Death Rates of Civilians and Police Officers: Causes, Impact and Solutions

The rules: no left wing or right wing political agenda. References to the following types of authority is a guide:


People can be addressed by origin or color but only referenced to reliable statistical data. Police and populations are assumed to be capable of being innocent or guilt depending on the circumstance.

Asher

I am looking to our European members to share knowledge of experience, attitude, public sentiment and the laws in the Eu area. Others from where they are.

In the USA, we have a surpringly high rate of death of civilians at the hand of officers of the law.

Is it because officers have guns. Are there not armed police in other countries?

Are our police differently educated and do not appreciate the rights of the populace?

Do police consider themselves above the law?

Asher

The Guardian (this is the international, and in this particular case US, manifestation of the well-respected UK newspaper the Manchester Guardian) has a very nice interactive presentation of statistics on killings by police in the US in 2015, organized by state (perhaps statistics for earlier years are available). The page is here:


Please carefully note the caveats attending this database. It is largely based on "anecdotal" data: data reported by readers. The compilers point out that, sadly, there is no comprehensive nationwide database with regard to these matters.


Of course I draw no inference from these statistics how many of those killings might be adjudged "improper" under a complex mesh of legal and social criteria. They are certainly all undesirable.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug,

Thanks,

I read the first 20 or so and felt that about 1/3 of the shootings seem to be some error or misjudgement. The training, physical fitness and mental attitudes of the officers might be significant. My prejudice is that too many officers are overweight and out of shape. So shooting might come from fear that if things really were a threat to one's life, the suspect would easily overwhelm and disarm them.

So it might be that officers know that they have to pre-empt the moment when the "unsub" becomes a proven existential threat. Shooting the person dead simply erradicates the potential threat to coming home safely to one's family!

Asher

Canadian police kill more people in one year than the UK police kill in ten. About 25 a year by shooting and perhaps twice the amount that die while in custody. There are higher levels of violence in some places depending on what province your in.

It is possible some police eat too many donuts and are out of shape. The Canadian Civil liberties Association are advocating that police training and regulations be overhauled to place greater limits on the use of fire arms.

A recent news paper article suggested that firearms should not be a standard issue for all police but restricted to special units for special situations. According to some reviews of police reports about a third of the fatal police shootings are cleary justified.

In another third the of cases, police are responding to that a person is behaving erratically, often wielding a knife or a club (though not always) are shot after threating or scuffling with police, but without causing any serious injuries. In many cases the victim is reportedly suffering from depression or psychosis

The remaining third seem to be caused by excessive force in apprehending suspects, and mistaking a pellet gun for a lethal threat, mistake the identity of the victim or screw up in some other way.

Introducing firearms into a volatile situations precipitates the very violence that police are supposed to prevent.

The British invented modern policing in the early 19th century, establishing the "Peelian Principles" of
of policing by consent. One of the principals is "to use the minimum degree of physical force which is on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective" British police seem to adhere more closely to these principals than Canadian police do

I don't know too many facts on Australian police policy.

They carry a pistol. There are a few shootings but no more than could be counted on one hand. When someone is shot by police the policeman is stood down from duty until an investigation is made. It makes Big news and quite a public outcry.

We have tactical response police who carry more sofisticated armory. A friends of Christine and I is in charge of the unit. He speaks of the horror he sees and how terrified he is when he enters a crime scene where there is the potential for fire arm use. He feels his training is sufficient to guide him but the idea of shooting someone is abhorrent to him. Fortunately he has never had to test his steel.

He was on the witness box during a murder case I was jury member. I got a taste of what it might be like doing his job. Not for me.

Fortunately not a lot of crime in Australia involves fire arms. That might have something to do with it.

Deaths in custody was and still is an issue here. Many inquires and court cases have reduced the deaths. A large number of the deaths were as a result of neglect, bad policy and bad training with the occasional bout of cruelty and brutality thrown in.

Irrespective of the circumstances it makes sense to have an independent inquiry when a death occurs at the hands of the law enforcers. Surely they are not outside the law.

I'd like to see no deaths, no guns and no crime. I'm dreaming. Nevertheless I'm not prepared to accept without question.

Years ago I had an association with a famous American company selling law enforcement equipment to an Australian State Government. In their catalogue devoted to "lethal and non-lethal enforcement supplies" there was an extended section on firearms offered to the "police officer with dependable action in mind".

Nowhere in the commercial intent of all of this was there the slightest mention of seeking a logical resolution to a fraught situation. Concepts like a right to life or a citizen's right didn't come up either. And facts were things that were largely generated by correct police management of an incident.

Every officer who got a gun also got a guide-book and an instructional video on what to do. I paraphrase:

When to shoot? When you feel your life could be in danger or the situation may deteriorate to become life threatening.

How to shoot? From as far away as possible consistent with accurate shot placement. You don't want your opponent rushing you. Shoot for the biggest part of the target, no hand shots, no leg shots, and keep shooting, a full magazine if that is your judgement, until the threat is certainly neutralised.

What to do after shooting? Follow the instructions in the guide-book and video in managing bystanders and potential witnesses. Know what to say and say it correctly and in the right order. Have your back-up fellow officers say the correct things consistent with any statement you may make.

The final paragraph of the guide-book assured the police officer that if he deployed lethal force, and he used it against an opponent who was more lightly armed, and he was surrounded by supportive officers, and he was a member of a well resourced police union, then he would return safely to his family at the end of the day all without a mark against his future career in the force.

Australian police shoot very few citizens. It may be because the Australian population is essentially unarmed in ordinary public life. Maybe it's due to the general reluctance of one human being to kill another. Grimly though more police officers are killed by police bullets than other bullets. This through mis-adventure, suicide, or just foolin' around.

Hi, Maris,

Very telling.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Doug

We had a curious killing by police here in New Mexico just last week. Perhaps most curious is the lack of very much information about it, even several days after the fact. What I give below is primarily from the official "announcement" of the event by the New Mexico State Police, in part as cited by the local press.

At about 8:00 pm on Wednesday, 2016.01.06), Lincoln County sheriff's deputies were called to a home in Capitan, N.M. (a small mountain town on US Route 380 about 20 miles east of Carrizozo) with regard to supposed domestic violence. (We do now know what kind of domestic violence, whether someone there was physically injured, etc.).

After deputies reached the home, or perhaps as they approached it, the "principal suspect" left the home, got into his car, and started to drive west rapidly on US 380. Deputies gave chase, and called ahead for assistance, as a result of which spike strips were placed across the road somewhere near Carrizozo. The punctured the tires on the car, which deflated.

The suspect drove ("on the rims") another 20 miles or so west on US 380 and finally came to a stop. The deputies called in the New Mexico State Police (those deputies were by then out of their jurisdiction anyway). The suspect apparently said that he planned to kill himself, and had firearms of come sort.

The State Police brought in a bomb squad and a negotiating team. The team tried to persuade the subject to give himself up peacefully, but to no avail.

During all this, US 380 was closed from Carrizozo to its western end (about 66 miles away) where it joins Interstate 25. This posed a serious travel problem, as there is no alternate route from the south-central part of the state west to Interstate 25.

At about 7:30 am Thursday morning (2016.01.07). the suspect got out of his car and began shooting at the police officers. They returned fire, killing the suspect.

This section of US 380 remained closed until late Thursday night.

Police have not yet (at this writing, 2016.01.10) released the name of the suspect, citing the need to determine of he had any next of kin to notify. They have not released the name of the police officers involved, citing that the matter is still under investigation.

This sad matter impacted us in a logistic way. Early Thursday morning (2016.01.07) we set out from our home in Alamogordo for the Albuquerque area, where Carla had a 2:00 pm appointment with a physician at a hospital clinic northwest of Albuquerque. Our normal route is to drive north to Carrizozo (about 59 miles), the take US 380 north-northwest to Interstate 25 (about 66 miles), then take Interstate 25 to Albuquerque (about 143 miles by the time we get to the hospital) - 237 miles altogether.

We reached Carrizozo about 10:00 am, and about a mile west on US 380 found the road closed. There were no police at the roadblock to explain anything, but we saw a platoon of State Police vehicles leaving the area (toward Carrizozo). We headed back to Carrizozo to begin the arduous alternate route to Albuquerque, and at a gas station there saw a State Police vehicle. We pulled in and asked the occupant what was happening (he was not in uniform - might have been a forensic technician or something).

He said that there had been an officer-involved shooting incident on US 380. I asked if he knew how long the road might be closed, and he said he didn't, but that it probably would be "quite a while".

There was coverage of the incident on local TV stations that evening, and articles in the local newspapers the next day. But there has been zero follow-up coverage.

We got to the hospital clinic on time for Carla's appointment, which was fairly fruitful. We stayed the night in a motel near Albuquerque and headed back to Alamogordo the next morning (Friday, 2016.01.08), after I spoke with the cognizant division of the State Police to learn that US 380 was then open.

All in all, a curious matter.

Best regards,

Doug

How intimately our lives are connected, Doug. Curiousness is a quality I rather like in a story.

There is definitely not one cause or effect in this issue under discussion and all the factors are not likely to be uncovered and exposed by us.
What seems to be lacking in any society is the need for a more informed discussion at the political, law enforcement, public and commercial level so that a complete picture can be established and many solutions to many individual problems can be found.
Some say guns are at the heart of thiis; others might suggest the policing. Criminals certainly have something do do with it but only in part.
I know such discussions have taken place here in Australia. They are all publicized and documented. It helps to maintain an open approach backed by facts.
Can it be improve Do? Without a doubt. Is it being improved? Yes.
There is a strong move in the Northern Territory to establish good will between the police and the public. Our record of aboriginal deaths in custody has been abominable.
Let's be conscious of the issues in our own jurisdiction and act upon it when it seemingly goes haywire.

softly softly catchy monkey.

I live in Australia but I come from New Zealand. The Police in New Zealand were unarmed then and still are. When I was living there there was an Armed Offenders' Squad for situations where firearms were involved. At that time they were called out about once every six months and that made headlines. Armed Offenders Squads are probably called out more frequently now but the basic situation is unchanged.

In Australia, the Police are armed. There are fatal incidents from time to time and more Police shootings in Victoria than in other States it seems but nothing remotely like the situation in the US.

One critical factor is that in both countries the ownership of guns is well regulated. You can have an appropriate firearm if you are a farmer or a hunter but it requires a license and safe storage of weapons. There is no such thing as a right to bear arms and no-one can own semi-automatic weapons and the like. I don't think personal defence would be sufficient justification to apply for a gun license. I don't think I've ever met anyone who owned a gun except one or two farmers and hunters.

I don't know how many hundreds of millions of hand guns there are in the US but once the bottle is uncorked it's extremely hard to get the genie back in. Police violence and violence in Society are I suspect often two sides of the same coin. Cultural values is one factor here. Japan is an exemplar of a polite society with extremely low rates of violent crime. Another factor is social inequality. The greater the chasm between rich and poor, the greater the potential for violence.

In some few recent shootings in the U.S.A., from the video evidence, the police definitely just executed the folk! So that caused us to want to rewind the movie and revisit many other cases where the shooting appeared questionable. Now many jurisdictions have police cameras on each police officer, but the police try to claim that these videos are "confidential" and shouldn't be released to the public or press, but just remain for internal review in the policeman's personal file!!!

However, we are making progress.

Part of the issue is racism, lack of training and discipline, failure to root out violent-prone officers and simply being physically out of shape and scared to confront supposed threats any other way!

On the whole, our Los Angeles police are serving the public, but if one calls the police to a domestic violence case in a poor area, especially, everyone on site is in equal danger of being shot. In the last month they actually shot the kind neighbor who called the police!

Asher

I don't recall the details but in Britain they want the Police to be a professional organisation and favour recruitment of people with qualifications such as Psychology degrees.

Murray Foote said:

I don't recall the details but in Britain they want the Police to be a professional organisation and favour recruitment of people with qualifications such as Psychology degrees.

Click to expand...

Murray,

I think that's so important. The English soccer fans can be so violent. So obviously policemen in the U.K. are not representative of everyone in the community! It might just be that in the USA, the recruitment is much more representative of the violence we live in!

Asher

Murray Foote said:

I don't recall the details but in Britain they want the Police to be a professional organisation and favour recruitment of people with qualifications such as Psychology degrees.

Click to expand...

How about creating their own qualification.
At the moment in the NT its a physical pre-requisite, minimum literary and numeracy with no criminal record for entry. 6 weeks later you're on the beat under supervision.
There are those who will continue their training trough tertiary education while on the beat but its onloy a requirement if promotion is sought.

I do see value in education for the police beyond what they do now. They are at the front line. I'd be more confident knowing they knew what they were about.

Public confidence is enhanced as well.

Teachers had a bit of a bad public image when I first started 60 years ago. That has been almost eliminated by the strict education requirements. All teachers must have at least 4 years of tertiary education in the required field of study and most I know have 5-7 years. At least 100 hours of additional training must take place each 2 years to remain in the service.
And we don't even carry a GUN! although our clients do tend to behave in a psychotic manner from time to time.