Wasn't it the nineteenth century UK Prime Minister, Gladstone, who was quoted as saying, "There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics!"? Your points are well made, especially about the big city violence.

That being said, I hope more police are paying attention to the concerns of citizens about some departments being too ready to storm into nearly every situation in full riot gear, guns blazing. Engaging citizens in dialogue helps to keep the level of violence down, and the trust in law enforcement up.

You are so out of context. You don't know the circumstances. One has to assume the killings are justified until proven otherwise. It is the job of police to respond in accord to the actions against them.
Look at Ferguson: totally justified, but to this day people are threatening the cop.

Without really digging into the facts surrounding each shooting, I don't know what conclusions to draw form this article. Considering the source...ThinkProgress....I am immediately skeptical. The article does also point out "As in the past, numerous incidents were spurred by violent threats from suspects, and two officers were shot in Ferguson during a peaceful protest". So, do I conclude that this country has more home grown violent criminals?....or are the cops wanton vigilantes going around killing people just for the fun of it? The latter being I believe what the author wants you to believe. Maybe we just live in a society of warped individuals who think the system and the man have done them wrong (wonder where they might have gotten that idea from) and they have a "right" to commit violent criminal acts....hell, the cops are all bad racists, pigs anyway...right?

Forgive me for pointing a few things out that make that statistic the biggest bunch of BS I have ever seen in my life next to Global Warming.
1) FACT: UK = 64.1 million
1a) FACT: Cops in UK do not carry guns so DUH...
2) FACT: USA = 318.9 million
Aside from the FACT there are 4.9 times as many people here makes that statistic even more blatently worthless.
Next if you look at 5 US Cities, Chicago, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles and Detrtoi and remove their statistics the USA is the safest place in the worled for EVERONE of every race.
The ironic part is these massively dangerous cities have the toughest Gun Control laws in this country.
WHY...BECAUSE CRIMINALS IGNORE THE LAWS!!!!
These gun control laws are ONLY FOLLOWED BY THE PEOPLE WHO YOU DO NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT INT HE FIRST PLACE!!!!
Next time you burt out useless statistics like this put some REAL context into it. Compare apples to apples.

How many "felons" are felons because of being convicted of victimless crimes? The stats I have seen is that over 50% of the prison population is related to drugs, not the felonies we tend to think of such as murder or robbery. Which means, having suffered injustice, how many will flee when seeing a cop, let alone being stopped by one for a "tail light violation."

How about too many laws that pit "us against them". You can't get through a normal day without breaking a law somewhere so you're constantly looking over your shoulder not even knowing why so the tension constantly escalates. Even law abiding citizens are on edge during any contact with police turning daily activity for police into constant stressful situations. We learn to be fearful of each other and sometimes hate each other and that becomes the new normal.

My second response, and probably not one that will go over very well. Oh, WTH, here goes, "Is that enough?" Should we be shooting more? Nah, I'm not going to send this, even here at the Gulch I might be banned. Please disregard this post, it was just a passing thought.

Would shooting more perhaps result in less opportunity, less confrontation, less crime? Never mind, let's not go there? Why are there so few shootings in North Korea?

How many is this per hundred thousand people? Is this a race thing or just a police against people thing? What is the real problem? How many people and/or criminals are killed by civilians and/or criminals with guns? Why is that? Does anyone think the increase in civilians with carry permits will result in more people getting shot now? Why have more people legally armed themselves? What can an individual do to protect themselves from being shot? How should one defend themselves against someone hell bent on killing them because they won't give up their wallet or purse? When should criminals be shot, or should we wait until they actually permanently injure or kill someone of innocence before we shoot? How many shootings involve a cop and a non-criminal? How do all these numbers compare to other countries? Why do I not like to sit with my back to a door or a cash register?

Do police get up in the morning and tell themselves they are going to shoot or kill someone today? I think it's a pretty thankless job anymore, especially when we don't even enforce our laws today. Bad cops (South Carolina yesterday) need to go of course, but I would guess the number of bad cops are much smaller than the number of bad people in most other occupations.

Why do we make it more difficult for police to do what we pay them to do? One reason is because we allow false premises like, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" to spread around the country. That liar thug that started that has not been punished, and it was allowed to spread, actually, around the world.

If white/blacks/Chinese are the predominate race in a given city then I would hope they would elect people that would hire people similar to them that understand their idiosyncrasies, but ultimately still up hold the law. After all isn't it still the majority that rules? Or is it?

Simple, undeniable facts: the safest cities/areas in the country are where citizens legally carry guns; the most dangerous one are where citizens are prohibited to legally carry guns. Should be obvious to a common idiot that more legally carrying citizens is good; less legally carrying citizens is bad. But we have special idiots, to whom this is not obvious.

Due Process involves both sides. One has to willingly submit to the law of the land until one can have their day in court.

I am not going to fault the officers for those who violently resist arrest - aka Ferguson, Missouri.

Got that one ;)

So, are the Cops out of control serial killers in mass or are the areas they patrol and stops they make so unruly, dangerous, resistant to arrest the Police approach each contact with one hand on a gun?

If we take guns away from our Cops, like Bobbies, how will that tame the south and west sides of Chicago? If we prosecute and civilly sue them until they are intimidated into a no shoot policy, how will the bad guys respond? What if Police just decide not to patrol the bad parts of town? Problem solved! No police shootings, no Police in danger, and no legal consequences in the toughest parts of town.

Another stat that if find interesting is the number of Americans killed in Chicago, a gun free safe zone, during and compared to the Iraq war.

As horrendous as war is, it was safer to be there than many places back home.

No!
Its OBVIOUSLY a problem with too many guns.
Its the guns fault.
It is the final solution. (foreboding music rises)
Banish the guns and eternal world peace will ensue.

(yes, it is sarcasm.)

I never said deserves. No one deserves to die in hands of police. Are you implying the police are starting their days off by saying, " I am going have to shoot somebody today, because I want to." I was stating that failure to follow police instruction could lead to such events. You have the moral high ground here. I guess I am just defending a bunch of murderers.

"normalised this widespread disrespect of the law, not helped by the volume of laws/statutes/acts constantly being churned out by every layer of government."
Yes. Exactly.

I'm afraid there's more than a hint of what you say. This country, even during prohibition and the bank robbers of the 30's, has never experienced anything like this.

The most powerful gang on a city's streets are claiming their territory.

The fact that not all of the bad cops are dealt with according to the law has normalised this widespread disrespect of the law, not helped by the volume of laws/statutes/acts constantly being churned out by every layer of government.

The police have become customers of military hardware suppliers because they cannot continue to pay dividends to the shareholders otherwise.

Edit: the military hardware suppliers paying dividends to their shareholders.

Txs for reading and checking.

What's the cause: Aggressive training, a militaristic culture among police, officers patrolling from cars instead of on foot? This seems like such a pronounced problem that there must be hard data on why it's happening.

I only checked the first two news reports so far. The second killing listed had this text "Jefferson County Sheriff Blair Olsen said Tuesday the man was Tyrell J. Larsen, 31, of Jefferson County.

According to court records, Larsen was a convicted felon with drug, weapons, traffic, and hunting violations..."
This fellow drew a .22 rifle on the deputy after he crashed his truck. How many of the incidents were initiated by the deceased? I'll try to check my way through the 111 and report my findings.

So do you believe that more than 350 deaths since 1/1/15, which doesn't count those simply wounded or shot at and missed, were the results of armed resistance. To imply that someone, which includes the mentally impaired, deserves death for 'not cooperating' seems a stretch too far. Our soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't get away with that.
You might want to review the records that are available prior to implying such. These are not made up numbers. These are Americans where the Bill of Rights guarantees a Due Process.

You can check the numbers @ http://killedbypolice.net which lists sources of death report in some detail. There are other on-line statistics being tracked, but I like this one for the detail and source info the list.

Professional policing started in the US shortly after the time of Peele in London that originated what is known in policing as the Pellian Principles of law enforcement sometime in the 1820's-1830's.

The numbers for the UK, China, etc, I wouldn't advocate, but the ones for the US appear to pretty certain.
Edit: spelling

These are terrible statistics no doubt that make our police look terrible. However, how many victims were resisting arrest or not cooperating? I am not saying that that justifies their deaths at the hands of police but that is usually the first step in events that spiral out of control.

I have a couple of problems with this. One is ANY study down by ThinkProgress and I just don't buy the numbers. when did we even get professional police? I do not doubt that there is a major problem with how the police have militarized.