Using the correlations from these lists, we conclude that for the eight-year period included in the study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it is likely that there were approximately 10,000 homicides committed by the police, that is, about 1,250 per year. Keep in mind that the Bureau of Justice Statistics report itself excludes many jurisdictions in the United States that openly refuse to share any data with the FBI. The true number of homicides committed by police is therefore even higher. Though not a true estimate, my best guess of the number of police homicides in the United States is about 1,500 per year.
As I said at the beginning of this article, the estimate of 1,500 police homicides per year would mean that eight to ten per cent of all American homicide victims are killed by the police. Of all American homicide victims killed by people they donât know, approximately one-third of them are victims of the police.
I admire the sentiment, but itâs very insidiously dishonest and creates a big target for the other side to strawman. Turns out that not making shit up is important for persuading!
Is that really going to persuade anybody, even if the stat was ironclad in itâs derivation?
The derpers are going to say, âWho cares. Iâm sure almost all of them were bad hombres. And maybe there were a couple of George Floyds thrown in, but those are obviously the exception. Nice try, libtard.â
Itâs a fairly gripping claim. Irresponsible to just paper the math to get there. It seems to me a mistake to assume that a viral tweet isnât going to reach a significant amount of people who may be on the verge of coming to a firm position on significant change. Reading the âstudyâ is like waiting for Maddow to drop the tax returns only to get shown the Lucy football yet again. More sad than funny.
Itâs is gripping. But I think few are persuadable. And they can easily handwave it away. Moreover, assuming theyâre rational (and thatâs a big assumption), they shouldnât be persuaded by it. They wouldnât really care about the total number of killings, only the number of bad killings (i.e. Floyd-type).
I was listening to a recent podcast on police training and they pointed out that cops are woefully undertrained. I hadnât really thought about this angle before.
These people have less training than a barber but are given the power of state to kill! Itâs nuts.
I also wonder just how much endemic violence in the culture, poor mental health treatment, and other untold factors contribute to the environment cops find themselves in.
Like Scandinavia is the minor leagues of violence. The US is like an all star game by comparison. Makes it much easier to never kill if youâre ~never in an extremely violent situation.
A lot of the violent situations could have been prevented if De-escalation was given a honest attempt more often. If an officer is legally protected if/when he chooses a route that escalates the situation, it can come down to the officerâs character that determines the outcome of the encounter. Thatâs a problem.
I concur fully. I also believe that with better pay, training, and a total reorganization of priorities the US police force could make far fewer mistakes resulting in death.
Setting aside the tautology, I believe that the history of civilization is rife with examples of majority society hating out groups less. So, yes, I do. Slowly, yet inexorably.
