Approximately 1,200 dots
December 16, 2016 8:21 AM   Subscribe

 
Canada 2014 total: 14
United Kingdom 2014 total: 4
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:40 AM on December 16, 2016 [7 favorites]


I guess this is as good a place as any to link to this image once again.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:49 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


The article says there is some dispute over whether suicide should be counted - do they mean police officers killing themselves? I'm really confused on that score.
posted by corb at 8:57 AM on December 16, 2016


That's 1/265,750 per capita in the US, 1/2,511,429 in Canada, and 1/16,025,000 in the UK.
posted by cmoj at 8:58 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


The article says there is some dispute over whether suicide should be counted - do they mean police officers killing themselves? I'm really confused on that score.

I wonder if they mean people who have left notes or made it clear during the altercation that they wanted to die and were going to make the police kill them. I hear it's a thing.
posted by greermahoney at 9:03 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


Still killing people at the rate of about one 9/11 attack every 2.5 years.
posted by Behemoth at 9:04 AM on December 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


Suicide by cop would be a lot more difficult if cops didn't shoot so many people dead all the time so it should probably count
posted by beerperson at 9:11 AM on December 16, 2016 [43 favorites]


The notion of suicide by cop not being the cop killing someone... It never even occurred to me that that was what it referred to, I assumed they meant suicides in police custody (for which I would totally hold the police responsible also).
posted by Dysk at 9:14 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


killing people at the rate of about one 9/11 attack every 2.5 years

Wow. That's a good metric.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 614,348
205 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 1.8 days
Cancer: 591,699 195 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 1.8 days
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 147,101 49 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 7 days
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 136,053 45 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 8 days
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 133,103 44 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 8 days
Alzheimer's disease: 93,541 31 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 12 days
Diabetes: 76,488 26 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 14 days
Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,227 18 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 20 days
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 48,146 16 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 23 days
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 42,773 14 9/11s per year or a 9/11 every 26 days
Source: Health, United States, 2015, Table 19 (Data are for 2014)
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:21 AM on December 16, 2016 [15 favorites]


195 9/11s per year

I did really poorly on this portion of the SATs
posted by beerperson at 9:26 AM on December 16, 2016


Of course, no one's paying and arming Alzheimer's or diabetes to kill people.
posted by praemunire at 9:33 AM on December 16, 2016 [10 favorites]


195 9/11s per year

I did really poorly on this portion of the SATs


GRE (Giuliani Repetition Exam)
posted by Etrigan at 9:37 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


To serve and protect. *(wealth and property)
posted by nofundy at 9:38 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


I looked through this spreadsheet to figure out the suicide thing, and the accounts I read (just the first several, not all of them) involved people killing themselves during standoffs, so they're probably not counting suicide by cop.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:43 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Since there is no way for a cop who is not willing to kill to act as the gun for a suicide attempt, yes they count. It is only because US police *can be counted on* to shoot to kill when they perceive a threat, real or not, that people die that way -- no where else does this happen, and in no other time was it a trend.

Try to get a UK cop to shoot you is futile, as only specially trained cops carry guns, and then only when needed. Same with most of Europe. In those places, the police will try to defuse the situation, talk down the person, and get them into treatment. According to a friend in Brazil, if you tried to get a cop to kill you, he'd only do so if you paid him first (apparently, police in Brazil are considered by the locals to be a bit corrupt, and the only way to get them to do their jobs right is to bribe them, and hope the criminals haven't offered a bigger bribe.)

I'd say disarm all police, except for nonlethal deterrents, same as most of the rest of the civilized world, and if a gun is needed, have it kept in the car in a locked box controlled from the station, so that heat-of-the-moment and other killings by cops are avoided -- if they don't have the gun without a superior agreeing they need one, they can't shoot a kid with a toy or an adult who's off his meds.

If a cop has a problem with this, if he needs his surrogate dick on him at all times, ready to ejaculate lead at a homeless guy trying to take out his wallet to show his ID, fire him and ban him from owning a gun: you just prevented several cop shootings.
posted by Blackanvil at 10:12 AM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


Try to get a UK cop to shoot you is futile, as only specially trained cops carry guns, and then only when needed.

Try telling that to anyone visiting Newcastle Christmas market this year. Only when needed my arse.
posted by Dysk at 10:16 AM on December 16, 2016


"I'd say disarm all police, except for nonlethal deterrents..."

I agree completely, but also. And that's not the only case of someone being killed from excessive use of a taser. The weapons police have access to are definitely a factor. But being able to kill is not the foundation that brutality stands on.
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:27 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


Suicide by cop would be a lot more difficult if cops didn't shoot so many people dead all the time so it should probably count

Oh, believe me, I think it should count, and am glad, according to ernielundquist, that it does. (Thanks for the legwork!)

It's just where my mind went, probably due to the fact that a friend's family member did this.
posted by greermahoney at 10:33 AM on December 16, 2016


You know, cop shows always gave me the impression that there was a mountain of paperwork if an officer's gun went off anywhere other than the firing range, nevermind actually hitting or killing someone.

As much as I had become a police-skeptical leftie over the years, it still shocked me to find out how incredibly wrong that was.
posted by ckape at 10:35 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


"I'd say disarm all police, except for nonlethal deterrents..."

I agree completely, but also.


There is a reason that the preferred terminology (yes, even by police and the companies that supply these things) is "less-lethal". People have died from beanbag shots, and of course nightsticks for centuries before that.
posted by Etrigan at 10:43 AM on December 16, 2016


I can't believe I didn't think of suicide by cop. I was trying to think of stuff that would be more contestable. Thanks guys.
posted by corb at 10:55 AM on December 16, 2016


Disarm all police except for less-legal weapons, and require the gravity and volume of paperwork, investigation, and oversight that's only seen for guns in TV procedurals for every time they're unholstered, nevermind actually discharged.
posted by Dysk at 10:55 AM on December 16, 2016


Information needed for context:

- Total number of arrests

- Total number of "encounters"

- Number of police deaths on the job (that seems findable, at around 130-160/year)


I'm not at all disputing that there's a real problem with many police officers' conduct, or with systemic racism.

However, if this gap in reasoning occurred to me, it's probably occurred to the people who just don't get it. Even if they're not persuadable, they can use this kind of gap to sway new naive people to their various causes. It's an important consideration.


(Also, I really wish we could publicly apply Bayes' theorem to the traffic stop problem.)
posted by amtho at 11:13 AM on December 16, 2016


Try to get a UK cop to shoot you is futile, as only specially trained cops carry guns, and then only when needed. Same with most of Europe.

Buh? AFAIK cops in most European countries routinely carry, and most European countries also have some sort of gendarmerie or carabinieri who are at least sort of police and who routinely carry SMGs or full-auto or burst-fire carbines. The difference is that European cops are not trigger-happy madmen.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:18 AM on December 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


Information needed for context:

Really? There's an acceptable number of people killed by police that, presumably, has a comma in it for you?
posted by Etrigan at 11:20 AM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


I would like to know what the difference is between New York State and, say, California that leads to such a wild variation in the number of shootings per 100,000 people. That's a pretty significant difference.
posted by suelac at 11:56 AM on December 16, 2016


Regarding Thorzdad's linked image. You do not want to train cops to shoot other than at the center of mass, to say the least of training them to shoot for the legs, because that dangerously inculcates a notion that a firearm can be a sublethal weapon. Handgun accuracy is notoriously bad in tactically "live" situations with shooters who aren't handgun-specialized marksman, so a "sublethal" shot is quite likely to end up center mass, and a leg shot that severs an artery is quite deadly even if you hit your mark. "Don't point a gun at a living thing you don't intend to kill" is a very, very good training principle.
posted by MattD at 12:05 PM on December 16, 2016 [8 favorites]


"Don't point a gun at a living thing you don't intend to kill" is a very, very good training principle.

And a fantastic reason not to issue cops with guns as standard.
posted by Dysk at 12:11 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


American police officers receive so little training that sometimes after they murder someone they then sue their own police force over shitty training (Greetings from Chicago where this is going on right now).
posted by srboisvert at 12:28 PM on December 16, 2016 [8 favorites]


Buh? AFAIK cops in most European countries routinely carry, and most European countries also have some sort of gendarmerie or carabinieri who are at least sort of police and who routinely carry SMGs or full-auto or burst-fire carbines. The difference is that European cops are not trigger-happy madmen.

European is a really crap level of analysis.

There are lots of European countries all with different levels of police and citizen arming.

In the UK only special fire arms unit constables have guns. There are armed police with SMGs guarding high risk places like Heathrow and Parliment but they are not really policing as such.

One big point is that they need four years experience before even being eligible to apply.
posted by srboisvert at 12:34 PM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


One big point is that they need four years experience before even being eligible to apply.

I suspect that, if some kind of political genie showed up and allowed us one single change to American policing, something like this might provide the biggest benefits in isolation. Waiting four years before you can even apply to handle a gun would probably weed out a lot of the worst applicants via self-selection, never mind the application process itself.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:48 PM on December 16, 2016 [7 favorites]


In the UK only special fire arms unit constables have guns.

(1) Sure, but that's a most-of-the-UK thing and not something that generalizes to Europe more broadly.
(2) Northern Ireland is still part of the UK and the PSNI are routinely armed.

I mean, I agree that "Europe" is a crap level of analysis, but I also wish that when people meant "the UK" or "England, Scotland, and Wales" they would say that instead of "Europe." Mostly because it isn't unarmed-ness that's preventing police murders in France or Germany or Belgium, it's something else.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:59 PM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


"Suicide by cop" is a very real thing, but is also hard to prove. I know the officers involved in a 1996 hostage situation in Honolulu, and they are convinced that the hostage taker intended to die.

However, I don't get the impression that this is what the article is talking about. The wording is confusing, but it appears the researchers first looked at media articles on deaths during arrest as well as deaths from suicides and accidents.
posted by kanewai at 1:58 PM on December 16, 2016


European is a really crap level of analysis.

There are lots of European countries all with different levels of police and citizen arming.


And yet these discussions, including this very thread, always inevitably turn into The Enlightened Pacifist Utopia of Europe vs. Evil Murderfest America.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:31 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


And yet these discussions, including this very thread, always inevitably turn into The Enlightened Pacifist Utopia of Europe vs. Evil Murderfest America.

The numbers speak for themselves, eh?
posted by klanawa at 3:28 PM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


I mean, if you want to make it Evil Murderfest America vs. Enlightened Pacifist Utopia of Pretty Much Every Other Developed Nation in the World instead, I'm fine with that framing, and it seems like the data bear it out.
posted by tobascodagama at 4:43 PM on December 16, 2016 [9 favorites]


I think suicide by cop would be in the homicide category. The suicide numbers (which, note, are not included in the 1200, which is only the homicides) would be people who killed themselves in the presence of police or while in police custody. In Ontario, any death or serious injury if a cop is present is investigated by the Special Investigations Unit, that would include suicides and accidents as well as incident where one civilian kills another while a cop is there. I imagine they're staritng with the same kind of baseline and then sorting them into homicide/suicide/accident etc.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:05 PM on December 16, 2016


In the UK only special fire arms unit constables have guns. There are armed police with SMGs guarding high risk places like Heathrow and Parliment but they are not really policing as such.

...and Marylebone, and King's Cross, and Liverpool Street, and Manchester Picadilly, and fucking Newcastle Christmas Market (where the local constabulary put out a thing on Facebook suggesting that they very much were just doing regular policing. With mp5s.) Even aside from Northern Ireland, the idea that firearms teams in the UK only protect special places like Heathrow and parliament and don't do normal policing? Rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
posted by Dysk at 6:54 PM on December 16, 2016


An interesting point re:American policing is that, in many locales, officers are allowed to arm themselves beyond their department-issued firearm. In my neck of the woods, where cops are allowed to take their patrol cars home with them, an inspection of the trunk/boot of those cars will often reveal a frightening array of self-purchased, high-power weaponry, all perfectly legal.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:42 AM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


As well as the comparison to losses from 9/11, a comparison to military personnel lost abroad during all of the warring over the same year would be illuminating. Wouldn't that be a thing, if it were safer to be a soldier in Afghanistan than a civilian at home?
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:52 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Speaking of soldiers in Afghanistan - despite the weirdly militarized police departments, I saw a report on NPR recently that suggested counter to many people's intuition, military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are actually less quick on the trigger, because they recognize threat better, but rather than getting rewarded for it, they are getting punished and fired in some cases (NPR spotlighted one) for "endangering fellow officers" by not immediately shooting.

That goes along with my anecdata. I once was waiting in a police briefing room - I was there to give a presentation on my program on dealing with the homeless, so the cops could call us instead of taking them to jail - and a military veteran cop was complaining about being disciplined for not shooting someone he didn't think was dangerous. It sounded like the charge was "violating departmental policy".
posted by corb at 9:29 AM on December 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


I think the suicide statistic includes people who die from accidents while evading pursuit, like people who run into traffic when escaping police.
posted by JHarris at 1:45 PM on December 27, 2016


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