Police in the US use force on at least 300,000 people each year, injuring an estimated 100,000 of them, according to a groundbreaking data analysis on law enforcement encounters.
Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that tracks killings by US police, launched a new database on Wednesday cataloging non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes.
The database features incidents from 2017 through 2022, compiled from public records requests in every state. The findings, the group says, suggest that despite widespread protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, overall use of force has remained steady since then – and in many jurisdictions, has increased.
I’ve interacted with the cops several times in my life. Off the top of my head, I think the most recent time was a friend of mine’s roommate who was threatening her with physical harm. They came, talked to the guy, and took him away. When the judge was a little bit dismissive about granting her a protective order, the next day, the cop was the one who got outraged and got her a new hearing at which she got her protective order so the guy wouldn’t hurt her.
So… what? The cops in that situation should have just stayed away from her house, and let him maybe beat the fuck out of her? Explain it to me what you think should happen; have cops pursue non violence in all situations? Like never kill anyone no matter what the person does? Never use physical force? What should happen, in my friend’s situation? What if the guy beats the fuck out of her, and then they see him on the porch of a house some time later – should they stay off the porch?
What I really find disappointing about this exchange is how disingenuous this scenario is that you paint. You set up a very vague and overbroad situation and then follow it up with a very specific to the point of anecdotal example as if that refutes my rebuttal.
Like, do you really think I should get bogged down in a response to this new scenario like it’s worth considering? Do you genuinely think a random person on the internet is incapable of imagining a scenario such as the one you described and would be floored by it? C’mon dude.
But ok. Sure, let’s do this like you have a good point. Here’s what should happen. Domestic violence experts who are trained in psychology and deescalation techniques could intervene and create a safe exit for victims of abuse and violence. But you know what? I don’t know what exactly that task force would look like or how it would operate. What I do know is, it shouldn’t look like those guys in blue who shoot black people in their own homes while existing and chuck flashbangs into cribs.
Sure, let’s talk. I’m not tryin to be hostile about it.
I responded to someone who said the number of people the police kill per year should be 0. I brought up two specific drawn from real life examples where the cops are justified in killing someone, as a way of rebutting it. Does that make sense? Or no?
The conversation I would like to have is, how many of these 1,000 times that the police have killed someone, did the police do something wrong? If you’re going to tell me that number is 0, I think you are 1,000% wrong, and I’m happy to explain why. If you’re going to tell me it’s a complicated question and we need to delve into quite a lot of real world details in order to answer it, then fuckin-A let’s talk about it.
I think I’m being a little bit needlessly combative about it, but I don’t get what you are saying that I am being bad faith about the way I’m bringing up examples. They’re not disingenuous or vague in any way. It’s just reality that doesn’t match the simplistic frameworks that it seems like I’m hearing. Does that make sense? Or no? What details of these 100% real examples would you need to hear for them not to be vague?
If someone points a gun at the cops when they roll up to the porch to arrest them on a warrant? What if that person shoots the police while they’re contacting the domestic violence expert?
(This referring to the example of someone who pulls a gun when the cops roll up to their porch. There’s a separate conversation to be had about my friend’s experience – actually, as it happens, the person involved who called the cops was black, the guy who got arrested was white, and the cops showed up and talked to everyone and still managed to take the white guy away and avoid shooting the black guy or throwing any flashbangs into cribs or anywhere else – i.e. they accomplished a success for the mission. Isn’t that relevant?)
I’m not saying they shouldn’t use physical force when necessary. I’m saying they should not be killing anyone.
To be fair, america has a mental health crisis that also needs to be addressed. Police in other countries don’t have to deal with mentally ill people who have turned to drugs to cope with living in hell. I see that as the far bigger problem. Solve that and the rest will sort itself out.
lol
Okay, so what if they walk up on the porch to talk to that guy and he pulls a gun and points it at them? What then? Deescalation?
They’re going to learn not to trespass.
Okay, so dude can beat the fuck out of my friend, and you’re going to imply the cops need to die if they try to prevent him and he gets violent with them as a result.
Good to know. Thanks for your insight.
Obviously police brutality does happen – my point was that it is relevant to know whether it is happening 1% of the time, or 50% of the time, or 99% of the time. You need to know when the police are using force justifiably, or not. Clinging to a comforting and poppycock illusion that they should use lethal force 0% of the time is just as silly as someone else who might cling to the comforting and poppycock illusion that them using lethal force is justified 100% of the time. The truth is in the middle, and it’s important to find out where in the middle, instead of just insisting that whatever prejudices you came in with are obviously the reality.
In this situation it would be classified as “Exigent Circumstances” and would give the police the right to enter private property without a search warrant or consent. That is because they can witness someone committing a crime. They would also be justified in using enough force to stop the crime from happening. I don’t think they would be justified if they pulled out a gun, killed the perpetrator, and the perpetrator didn’t have any weapons nor acted like they had one. They should go for non-lethal means first.
Okay, so wouldn’t it be useful to know how many of those 300,000 times when they used force matched this criteria?
Okay, so wouldn’t it be good to know for these 1000 people who the police killed, how many of them fit this criteria?
It seems like a useful question. No?
Why add another problem to your existing problem(s)? Invite the police in and now you have more threats in the house.
This was literally the 100% opposite of my experience in this case.
Dude getting violent and breaking shit and threatening to kill a third person, cops arrive, followed by there being 100% fewer threats in the house. You are spouting propaganda (which arose from a 100% valid reason, sure) with no particular interest in the conversation about what percent of the time it corresponds to the truth.
Your single minded imagining of how things go (i.e. always in accordance with your prejudices) is harmful to any useful progress, either in this conversation or in police reform. Good luck with your reasonings and progress in learning, sir.
No one actually knows how many people police, in the US, kill. The 1994 crime bill made reporting all police related killings, to outside agency, mandatory. However, the DOJ has declined to ever enforce it. We know we are missing a large portion of the killings just from people manually mining through ME reports. How much? No clue. Why would they do this if they felt they could continue to justify the situation with the “small amount only” claim? This also goes for misconduct. The same organization you cite below has also said that they regularly see incidences of police violations get out, often due to BWC, or personal recordings from the public, and the police had written it off as justified, until the public got to see that wasn’t the case. Almost all of these include false reports. They also have noted that they are seeing a rapidly growing number of policies, and local laws, that make it hard, if not impossible, to get BWC recordings. When interviewed by and industry rag, the previous head of the largest police union in the US, Patrick Lynch, was asked about this, and further asked how many go unreported. His answer was “most”. What’s with all the secrecy if it would just continue to show that these are, statistically, small problems?
The previously mention organization, as-well-as FIRE, have began working with rights activists, pledging to give them representation, when arrested for doing things that are protected rights. The most well known of these is a man named Jeff Grey. Jeff goes around holding a sign saying “god bless the homeless veterans” and saying it to people as they walk by. He picks locations specifically recognized as traditional fora of free speech. He rarely goes a week without getting arrested for doing something that is, unarguably, a protected activity. You should see what the cops, and the local governments they work for say. He has been told that they don’t give a fuck about his rights so many times that it is now a cliche for his videos. He has been subjected to violence by police for doing this. They falsely claim it is illegal to panhandle, which it isn’t, and try to trespass him. I think he is working through 5 cases as we speak. Most of the time, when his rights aren’t violated, the cops argue with him until they tire, and leave. They don’t carry through, but they demonstrate that they have no idea what most of our rights are. It is a rare instance where they ask what he is doing, then leave when they don’t see him doing anything illegal. Let me repeat that, the times when the police recognize he is not breaking the law are the minority. And no, he doesn’t hide the “good” interaction. If someone, backed by multiple legal orgs, has this much trouble, can you imagine how often actual homeless people have their rights violated?
Then I have the, nearly, 10 years of working with/around police, I have experienced. As part of a project, tacked onto my job doing data analysis for the corrections system, we had to train police, COs, etc on a pilot program to homogenize the terminology used for data entry. The first 4 years doing this we went around, to different departments, and did the training, the last ~5 they came to us. We saw a group for 1-3 days. I never once ended one of those periods of time without hearing police say, or do, illegal, often heinous, shit. Discussing where the night shift will be when the bars get out, so the day shift can drive home, drunk, without being stopped. Bragging about breaking multiple bones in an 80 year old dementia patient because he wouldn’t answer their questions, and “resisted” being cuffed. I can’t tell you how man times I have heard police say they wish they could just arrive at a mental health call and just shoot the person, problem solved. So many times I have listened to cops discuss how someone had a smart mouth, and how “20 years ago he would just have disappeared”. The number of times have I heard them discuss going to court to “testilie”, and the general mannerisms while doing so, made it clear that lying to the court is just the status quo. One of the more common sentiments I heard passed around was that if they could just kill, or imprison, every mentally ill person, ND person, etc. they would just be making the world a better place. I could fill a book on this. All the while all the “good” cops sat around doing nothing. Not that they would be police much longer if they started intervening on what they fellow blue line gang members did. One of the things they made very clear was if you were snitch, you wouldn’t be around long. Not gang behavior at all.
You should write a book on those experiences, or write as much as you can and publish for public awareness
Your data point of 1 has no statistical significance.
Fun fact! The California Innocence Project actually researched how many police officers commit “misconduct” (by their definition) in any given year. It’s one of the only times I am aware of this whole issue being quantitatively studied.
If I tell you what’s the number, which is statistically significant, will you then quote back to me your citation (with the statistical backing) for why you think that 0% of police killings are justified? I would actually really like to be able to have more statistical backing to talk about all of this, as opposed to just throwing our prejudices at one another.