites make a distinction: 64% think the grand jury made the right decision in Mr Brown’s case but only 28% think that about Mr Garner’s, according to a Pew poll. The FBI counts over 400 “justifiable homicides” by American police officers every year. This number includes only those shot while committing a crime. Reporting such shootings is voluntary, so the true number is surely higher. Even undercounting, America easily outguns other rich countries: in the year to March 2013 police in England and Wales fired weapons three times and killed no one. Such comparisons should be read in context. America’s police operate in a country with 300m guns and a murder rate six times Germany’s. In recent years the New York Police Department (NYPD) was called to an annual average of almost 200,000 incidents involving weapons, shot 28 people and saw six of its officers shot (mostly non-fatally). Despite the headlines, it is one of America’s more restrained forces. The more trigger-happy police departments tend to be found in smaller cities where fewer journalists live. Peter Moskos of John Jay College has come up with a measure to identify them, which checks the number of police shootings against the number of murders in a city. The places that stand out as having a lot of police shootings relative to the number of murders are Riverside, San Diego and Sacramento in California; and Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona. In general, smaller police forces are less likely to have proper oversight. (This matters: half of America’s 12,500 local police forces have ten or fewer officers.) Larger jurisdictions can employ people whose job is to prosecute policemen. In Brooklyn (population 2.5m), the current district attorney made his name prosecuting an officer for sodomising a handcuffed Haitian immigrant with a broomstick in the lavatory of a police station. In a small town policemen are investigated by people they work with all the time. “The prosecutor is the guy who went to your kid’s confirmation,” says Mr Moskos. In the whole country, fewer than six officers were charged with murder or manslaughter each year, on average, between 2005 and 2011, according to Philip Stinson of Bowling Green State University. If the problem were just one of scale then the answer would be simple, at least in theory: merge small departments to form bigger ones. But even in some fairly large cities some officers are too eager to use force. When a police force has been the subject of frequent complaints, the Department of Justice (DoJ) is often called in to investigate and make recommendations. Under Barack Obama’s administration, the department currently has 27 active cases, looking at city forces such as Seattle’s or Cleveland’s and also at some individual sheriffs’ departments. Though the DoJ finds that, even in the worst departments, most shootings are justified, they also show that the shooting of unarmed people who pose no threat is disturbingly common. The body count in Albuquerque Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a strong contender for the country’s most violent force. In 2009, according to the DoJ, one of its officers pulled a man over for driving with no rear lights. The driver, Andrew Lopez, ran away. One of the officers chasing him thought Mr Lopez had “the biggest handgun that he had ever seen”, says a DoJ report, though he was in fact unarmed. The cop shot him three times and, as he lay wounded, shot him again in the chest, killing him. In 2011, when the case came to a civil trial, a police training officer called the officer’s actions “exemplary” and said he “would use this incident to train officers on the proper use of deadly force”. A year later the city’s officers were called to an incident in which Kenneth Ellis, a 25-year-old army veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, had a gun to his head and was threatening to kill himself. An officer prevented Ellis’s suicide by shooting him in the neck, fatally. Another potential suicide poured petrol on himself: Albuquerque police tasered him, not realising that this would set him alight. Violence against people who are in the midst of a mental crisis is a common theme of the DoJ’s reports. A 2011 investigation of Seattle’s police department turned up a case of a man whom police had found in the street, “yelling at traffic lights while holding a stuffed animal”. An officer ordered him to move to the side of the road and, when the man disobeyed, pepper-sprayed him. When the man made a fist, the officer hit him with a baton. When he ran, four officers chased him and punched him several times, kneed him, elbowed him and hit him again with their batons. He was then arrested on charges of pedestrian interference and obstruction. Using violence to enforce footling laws is also a common theme. Mr Garner died while being arrested for selling single cigarettes on which he had not paid the full New York duty, which is so high that 76% of the cigarettes smoked in the city are bootlegged. Letitia James, New York’s public advocate, partly blames the “broken windows” theory of policing for Mr Garner’s death. This theory holds that police should use statistical models to identify areas where crime is likely to happen and then flood them with officers who crack down even on minor offences in the hope of preventing more serious ones. It is widely considered a colossal success. A more obvious culprit is the way policework is measured. Police managers fret about lazy officers. To keep them away from the doughnuts, most forces judge officers by how many arrests they make. Preventing a rape does not count; busting someone for jaywalking does. There is a paradox in all this. American cities have become much safer in the past two decades. Too many urban forces do not seem to have noticed. In Cleveland, the DoJ found a sign in a police parking lot that read “Forward Operating Base”, as if it were an outpost in Afghanistan. This is an unhelpful mindset. In 2012 a car containing Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams drove past the city’s police headquarters. Officers thought they heard a shot from the car and gave chase, though in fact neither the driver nor the passenger was armed. At least 60 police vehicles and over 100 officers joined in. The chase ended in a school car park, where 13 cops fired 137 shots at the car, killing its occupants. “The officers…reported believing that they were being fired at by the suspects,” said the DoJ. “It now appears that those shots were being fired by fellow officers.” The federal government stokes the culture of the warrior cop by offloading surplus military kit to local police. The Los Angeles School District Police Department has acquired three grenade-launchers and a mine-resistant armoured vehicle, perhaps to keep its sophomores in check. Sacking the bullies Yet there are examples of police forces that have reformed. The Los Angeles police department made its police less like an occupying army after the riots that followed the beating of Rodney King in 1991, which like Mr Garner’s choking was filmed by a bystander. New York’s department did something similar, banning officers from firing shots as warnings, from shooting at vehicles or from firing unless they thought a life was in danger. The number of shots fired by police in New York has fallen by more than two-thirds since 1995. In both cities the police are now blacker than the populations they serve—the opposite of Ferguson, Missouri. New York has begun a pilot programme under which officers will wear body cameras. The recordings will be used to deter bad behaviour both by police and by the public; to provide evidence after violent encounters; and to protect officers against baseless complaints. Even with these changes, “There is at least one crazy cop in every precinct,” says a retired NYPD officer. Everyone else knows who they are, but they are impossible to sack until they do something really stupid. The officer who choked Mr Garner had been sued for wrongful arrest, and was accused of ordering two black men to strip naked in the street for a search. (He denied it, and one case was settled.) Reformers think the procedure for sacking bullies in uniform should be much swifter. Those who enforce the law should also obey it. From the print edition: United States www.economist.com/news/united-states/21636044-americas-police-kill-too-many-people-some-forces-are-showing-how-smarter-less. Attachments:
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Post by bernard on Jan 10, 2015 22:33:26 GMT -6
Not sure why you posted this on the death penalty part of the site. Seems to be a criticism of cop culture in the US, not anything to do with the DP per se.
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Post by bernard on Jan 10, 2015 22:38:23 GMT -6
The answer to the article is in the article. "Such comparisons should be read in context. America’s police operate in a country with 300m guns and a murder rate six times Germany’s. In recent years the New York Police Department (NYPD) was called to an annual average of almost 200,000 incidents involving weapons,"
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Post by nils on Jan 10, 2015 22:57:08 GMT -6
How do I move it?
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Post by bernard on Jan 11, 2015 2:10:10 GMT -6
How do I move it? That's up to the mods. To elaborate on the point I was making (wife needed me so I didn't finish my thought)… cops take a chance with their lives every time they enter a violent situation. That chance adds up. If it's 1 in a 100, chances are the cop will be dead after 100 situations. So he has to reduce that chance and err in favor of his own safety. But that means if somebody pulls a gun cops don't try to talk him down, they take him down. The golden rule is if a cop tells you to do it, do it. Because anyone who disobeys the cop is behaving erratically and the cop has to start closing down the percentages. Follow the cop's instructions and everybody goes home ok. It's not a difficult lesson. www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/im-a-cop-just-do-what-i-tell-you/2193639
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Post by nils on Jan 11, 2015 3:47:36 GMT -6
How do I move it? That's up to the mods. To elaborate on the point I was making (wife needed me so I didn't finish my thought)… cops take a chance with their lives every time they enter a violent situation. That chance adds up. If it's 1 in a 100, chances are the cop will be dead after 100 situations. So he has to reduce that chance and err in favor of his own safety. But that means if somebody pulls a gun cops don't try to talk him down, they take him down. The golden rule is if a cop tells you to do it, do it. Because anyone who disobeys the cop is behaving erratically and the cop has to start closing down the percentages. Follow the cop's instructions and everybody goes home ok. It's not a difficult lesson. www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/im-a-cop-just-do-what-i-tell-you/2193639Sure, but 458 fatal shootings as compared to only a few for Germany and Britain is difficult to digest. Best.
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Post by john - uk on Jan 11, 2015 4:36:47 GMT -6
That's up to the mods. To elaborate on the point I was making (wife needed me so I didn't finish my thought)… cops take a chance with their lives every time they enter a violent situation. That chance adds up. If it's 1 in a 100, chances are the cop will be dead after 100 situations. So he has to reduce that chance and err in favor of his own safety. But that means if somebody pulls a gun cops don't try to talk him down, they take him down. The golden rule is if a cop tells you to do it, do it. Because anyone who disobeys the cop is behaving erratically and the cop has to start closing down the percentages. Follow the cop's instructions and everybody goes home ok. It's not a difficult lesson. www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/im-a-cop-just-do-what-i-tell-you/2193639Sure, but 458 fatal shootings as compared to only a few for Germany and Britain is difficult to digest. Best. I'm not sure about Germany, but British Police Officers do not routinely carry firearms.
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Post by oslooskar on Jan 11, 2015 14:20:48 GMT -6
Sure, but 458 fatal shootings as compared to only a few for Germany and Britain is difficult to digest. Hi Nils, do you by any chance happen to know what percentage of the German, Japanese, Canadian, and British populations are Black? Here in the United States Blacks comprise about 13 percent of the total population.
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Post by bernard on Jan 11, 2015 14:50:07 GMT -6
Sure, but 458 fatal shootings as compared to only a few for Germany and Britain is difficult to digest. Best. There are more guns here. 300 million according to your article. That isn't the fault of the cops, but it is something they have to deal with. The way they deal with it is they go into every situation armed and, if there is the possibility of the suspect harming innocent life, they take no chances. The result is 458 fatal shootings. If you disagree with that approach, how do you suggest they deal with the problem of a heavily armed population?
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Post by bernard on Jan 11, 2015 14:50:42 GMT -6
Sure, but 458 fatal shootings as compared to only a few for Germany and Britain is difficult to digest. Hi Nils, do you by any chance happen to know what percentage of the German, Japanese, Canadian, and British populations are Black? Here in the United States Blacks comprise about 13 percent of the total population. You don't ever worry that your trolling is a bit obvious?
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Post by Californian on Jan 11, 2015 19:27:47 GMT -6
Don' Shoot Nils, knowing you to be the smarmy leftist ninny you are, aren't you just a tad embarrassed to post a chart showing that blacks commit murder at 4-5 times the rate of whites? (Even if it happens to be true?) I mean, nils, isn't that just a tad racist? Hmmm? Also, a collateral question: Do you think it has any relevance that two of the countries in your chart got their azzes kicked for fair by the U.S. in WWII?
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Post by nils on Jan 11, 2015 22:13:19 GMT -6
Hi californian. - why do you use inults? - it seems to be a fact that a black person in America is about 6 times more likley to be murdered, than a white person - if you think this number is embarrassing for me I dont quite follow you. - it further seems as though more than 2 percent or about 1 out of every 45 black person is in prison. Can this really be correct? I doubt it - but if it is it is truly a problem. Best. Nils
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Post by Californian on Jan 11, 2015 22:27:39 GMT -6
Hi californian. - why do you use inults? - it seems to be a fact that a black person in America is about 6 times more likley to be murdered, than a white person - if you think this number is embarrassing for me I dont quite follow you. Because it's fun and entertaining, and makes most here laugh at you. Here's a hint-there are more blacks in prison than their per capita numbers would seem to statistically correlate because they commit crimes on a per capita basis all out of proportion to their percentage of the population. Can't you read your own graph, or you truly not understand that most of the black murderers' victims are black, as well? An American liberal (or "progressive," as they now style themselves) would call you a racist for pointing that out, by the way.
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Post by nils on Jan 11, 2015 23:37:41 GMT -6
Hi californian. You will rather redicule than discuss the topic. why? Even if your jokes are fun - where do they take you? I raised a serious problem and you do what you can to make the topic go away. Best. Nils
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Post by oslooskar on Jan 12, 2015 2:12:04 GMT -6
a black person in America is about 6 times more likley to be murdered, than a white person Right! And an Eskimo living in Danish Greenland is exactly 24.25 times more likely to be murdered than a White Dane. So what’s your point, Nils? Are you suggesting that we Whites are in some way responsible for the high homicide rate among Blacks?
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Post by Big Al on Jan 12, 2015 2:24:37 GMT -6
Rap music is the basis of the problem.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 3:15:50 GMT -6
Nils, knowing you to be the smarmy leftist ninny you are, aren't you just a tad embarrassed to post a chart showing that blacks commit murder at 4-5 times the rate of whites? (Even if it happens to be true?) I think you misread the chart. It says no such thing.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 4:31:24 GMT -6
London has a bigger black population than LA, but a tiny murder rate by US standards. Wondering how the forum geniuses deal with that.
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Post by josephdphillips on Jan 12, 2015 7:53:22 GMT -6
London has a bigger black population than LA, but a tiny murder rate by US standards. Wondering how the forum geniuses deal with that. Their blacks aren't as violent. Obviously.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 9:51:22 GMT -6
London has a bigger black population than LA, but a tiny murder rate by US standards. Wondering how the forum geniuses deal with that. Their blacks aren't as violent. Obviously. What explains that?
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Post by josephdphillips on Jan 12, 2015 10:44:50 GMT -6
Does it require an explanation? You can't say the cultures of Los Angeles and London, UK are remotely similar. This is my town. I live here. Our gangs are ruthless and sadistic, and it's a fairly recent phenomenon.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 10:59:29 GMT -6
Does it require an explanation? You can't say the cultures of Los Angeles and London, UK are remotely similar. This is my town. I live here. Our gangs are ruthless and sadistic, and it's a fairly recent phenomenon. Why is it recent? What changed?
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Post by josephdphillips on Jan 12, 2015 11:10:55 GMT -6
Why is it recent? What changed? Increasing fatherlessness, sociopathy and sadism. Gangs used to resolve disputes with their fists. Then they turned to knives, then pistols, and now automatic weapons.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 11:17:29 GMT -6
Why is it recent? What changed? Increasing in fatherlessness, sociopathy and sadism. Gangs used to resolve disputes with their fists. Then they turned to knives, then pistols, and now automatic weapons. Appealing to increases in sociopathy and sadism doesn't explain anything. It just pushes the need for explanation up a level. Why have these increased? The other thing you mention, however, I respect as an interesting hypothesis. The increase in fatherlessness is plausibly a mechanism via which violence could increase. Do you have any evidence of a connection?
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Post by josephdphillips on Jan 12, 2015 11:38:04 GMT -6
The increase in fatherlessness is plausibly a mechanism via which violence could increase. Do you have any evidence of a connection? The majority of fatherless people, including the majority of fatherless black people, aren't violent. So no, there is no causal relationship between violence and circumstances. Murder rates cannot legitimately or usefully be compared. No two jurisdictions even define murder the same, including that of the United Kingdom. Crime reporting varies by jurisdiction as well.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 16:29:33 GMT -6
The increase in fatherlessness is plausibly a mechanism via which violence could increase. Do you have any evidence of a connection? The majority of fatherless people, including the majority of fatherless black people, aren't violent. So no, there is no causal relationship between violence and circumstances. The "increasing fatherlessness" was your attempt to explain what changed. Not sure why you're going back on it.
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Post by bernard on Jan 12, 2015 16:31:51 GMT -6
Murder rates cannot legitimately or usefully be compared. No two jurisdictions even define murder the same, including that of the United Kingdom. Crime reporting varies by jurisdiction as well. You're not going to explain away our atrocious murder rate by arguing we have a more liberal definition of the crime. The body count in the USA is way too high to be just a question of semantics.
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Post by josephdphillips on Jan 12, 2015 21:07:35 GMT -6
You're not going to explain away our atrocious murder rate by arguing we have a more liberal definition of the crime. The body count in the USA is way too high to be just a question of semantics. It is actually much lower than it used to be, at least where I live, but we could do more, starting with a ruthless application of capital punishment.
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Post by whitediamonds on Jan 12, 2015 21:32:12 GMT -6
Much lower here too, than it use to be.
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Post by oslooskar on Jan 12, 2015 23:43:47 GMT -6
London has a bigger black population than LA, but a tiny murder rate by US standards. Wondering how the forum geniuses deal with that. In order to answer a question as such I would have to know a great deal more about the drug situation in the United Kingdom. However, from what I’ve read there are far more Blacks imprisoned in England and Wales proportionally than in the U.S.
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