6/1/2015--The Counted: People killed by police in the US, During 2015 = 470
Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 11 months ago to Government
The Guardian has compiled a unique and detailed, searchable, and interactive database and presentation of Americans killed by Police this year (470 through 6/1). There are other sites that are out there gathering information from citizen volunteers, but this one by The Guardian offers more detail and info in one place than any other I’ve seen. For those interested from either side of the issue, I highly recommend checking it out.
Needless to say, since my last post on this topic, America’s police have maintained their nearly 4/day kill rates and for the most part, their DA’s have continued justifying and protecting them from the consequences.
I reviewed one in particular from Salt Lake City last year, just today that is horrifying to watch from the Officer’s body camera. The complete video/audio was just released to the public. You can view it at : http://thefreethoughtproject.com/graphic...
As I viewed this shooting, the first thing that came to mind was the revelation of the 'No More Hesitation Target' story from last year about shooting range targets designed to remove any hesitation in real life street encounters between police and citizens that included pregnant women, mother with child, grade school age children, the elderly, etc. One story can be reviewed at Reason Magazine: http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/25/law-en...
From the article:
“According to a statement the company sent Reason last week, members of the law enforcement community inspired Law Enforcement Targets Inc. to design the "No More Hesitation" series in the first place:
The subjects in NMH targets were chosen in order to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training. I found while speaking with officers and trainers in the law enforcement community that there is a hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition (one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty). This hesitation time may be only seconds but that is not acceptable when officers are losing their lives in these same situations. The goal of NMH is to break that stereotype on the range, regardless of how slim the chances are of encountering a real life scenario that involves a child, pregnant woman, etc. If that initial hesitation time can be cut down due to range experience, the officer and community are better served.”
From my memory of the stories about the targets and their use, what I don’t remember reading was how long Police Depts. had been training their officers at shooting ranges in this ‘No More Hesitation Shooting’, or what DHS did with the $2,000,000 worth of those targets that they had already ordered And I don’t doubt that training has a great deal to do with the number and types of un-armed shootings we’re seeing.
From the SLC shooting linked above, I have no doubt that Officer had passed his ‘No More Hesitation’ training class with an A+.
Let me repeat one sentence from the article above: "one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty."
Needless to say, since my last post on this topic, America’s police have maintained their nearly 4/day kill rates and for the most part, their DA’s have continued justifying and protecting them from the consequences.
I reviewed one in particular from Salt Lake City last year, just today that is horrifying to watch from the Officer’s body camera. The complete video/audio was just released to the public. You can view it at : http://thefreethoughtproject.com/graphic...
As I viewed this shooting, the first thing that came to mind was the revelation of the 'No More Hesitation Target' story from last year about shooting range targets designed to remove any hesitation in real life street encounters between police and citizens that included pregnant women, mother with child, grade school age children, the elderly, etc. One story can be reviewed at Reason Magazine: http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/25/law-en...
From the article:
“According to a statement the company sent Reason last week, members of the law enforcement community inspired Law Enforcement Targets Inc. to design the "No More Hesitation" series in the first place:
The subjects in NMH targets were chosen in order to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training. I found while speaking with officers and trainers in the law enforcement community that there is a hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition (one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty). This hesitation time may be only seconds but that is not acceptable when officers are losing their lives in these same situations. The goal of NMH is to break that stereotype on the range, regardless of how slim the chances are of encountering a real life scenario that involves a child, pregnant woman, etc. If that initial hesitation time can be cut down due to range experience, the officer and community are better served.”
From my memory of the stories about the targets and their use, what I don’t remember reading was how long Police Depts. had been training their officers at shooting ranges in this ‘No More Hesitation Shooting’, or what DHS did with the $2,000,000 worth of those targets that they had already ordered And I don’t doubt that training has a great deal to do with the number and types of un-armed shootings we’re seeing.
From the SLC shooting linked above, I have no doubt that Officer had passed his ‘No More Hesitation’ training class with an A+.
Let me repeat one sentence from the article above: "one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty."
Previous comments... You are currently on page 3.
Any use of force to overpower is sufficient to kill if applied in the right or wrong way.
The cop's unreasonable initiation of contact was what ultimately led to this kid's death which I saw no reason for, as well as a lot of stupid decisions or reactions by the cop during the encounter. The cop's reactions immediately following the double tap are particularly telling. He showed no concern for the victim, he showed no adrenaline reaction, and no regret. This was a bad shoot. If I'd ever had such an idiot in a squad or team with me, I'd have gotten rid of him so fast, his head would have spun.
The use of body cameras and public rights to the video should help prevent serious violations by law enforcement. The flip side of that is that those cameras should help police against false claims of abuse, and I have spoken to some in law enforcement whose reaction has been "about time."
I'm not against police having military gear, but its use needs to be restricted to only the most serious situations. Proportional response should be the rule.
Excellent research. I am of the opinion that police should be trained and held to a higher standard than the general population. So many times it seems the police are shown in these incidents coming in guns blazing when some of these suspects could be approached more stealthily and apprehended perhaps by plain clothes officers that track the suspects and catch them off guard, or simply shown a bit more patience and presumption of innocence. After all, the police have the better training, can have their guns already drawn and should be wearing bullet proof vests when attempting to apprehend someone they believe is armed. I remember how the story of the Branch Davidians was that Koresh regularly went walking the sidewalks of town and could have been apprehended quietly many times before the whole siege mentality erupted. In regards to “Homicide Charged” numbers, there is the perception (right or wrong) that the numbers for police are underrepresented since they are often given the benefit of the doubt in the eye of the court. There is also a perception that the police cover for each other when more often they should do more to maintain their good name by outing the "few" bad apples. Of course much of the perception problem may be attributable to the media's love to report dirty laundry while avoiding the good. Militarization of the police does not help this perception. For this we can probably spread the blame to politicians, bureaucrats and some of the gung-ho police chiefs. That said; I do feel that most police are doing there jobs honorably and do not wish to paint with too broad of a brush. Still, any innocent lives unjustly lost should not be tolerated... on either side.
Respectfully,
O.A.
What I hope to point out with Posts like this one and get discussion of is for recognition that there is a problem. And citizens that sit back and buy off on the cop as 'Hero' need to reassess their understanding of what government really is and how it affects all of us.
The last cop shooting death in OK was a pastor with his pickup stuck during the recent floods, simply asking for help from the Highway patrolman that shot him.
I agree that it is my position that every one in government at any level should fear the citizenry. The citizenry should never have to fear their government. That was the primary reason for the 2nd Amendment.
But that joke might have been about Bill Pappy.
"Nor do they have any business running around in military dress and gear."
That is the same argument they use for assault weapon bans.
They took the same oath to the Constitution that I and you did. It's time they started obeying that oath. It doesn't disappear because a politician tells you to do something else.
Load more comments...