Police Dispatch During Shootings in Dallas and other police topics

[Thanks_Tom RR]

 

 

I don't know of any of those numbers, but being poor and being black go hand in hand, generally.

 

 

cm you're smart enough to understand that the systemic bias against minorities isn't a nefarious, explicit condemnation because they happen to have a certain skin tone. It's centuries of stacked momentum that puts people at a socioeconomic disadvantage, which leads to inadequate education, which leads to more crime, which leads to more single parents because of a lack of sex education or healthcare or contraception, which leads to gang membership because they offer this idea of 'family' to fatherless boys, which leads to more crime, which leads to incarceration, and so on and so forth ad nauseum until it starts over.

 

 

 

 

 

As far as the % of those killed who were unarmed, I don't know the percentage out of the total number of people killed by police, but unarmed blacks are 5-7x as likely, depending on the source, to be shot/killed by police than unarmed whites.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-fatally-shoot-unarmed-black-men-at-disproportionate-rates/2016/04/06/e494563e-fa74-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html

Since 2015, 10% of people shot and killed by police were unarmed, and there have been exactly the same number of unarmed white and black people shot and killed by police (50 total, as of this past Sunday). The US population is made up of 62% white and 13% black people. Thus, unarmed black people have been disproportionately shot and killed by police compared to white people. All of these numbers can be found in the Washington Post Police Shootings Database. This report synthesized the numbers, and this report provides several trends related to police shootings.

 

I support the BLM movement and fully understand there is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

However, just looking at the statistics, just because someone is unarmed doesn't mean the officer wasn't justified.

 

Agreed. The Washington Post allows you to filter the numbers based on important criteria. If you look at just the people shot and killed by police that were unarmed, with no signs of mental illness, and where no attack was in progress, that results in 40 people. That is 40 of the 990, or 4%, shot and killed by police in 2015. Of those 40 people, the racial breakdown is as follows: 16 white, 13 black, 9 hispanic, and 2 "other". Using the same filter for the 2016 database, 29 of the 518 people , or 5.6%, so far shot in killed in 2016 by police meant this criteria. The racial breakdown for 2016 so far: 13 white, 12 black, 4 hispanic.

 

Thus, in the past two years, roughly the same number of white and black people who were unarmed, with no signs of mental illness, and where no attack was in progress have been shot and killed by police. And, as the US population is make up of 62% white and 13% black people, this results in a disproportionate rate of black people being shot and killed by police.

[Landlord]

Hmmmmm....so, if an officer is justified in the shooting, he is still wrong?

 

 

See....this is at the point where I say.....hold on......the person who got shot has to start taking responsibility for his actions.

 

 

I would say that ethically, he could still be wrong while being within the confines of the law.

 

Mostly what I'm getting at is that a lot of these situations involve a lot of wiggle room that would be irresponsible to classify as either this or that. Are we really going to pretend like there aren't reckless police officers who get away with excessive harassment or abuse because they are police officers? This isn't a statement of condemnation. As I understand it, cops are given a good amount of leeway in how they proceed out of necessity for how dangerous the job can be.

[cm husker]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know of any of those numbers, but being poor and being black go hand in hand, generally.

 

 

cm you're smart enough to understand that the systemic bias against minorities isn't a nefarious, explicit condemnation because they happen to have a certain skin tone. It's centuries of stacked momentum that puts people at a socioeconomic disadvantage, which leads to inadequate education, which leads to more crime, which leads to more single parents because of a lack of sex education or healthcare or contraception, which leads to gang membership because they offer this idea of 'family' to fatherless boys, which leads to more crime, which leads to incarceration, and so on and so forth ad nauseum until it starts over.

 

 

 

 

 

As far as the % of those killed who were unarmed, I don't know the percentage out of the total number of people killed by police, but unarmed blacks are 5-7x as likely, depending on the source, to be shot/killed by police than unarmed whites.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-fatally-shoot-unarmed-black-men-at-disproportionate-rates/2016/04/06/e494563e-fa74-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html

Since 2015, 10% of people shot and killed by police were unarmed, and there have been exactly the same number of unarmed white and black people shot and killed by police (50 total, as of this past Sunday). The US population is made up of 62% white and 13% black people. Thus, unarmed black people have been disproportionately shot and killed by police compared to white people. All of these numbers can be found in the Washington Post Police Shootings Database. This report synthesized the numbers, and this report provides several trends related to police shootings.

I support the BLM movement and fully understand there is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

However, just looking at the statistics, just because someone is unarmed doesn't mean the officer wasn't justified.

I also agree that it's a real problem.

 

And I agree that just using stats is a problem. For example, at least one of the unarmed AA victims was shot when sitting in a car with someone who opened fire on police as they approached the car.

 

It doesn't seem legitimate to criticize the police in that instance, but the stat works against them.

[cm husker]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know of any of those numbers, but being poor and being black go hand in hand, generally.

 

 

cm you're smart enough to understand that the systemic bias against minorities isn't a nefarious, explicit condemnation because they happen to have a certain skin tone. It's centuries of stacked momentum that puts people at a socioeconomic disadvantage, which leads to inadequate education, which leads to more crime, which leads to more single parents because of a lack of sex education or healthcare or contraception, which leads to gang membership because they offer this idea of 'family' to fatherless boys, which leads to more crime, which leads to incarceration, and so on and so forth ad nauseum until it starts over.

 

 

 

 

 

As far as the % of those killed who were unarmed, I don't know the percentage out of the total number of people killed by police, but unarmed blacks are 5-7x as likely, depending on the source, to be shot/killed by police than unarmed whites.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-fatally-shoot-unarmed-black-men-at-disproportionate-rates/2016/04/06/e494563e-fa74-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html

Since 2015, 10% of people shot and killed by police were unarmed, and there have been exactly the same number of unarmed white and black people shot and killed by police (50 total, as of this past Sunday). The US population is made up of 62% white and 13% black people. Thus, unarmed black people have been disproportionately shot and killed by police compared to white people. All of these numbers can be found in the Washington Post Police Shootings Database. This report synthesized the numbers, and this report provides several trends related to police shootings.

I support the BLM movement and fully understand there is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

However, just looking at the statistics, just because someone is unarmed doesn't mean the officer wasn't justified.

Agreed. The Washington Post allows you to filter the numbers based on important criteria. If you look at just the people shot and killed by police that were unarmed, with no signs of mental illness, and where no attack was in progress, that results in 40 people. That is 40 of the 990, or 4%, shot and killed by police in 2015. Of those 40 people, the racial breakdown is as follows: 16 white, 13 black, 9 hispanic, and 2 "other". Using the same filter for the 2016 database, 29 of the 518 people , or 5.6%, so far shot in killed in 2016 by police meant this criteria. The racial breakdown for 2016 so far: 13 white, 12 black, 4 hispanic.

 

Thus, in the past two years, roughly the same number of white and black people who were unarmed, with no signs of mental illness, and where no attack was in progress have been shot and killed by police. And, as the US population is make up of 62% white and 13% black people, this results in a disproportionate rate of black people being shot and killed by police.

All very true. But also a minuscule number of people in a nation of 300 million.

 

That's why I wish we'd concentrate more on other systemic abuses, such as unfair prosecution and incarceration, then the "hot button" topic that inaccurately portrays police, regardless of their race, as "hunting" black men.

[cm husker]

 

 

However, just looking at the statistics, just because someone is unarmed doesn't mean the officer wasn't justified.

 

This is true, while it's also true that just because an officer is justified, doesn't mean that person couldn't/shouldn't have been able to make it out of that situation alive.

I agree with this. Descalation is important.

 

Then again, my few cop friends' wives have no interest in them gambling with a potential threat.

 

Then again, again, isn't that what we pay police to do - take risk and exercise discretion?

 

I do know that my male black friends feel nervous for their safety when interacting with police, and they are educated, law abiding rational people. I get nervous when pulled over but I never fear that my poor ability to follow instructions will result in accidental death. That my friends feel that way strikes me as unfair and it needs to be remedied one way or the other.

[BigRedBuster]

 

Hmmmmm....so, if an officer is justified in the shooting, he is still wrong?

 

 

See....this is at the point where I say.....hold on......the person who got shot has to start taking responsibility for his actions.

 

 

I would say that ethically, he could still be wrong while being within the confines of the law.

 

Mostly what I'm getting at is that a lot of these situations involve a lot of wiggle room that would be irresponsible to classify as either this or that. Are we really going to pretend like there aren't reckless police officers who get away with excessive harassment or abuse because they are police officers? This isn't a statement of condemnation. As I understand it, cops are given a good amount of leeway in how they proceed out of necessity for how dangerous the job can be.

 

I specifically used the word "justified" as you did in your post. To me, the word "justified" means that he/she was within the law and any reasonable person would believe shooting the person was the proper coarse of action.

 

As to your last paragraph, I have stated many times that there is harassment and abuse from police officers. I'm not sure where you are getting that. However, if a police officer is called to a scene and ends up in a situation (in the normal line of duty as per what is expected of him) where he is justified in shooting a person.....I fail to see very many times, if any at all, where the officer is in the wrong.

 

To be justified, the officer would need to be acting within the law and within the guidelines of his job and either he or someone else would need to be in eminent danger from the assailant. At that point, he is justified in using his weapon to prevent the act of violence against someone else. And...he is not wrong.

[zoogs]

One of the things that's come out of these incidents is the gun ownership dimension, and how police forces are not as pro-gun as perhaps might be expected.

 

Most encounters probably should be zero danger situations for both citizen and officer. But neither can know that for sure. Anyone might have a gun. And any gun, legal or illegal, might be used on the officer. The tiniest, most innocent, most unintended misstep can result in loss of one life or the other.

 

So every encounter is fraught with (an unreasonable amount of, I'd argue) danger.

[BigRedBuster]

OK......trying to think outside the box on this, let me throw this out there.

 

What if our officers didn't carry a gun on their side. They would have a gun in the car just like man officers do now with a shot gun. But, in 99.9% of the encounters they have with the public, they wouldn't have a gun on them.

 

How would that change everything? They would be armed with a club and maybe a taser.

[NM11046]

OK......trying to think outside the box on this, let me throw this out there.

 

What if our officers didn't carry a gun on their side. They would have a gun in the car just like man officers do now with a shot gun. But, in 99.9% of the encounters they have with the public, they wouldn't have a gun on them.

 

How would that change everything? They would be armed with a club and maybe a taser.

Bold suggestion BRB - I like it. Or even if one of the two officers in the car carries and the other doesn't. With this of course I'd be advocating for something to be done to limit the potential for regular Joe's to carry (legally or not).

[Danny Bateman]

CNN had a town hall last night with lots of media figures, activists, law enforcement officials, families of those lost, etc... that is really worth a watch.

 

They have it posted online here if you get CNN through your cable provider: http://go.cnn.com/?stream=cnn&sr=watchHPbutton

 

Obama is doing his own tonight live on Disney-owned channels... ABC, ESPN, Disney, etc. I'll be watching that, too.

[zoogs]

OK......trying to think outside the box on this, let me throw this out there.

 

What if our officers didn't carry a gun on their side. They would have a gun in the car just like man officers do now with a shot gun. But, in 99.9% of the encounters they have with the public, they wouldn't have a gun on them.

 

How would that change everything? They would be armed with a club and maybe a taser.

 

I don't think you'd get a lot of support from police officers on that. That sounds extremely dangerous for them.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

 

OK......trying to think outside the box on this, let me throw this out there.

 

What if our officers didn't carry a gun on their side. They would have a gun in the car just like man officers do now with a shot gun. But, in 99.9% of the encounters they have with the public, they wouldn't have a gun on them.

 

How would that change everything? They would be armed with a club and maybe a taser.

 

I don't think you'd get a lot of support from police officers on that. That sounds extremely dangerous for them.

 

You'll see us turn in our resignations in droves.............

[NM11046]

 

 

OK......trying to think outside the box on this, let me throw this out there.

 

What if our officers didn't carry a gun on their side. They would have a gun in the car just like man officers do now with a shot gun. But, in 99.9% of the encounters they have with the public, they wouldn't have a gun on them.

 

How would that change everything? They would be armed with a club and maybe a taser.

 

I don't think you'd get a lot of support from police officers on that. That sounds extremely dangerous for them.

 

You'll see us turn in our resignations in droves.............

 

Have you ever had to use/fire your gun BigRedIowan?

[Danny Bateman]

A uniformed officer just said in Obama's town hall that what they need from state governments to really help them is to do something about guns and he was flabbergasted that the Dallas shooter could get and use that rifle.

 

I'm growing more and more tired of right-wing politicians sitting on their hands and acting like we're paranoid and the status quo on guns is fine.

[NM11046]

A uniformed officer just said in Obama's town hall that what they need from state governments to really help them is to do something about guns and he was flabbergasted that the Dallas shooter could get and use that rifle.

 

I'm growing more and more tired of right-wing politicians sitting on their hands and acting like we're paranoid and the status quo on guns is fine.

Love that you're watching the town halls and saw the CNN event - looking forward to your recaps as they come Dude.