Oficer involved shooting (courtesy abcnews.go.com)

(Republished with permission from The Force Science Institute)

In the wake of Ferguson and the anti-police firestorm that episode ignited, The Washington Post determined to do what no government agency had done: catalog the essential facts of every on-duty fatal shooting by police in the US in 2015. That exhaustive undertaking, which documents nearly 1,000 firearms deaths at the hands of LEOs for the year, is now completed, and the Post is moving on to 2016 . . .

Here are two links relevant to this important project:

1. The findings of the Post’s investigation, including its unique database, which records a description of each fatality, and a statistical analysis of the core elements involved overall–surely the most comprehensive compilation of such information currently available.  CLICK HERE to read it.

2. A commentary on the Post’s findings from National Review magazine, which asserts that the newspaper’s statistics prove that the activist narrative of out-of-control rogue cops wantonly gunning down nonthreatening black males without just cause is plain wrong. CLICK HERE for that full article.

HIGHLIGHTS OF WHAT THE POST FOUND

From the vast quantity of findings posted on the website, the Post highlights what it considers six key “takeaways”:

• In three-fourths of the shootings, “police were under attack or defending someone who was. Of the suspects killed, 28% were “shooting at officers or someone else,” 16% were “attacking with other weapons or physical force, and 31% were pointing a gun.”

• 9% of people shot and killed by police were unarmed. “Unarmed black men were seven times as likely as unarmed whites to die from police gunfire. Overall, more than half of those killed had guns” in their possession, “16% had knives, and 5% attempted to hit officers with their vehicles. Three percent had toy weapons, typically replicas…indistinguishable from the real thing.”

• Mental illness played a role in one-quarter of the shootings and about nine in 10 of the mentally ill killed were armed, “usually with guns but also with knives or other sharp objects.” More than half of the fatalities involved police agencies that “had not provided officers with state-of-the-art training to de-escalate such encounters.”

• One-quarter of the shootings involved suspects fleeing on foot or in a vehicle, “making chases one of the most common scenarios in the data.” About a third of vehicle pursuits that ended up with fatal shots fired began with a traffic stop for a minor infraction.

• Indictments of police officers in shooting cases tripled in 2015, compared with previous years. Although more officers were indicted, “the outcome of such cases improved for officers. Five of the seven cases tried [during the year] ended with the officer acquitted or with a mistrial…. Over the previous decade, one-third of officers charged in shooting cases were convicted of crimes ranging from misdemeanor reckless discharge of a firearm to felony murder.”

• 6% of the fatalities were captured by body cameras, and in more than half the shooting cases in which LEOs were indicted criminally in 2015, “prosecutors cited video evidence against officers” from police or civilian cameras–twice as often as in the previous decade. “The widespread availability of video of police shootings…has been a primary factor in the rising number of indictments of officers,” the Post notes.

In sum, the Post states: “The great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt….

For each of its highlighted “takeaways,” the Post supplies detailed case histories, observations by professionals, and supplementary statistics that help to flesh out the finding–much more material to chew through than would occupy mere idle moments.

For the most part, the information is factually and dispassionately presented, although at times, as the National Review points out, the Post’s reputation as a left-leaning journal creeps through. One of the investigative team in a TV interview has said that she believes the findings show that police do disproportionately target black males beyond what seems demographically justified.

WHAT THE FINDINGS MEAN, PER THE NATIONAL REVIEW

The National Review, a politically conservative publication, headlines its commentary on what the Post’s data add up to thusly: “The Numbers Are in: Black Lives Matter Is Wrong about Police.”

The article is authored by staff writer David French, a Bronze Star recipient from military service in Iraq and an attorney specializing in “constitutional law and the law of armed conflict.”

Since Ferguson, French writes, the nation has been “bombarded with assertions that…black Americans risk being gunned down by police simply because of the color of their skin.” But now, data from the Post’s year-long “unprecedented, case-by-case study of police shootings” confirm that: “The police use force mainly to protect human life, the use of force against unarmed suspects is rare, and the use of force against black Americans is largely proportional to their share of the violent crime rate.”

He points out, from the Post’s findings, that “the kinds of shootings that launched the Black Lives Matter movement–white police officers killing unarmed black men–represent ‘less than 4% of fatal police shootings.’ The Post does its best to hype the racial injustice of this statistic, proclaiming that while ‘black men make up only 6% of the US population, they account for 40% of the unarmed men shot to death by police.’

“But that claim,” French insists, “is misleading on a number of counts…. Crime doesn’t break down on neat, proportionate demographic lines. Criminals are overwhelmingly male…and violent criminals are disproportionately black.”

Statistics show, he says, that blacks “commit homicide at close to eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined,” with the “interracial homicide commission gap” even greater among teenage males. While black Americans constitute only about 13% of the population, they represent “a majority of the homicide and robbery arrests.

“Given these disturbing disparities,” French writes, “no rational person would expect police shootings to precisely track with demographics. Police follow crime, and they tend to operate in high-crime areas. It would be alarming if there were statistically significant racial variations in the use of force even after adjusting for crime rate, but the Post’s report doesn’t make this distinction.”

Based on the findings, “the chances of an innocent black man being gunned down by racist cops are vanishingly small,” French concludes. “And that is good news indeed.”

He acknowledges that “the report does highlight areas where law-enforcement agencies could do better–improved training in handling fleeing or mentally ill suspects could save lives, for example–and while police are generally responsible in the use of force, that doesn’t mean that all use of force is lawful. There are individual racist cops, and there are departments that will close ranks behind corrupt colleagues.”

But while conscientious efforts to improve are made, “the Post’s valuable study, fairly read, should defuse national tensions,” French writes.

Unfortunately, in his opinion, it won’t, however. “The [anti-police] narrative is too strong, and too many powerful people have too much to gain by ratcheting up racial tensions. So Black Lives Matter will likely roll on, and still more black Americans will be taught to hate and fear law enforcement, fed on a steady diet of lies….”

LOOKING AHEAD

While the Post intends to continue its tabulation of fatalities, pressure is on to improve reporting within law enforcement.

According to the Post, fewer than half of the nation’s 18,000 police departments report incidents of fatal shootings by officers to the FBI, which is charged with keeping such statistics. In its search, the Post “documented well more than twice as many fatal shootings [last year] as the average annual tally reported by the FBI over the past decade”–a data flaw FBI Director James Comey terms “unacceptable.”

That agency and the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics have launched efforts to create new systems for better documenting these fatalities.

A senior FBI official has told the Post, “People want to know what police are doing, and they want to know why they are using force. It always fell to the bottom before. It is now the highest priority.”

Our thanks to Atty. Richard Brzeczek, a consultant and expert witness on police practices, for his assistance with this report.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

98 COMMENTS

  2. Unarmed black men were seven times as likely as unarmed whites to die from police gunfire.

    That’s a difficult statement to parse, without context. It’s almost as if it were left intentionally vague and unspecified.

  3. Things that pop out:

    – Given the time and effort it takes to fire a pointed gun (less than any reasonable reaction time), the difference between ‘pointing a gun’ and ‘shooting at someone’ is almost nil for the purposes of force justification. The difference between someone pointing a “toy” gun and a real gun is non-existent if you can’t know the difference in the moment. Not that I’m against categorizing the differences, but I suspect some will parse them in such a way to make it seem different.

    – The fact that indictments are going up while convictions are going down speaks to the political nature of the prosecutions going on.

    • Interesting point. I’ve always considered pointing a gun at some one the same as engaging with fire….

      • I don’t consider it the same thing, but I would always expect the same result. If I point a gun at a cop, I would expect him to shoot at me.

  4. It’s impossible to begin to tell you the number of times I’ve been cut a huge amount of slack by cops in multiple states. And i’ve watched cops, sometimes close enough to touch, absolutely tear ass on an individual.

    The difference in how the cops acted towards me and the others is the difference in how I and the others acted towards the cops.

    But some folks are just too stupid to be let out on the street without a handler. For the rest of us an encounter with the cops ain’t all that traumitizing.

    Then you have the sjw type that has learned all they know of life from the innerwebs. These guys have to have something to be outraged about. Cherry picking bad cops from the 24/7 info stream is their stock in trade. Just like the gun grabbvers cherry pick bad gun owners.

    • Translation: “If I grovel and abase myself before government authority figures I get treated relatively well. They just take my money and leave.”

      Absolutely pathetic. At least try to scrape together a little bit of human dignity. 🙂

      • You’re the guy who goes to the DMV and tells them they have to open another window ‘or else’, right?

      • So, tell us of your last encounter with the man and how you put him in his place, Oh boy of troll. And why aren’t you in Oregon backing up your brothers in arm? You have a curfew at your group home?

        • >not grovelling
          >put him in his place

          Naturally you doesn’t realize that a neutral, non-aggressive response is the correct response to police. Even if you get a ticket out of it for “lack of respect”. You’ve been grovelling and licking boots for so long you don’t know any alternative. 🙂

          And you are still trolling with the Oregon line? You still don’t understand the concept of peaceful protest, obviously. Stay violent, bootlicker.

        • When you do it it’s neuttral and non aggressive. Anybody else and it’s bootlicking. I guess in your own mind you’re better than the rest of us. But just in your own mind.

        • >thinks he is neutral
          >calls the cop sir and gives respect to the government badge

          You might as well kiss his holster, bootlicker. 🙂

        • Well, bless your heart. You’re a special little fella, ain’t you. i’m about to go to work and pick up a whole short bus full of your peers. Have a very special day. 🙂

        • If doctors ever want to study the possibility of mental retardation being contagious, you will be specimen #1. 🙂

        • Aw. The special child went and got mad. Bless his little pea pickin’ heart. Mommy didn’t let you have your nap today? 🙂

        • When you get off the short bus at the VA to pick up your psychosis medication, do the VA staff confuse you as a rider?

        • >pays obeisance to authority figures
          >calls other people 6th graders

          Do you still giggle like a child when you go for ride alongs?

    • I’ve never, that I recollect, been cut any slack by the police.

      But then, I’ve had just about zero interaction with the police save the odd casual conversation at the range.

      But then I generally don’t speed, and I try to avoid doing stupid things in stupid places at stupid times with stupid people.

      Voila! Interactions can’t go bad if there are no interactions.

    • +1 to this.

      A few years ago I was hunting deer on my farm (I live in England) and I was swatted by some hikers trespassing on my land, who called in a “man with a sniper rifle”, and my accurate six figure grid location.

      I was wearing a ghillie suit and armed with a .308 precision rifle; when I saw/heard a convoy of police screaming up the track towards me I shoved the rifle as far from me as possible, reached for the sky, and loudly shouted that I was unarmed and would comply with all orders…..

      The armed officers approached me, secured my rifle, searched me, and questioned me.

      I informed them politely that I was on my own land, hunting deer with a legally owned rifle (now in their possession); and that I could show all paperwork for the weapon. I then asked, politely, why they had been called.

      The officer in charge informed me that some hikers had called in a man with a sniper rifle; and I pointed out that the hikers were trespassing. I therefore asked the police to remove the hikers from my land, and to return my weapon to me.

      They then spoke to the hikers (who by now were hiding behind one of the police vehicles), who claimed to be lost and unaware that they were trespassing. The officer in charge pointed out that if they were lost it didn’t make sense that they could have given an accurate grid for my location. He warned them against trespassing (not a criminal offence in the UK), and instructed his men to remove them from my property in one of the vehicles.

      He then apologised for the situation; but said for the sake of closing the incident fully he would need to check my paperwork, which was back at the house. I agreed, was escorted back to the house where I showed the correct papers, and had my rifle returned with renewed apologies.

      I’m now good friends with two of the officers involved.

      —

      The point is, one has to recognise that LEOs responding to sighting, report or suspicion of a weapon are going to act accordingly. Behave as calmly and non-threateningly as possible, and comply with all lawful instructions.

      It would have been very easy for me to end up dead in a field – based on a perfectly justifiable police shooting – had I not acted in the way that I did…

      • So, the police trespassed on your private property, as well?

        (At least over here, when dealing with a MWAG SWATting attempt, they’d have to get a warrant before coming onto your property with guns a’blazing.)

        • Hi Chip,

          They don’t need a warrant (here) because they have probable cause based on reports of a possible crime being committed.

          And to be fair their guns weren’t actually a’blazing… thankfully!

          Once I explained it was private land they were polite and – in my view – responded as helpfully and reasonably as they could.

          I agree it’s irksome that they could come onto my land without permission or a warrant. But if you think about it, you’d want them to go onto your property / into your house if you were out and a neighbour called in a burglary in progress; even without your express permission or a warrant… So I guess it’s similar??

          My main point though was regarding one’s behaviour towards police and the nature of their subsequent response. If they have any reason to suspect you may be armed, the sensible thing to do is take every possible step to de-escalate and avoid any unhappy mistakes.

  5. Did you notice the sneaky, left-wing editorializing? Here’s an example:
    “More than half of the fatalities involved police agencies that “had not provided officers with state-of-the-art training to de-escalate such encounters.”

    It would be just as accurate to say,
    “Nearly half of the fatalities involved police agencies that HAD provided officers with state-of-the-art training to de-escalate such encounters.”

    Left-wing media spin. They just can’t help themselves.

    • Boy, I had not caught that. Real good, let me take it a bit further. We did not learn just what percentage of departments have had such training, but if it is around 50%, that translates to the training has had absolutely no effect, is a total waste of time and money.

  7. Not every cop is a bad cop, but are there any good ones? The point being is that most cops won’t cross the thin blue line, even for a bad cop. That is the culture that needs to end, and end immediately. It is that culture that caused the CPD cover-up of the murder of Laquan McDonald by one bad cop. As to why there are more acquittals has to do with the prosecutors office having working relationships with LE departments. Some, not wanting to upset that working relationship are reluctant to even bring charges to grand juries. And when they do, they throw the case. Fortunately, not all prosecutors are concerned more about their working relationship than for justice. None the less, the current procedure for policing the police and for prosecuting those bad apples needs to be rethought and new methods and policies developed.

    • “The point being is that most cops won’t cross the thin blue line, even for a bad cop” – How did you come to that conclusion?

      That makes “Most” of us bad cops right?

      This type of drivel comes from those who are “lefty lurkers” OR are those who have either been on the receiving end of justice (arrested or cited) and just cannot get over it.

      • I’m not a lefty lurker and I’ve never been on the receiving end of, as you put it, “justice”.

        On the one hand, I realize cops are just like me, and that they have a tough job. There are some really evil, sick people out there and they have to deal with those people regularly and that is difficult.

        On the other hand, I am a Constitutional conservative. The police are the muscle of the tax-and-spend welfare state. They’re the muscle behind the “let’s rip up the Fourth Amendment just to harass some people who want to smoke goofweed” policies. They’re the muscle behind our absurd, anti-2A gun laws.

        Yeah, yeah, cops don’t get the pick the laws they enforce. But they do get to decide if they work for the government or not. Tyrants like Obama and Bloomberg wouldn’t be able to do anything if not for the willing-and-eager masses of police who are happy to collect a paycheck on behalf of the State.

        Frankly, I don’t understand how someone could get up each day, put on a uniform and go out to do battle against decent citizens on behalf of Big Government and not be a lefty. Does that not bother your conscience?

        • Mitch, if the good cops, the ones with the conscience and morals quit their job then what? Pretty soon there’s no one in the system working to exert common sense and humanity into their daily dealings with us. All you have left then is the bad guys. And for every good guy that quits and walks away 2 bad guys will step up to take his place.

          We, the voters, need to hold mayors, governors and chiefs of police accountable for their forces.

          We are a 1st world nation in the 21st century. Policing is here to stay. What kind of cops we have is up to us. Running off the good ones won’t help.

          And for the record. I always vote to make drugs legal. This war on drugs fiasco is insane.

        • >implying the “good cops” will or can do anything to stop the horde of bad cops
          >implying the voters can effect change when police unions routinely harass and threaten unfriendly mayors, judges and prosecutors
          >implying bootlickers don’t use the “good cops” line to argue against reforms such as civilian oversight and removing special use-of-force privileges, because that might somehow stop the “good cops” from doing their “jobs”

          And when one of the few good cops do stay, they end up getting assaulted by the bad apples then fired: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-departments-good-cops-buffalo-officer-fired-stopping-brutality/

        • “cops don’t get to pick the laws they enforce.”

          Of course they do. What are you smoking? All they have to do is close their eyes for a few seconds, here and there, and bad laws would have zero prosecutions. The problem we have is that cops can arrest just anyone they decide to, there are SO MANY laws, everybody is breaking one at any given time. And I would hate to guess what percentage of beat cops have a packet of some drug or a POS firearm close at hand, to arrest someone who has no other “crimes” going on, we can just produce one. That would be really unpopular if your partner would arrest YOU for possession of those drugs, or that throwaway gun. If we just heard of such an arrest once every 5 years or so, but no, never happened.

      • “This type of drivel comes from those who are “lefty lurkers” OR are those who have either been on the receiving end of justice (arrested or cited) and just cannot get over it.”

        Pure and Total Bullsqueeze. Try opening your mind a little bit.

        I used to BE a LEO, and I’ve been “accused” of landing with both feet squarely to the Right of Rush Limbaugh … AND I can agree with Mecha’s POV…at least to the point that I see where he’s coming from in posing the question.

        It is extremely difficult to be objective sometimes. But, those are the times that define our character. There’s a BUNCH of Thin Blue Line crap that goes on, and people are getting sick of it.

        An honorable man, cop or not, sees such truths. You want to build some “good will” with folks that think the TBL stuff is out of control? A good start would be openly lobbying against LEO carve-outs in gun control laws.

    • “The point being is that most cops won’t cross the thin blue line, even for a bad cop.”

      This happens because cops find themselves confronted with “that could have been me” situations and, so, even when the cop empties his magazine into a kid standing 25 feet away, they go quiet. I think this is wrong and I also think it’s something this must change. But, changing that kind of culture requires skills that simply don’t exist in most city governments or in most police departments. Good cops who go against the rules risk their careers.

      • If I saw another officer using blatantly excessive force or violating someone’s constitutional rights, you’re damn right I would turn him or her in.

        I’ve worked with the same core group of people the past four years and, being completely honest, I haven’t seen it happen. The people I work with are generally rational, educated, patient officers who do the job the right way, without charging people for having shake on their shirt and writing speeding tickets.

        The attitude my co-workers and I have is that if there’s a jackass officer out there doing that, 1) he does not need to be a police officer and 2) he’s making our job more difficult for the rest of us. To me, it doesn’t make sense NOT to turn him in.

        That’s just my experience though. I’m sure there are departments with that culture aplenty, and that does need to change.

        • That’s nice. Meanwhile Frank Serpico is still persona non grata in the NYPD. Must be Scalia’s new professionalism at work. They’re so thankful for Serpico for trying to clean up the NYPD that they’re still sending him death threats. By the way Frank says he gets letters and emails all the time from cops who see criminality from their coworkers but are too afraid to say anything about it.

    • “Not every cop is a bad cop, but are there any good ones?”

      They’re the ones arresting cops. Every time we see a story on TTAG about a cop being investigated or arrested, it’s cops behind it.

      • Excellent point.

        Maybe we should shift the attention from “good cops” and “bad cops” in this context to “good prosecutors” and “bad prosecutors.”

        The Grand Jury system is nice, except the prosecutor can, to some degree, determine the outcome. He has FAR too much ‘control’ over that process in how it is presented. The same rules of evidence and cross examination that apply at Trial don’t apply there, and thus he can stop a case before it really goes to the finders of fact.

      • “Every time we see a story on TTAG about a cop being investigated or arrested, it’s cops behind it.”

        Agreed, absolutely. And how often is that? Once every 2 years? RF, you got a screen to tell us how many cops have been prosecuted per year, recently? Maybe toss in how many wives have complained the cops won’t protect them against their abusive cop husbands?

  8. If the vast majority of these were in fact legit DGU, then body cameras will help police far more than they hurt them, close investigations of “what happened” much quicker, and will save the taxpayers a lot of money in drawn-out litigation.

    • While body cams will help the individual officer it won’t help you because it takes away the officer’s discretion. The primary reason why cops are more rigid today then were 50 years ago is the increase in oversight.

      • Every time a group of cops attempt to refuse body cams instead of demanding them, even buying their own, sensible people recognize that means they break the law, bully citizens, plant evidence, and occasionally rape, pillage, and murder, and enjoy having absolute immunity from prosecution. They’re not the solution for everything, but they may solve a lot. That cop who recently shot a black motorist in the back, then made up a story and distributed evidence to back up his story, would have never done that if he had known he was being filmed the whole time, maybe he wouldn’t be facing the rest of his life in prison. He felt absolutely safe committing cold blooded murder, and then involving another officer in covering it up, must be very confused today.

  11. While I agree with NR’s conclusions and don’t find the math (ratio of white shot to blacks shot) to be disturbing, there’s still an anecdote that bothers me and always will.

    Years ago, I was pulled over for running a red light while passing through a mostly middle-class black area of Newport known as “the Cove.” I was polite to the cop and he was polite to me, and I left with only a warning. That was not the last time in my driving career that I’ve skated. There have been at least three.

    A few weeks after my Cove episode, my friend, who lived in the Cove, was also stopped one night by the Newport PD. His “crime” was driving while black. How do I know? Because the cop said so.

    The officer picked the wrong black man to stop for no reason. My friend was a lawyer and a high ranking member of the Governor’s staff. Confronted with just having made a bad career decision, the officer ate a small portion of humble pie when questioned by my friend. Because he admitted what he’d done, there were no repercussions.

    Okay, as I admitted, this is an anecdote. Besides, there’s a huge difference between stopping someone and shooting someone. But does anyone in his right mind believe that my friend’s stop was an isolated incident? I don’t, and I believe that numbers by themselves will never persuade good black people that the cops aren’t out to get them.

    • Do *you* believe the cop stopped doing that afterwards? Because I doubt it. I am convinced some cops are in it for more than a job, really enjoy exercising power and control over others. I hope your friend kept his mouth shut long enough to allow the cop to make a fool of himself, but that would probably mean that the next black man he pulled over for no reason would pay the price for him being “uppity”, don’t you see. Someone with the power you describe your friend as having should have had him fired, and his department investigated very publicly. Cooperating in a coverup is not helpful.

  12. RF, can you give us a like to the original article? I can’t seem to find it on the Force Science Institute website. Thanks!

  14. Heh, leave it up to the quack Bill Lewinski at FSI to twist the stats. As the article admits, cops are not even required to maintain statistics. And when you can bet the book-keeping is dubious. For example, the original inquiry of the James Boyd murder was originally rubber-stamped as justified because the cops were “attacked” by Boyd with two knives. No doubt the numbers were not updated to reflect the reality of police criminality.

    Then there are cases like the murder of Walter Scott, who was originally stamped as justified until new video evidence surfaced. How many cops get away with murder because of lack of video? How many cops are not punished even when they deliberately disable their body-cam?

    I like the story mentioning the outlook is “improving” for cops. Of course it is, the entire legal system is rigged in favor of cops. Hell, even government lawyers who cover up for cops are allowed to resign instead of being disbarred: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-chicago-lawyer-hid-evidence-in-police-shooting/

    Or when a cop is allowed to walk when the prosecutor and judge collude to twist the case into a double jeopardy dead-end: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-police-detective-manslaughter-trial-0421-met-20150420-story.html

    Just ignore the racial narrative. This is a story of unchecked power and abuse. Cops murder victims of all races and rarely face any consequence because the system allows it, and cops are violent thugs who sold out what little morality they had for a taxpayer-funded check and pension.

  16. One thing I’d like to know is, if The Man is so dangerous to young black males, why don’t young black males pull up their pants, put on belts, tuck their shirts in, etc., before they go out on the street? I mean, to hear leftists talk, you’d think it was open season on young black males. If it’s hunting season, and you’re the prey, wouldn’t you try to differentiate yourself from the hunted species? You know, stop wearing baggy clothes tailor-made to conceal drugs, weapons, and such? How much scrutiny do you suppose young black males on the street wearing not-very-baggy clothes, pants pulled up, shirt tucked in, with a belt on, no gang or gangsta apparel…how much scrutiny do you think these fellows get from the The Man, compared to the young black males wearing the usual getup?

    I mean, if it’s life and death…wouldn’t you consider a wardrobe change? Total Security Makeover, Stay Out of Jail edition?

    • And why should young black males alter their dress to appease the self-nominated guardians of social norms and their killer goons?

      >conceal weapons

      On a 2A site nonetheless. You say that like it’s a bad thing.

      • So, which is it? Are young black men being hunted down like dogs by racist police, or not? If they are, why do so few act like it?

        That was my point. That their behavior is opposite what one would expect, given their claims.

        • >hunted down because of their dress
          >that strawman

          No, cops don’t murder people because of dress. Cops opportunistically kill people because their job is to harass and steal from people, and they are told that even the slightest resistance (real or otherwise) to said harassment and theft necessitates a lethal response. Sometimes, those victims are black males.

          Therefore your dumb question regarding dress is meaningless. People dressed according to white social norms are murdered by cops all the time.

    • It is pretty hard to change the color of your skin. What do you suggest? That black people all wear full length burkas?

  17. • 9% of people shot and killed by police were unarmed. “Unarmed black men were seven times as likely as unarmed whites to die from police gunfire. Overall, more than half of those killed had guns” in their possession, “16% had knives, and 5% attempted to hit officers with their vehicles. Three percent had toy weapons, typically replicas…indistinguishable from the real thing.”

    Some months back, a study came out that showed that cops are less likely to use deadly force against blacks than against whites, ceteris paribus. Makes perfect sense given 1) the pro-black anti-white indoctrination the populace has been subjected to for decades now, 2) how much more political and legal pressure is put on gov’ts and police forces for shooting blacks, as opposed to shooting whites. The rub is, the facts of race and violent crime are not “ceteris paribus.”

    Still, there does seem that there could be something going on in America between suspects and police, that shouldn’t be. British police manage to kill almost no one, ever. Maybe that translates to de-policing, or being more likely to be victimized by crime. Maybe they do a better job of locking up their nutters. I think it deserves looking into.

    and the use of force against black Americans is largely proportional to their share of the violent crime rate.”

    DAS RACISS!!

    The Post does its best to hype the racial injustice of this statistic, proclaiming that while ‘black men make up only 6% of the US population, they account for 40% of the unarmed men shot to death by police.’

    …and 55% (or so, I’m going by memory here) of the murderers.

    • I think you’re conflating the general numbers with those of “police involved”. I haven’t seen numbers of cops who killed broken down by race of cop.

    • Hi JQP,

      As a Brit, my feeling (not backed by stats) is that the British Police kill fewer people because there are fewer officer-involved incidents where the suspect is armed or believed to be armed: there are many fewer guns here, legal or otherwise.

      In those instances where guns are involved, and where the routinely unarmed police are aware of it, armed police tend to be deployed and the outcome seems to me (again not backed by stat research, just reading the news) to be fatal to the offender about as often as you’d expect.

      In other words, I don’t think it’s a case of de-policing, so much as a case of fewer armed criminals and fewer armed cops leading to fewer shootings…?

  18. It’s impossible to begin to tell you the number of times I’ve been cut a huge amount of slack by cops in multiple states. And i’ve watched cops, sometimes close enough to touch, absolutely tear ass on an individual.

    The difference in how the cops acted towards me and the others is the difference in how I and the others acted towards the cops.

    But some folks are just too stupid to be let out on the street without a handler. For the rest of us an encounter with the cops ain’t all that traumitizing.

    This.

    If the vast majority of these were in fact legit DGU, then body cameras will help police far more than they hurt them, close investigations of “what happened” much quicker, and will save the taxpayers a lot of money in drawn-out litigation.

    I am 100% in favor of expanding the surveillance apparatus…against the gov’t. All of the gov’t, not just cops on stops. Every minute someone is on the gov’t clock and not in the bathroom. Exceptions should have a very strong reason behind them. Time to take some of the fun out of gov’t work.

    While body cams will help the individual officer it won’t help you because it takes away the officer’s discretion. The primary reason why cops are more rigid today then were 50 years ago is the increase in oversight.

    Omelets, eggs. Besides, taking away some of their discretion might have a salutary effect down the road, by bringing some well-heeled and influential folks on side in toning down law enforcement regs, easing up on the laws, what have you.

    Cops murder victims of all races and rarely face any consequence because the system allows it, and cops are violent thugs who sold out what little morality they had for a taxpayer-funded check and pension.

    If anything, we need more attention paid to the whites gunned down by cops. Zero peeps from the media about this, while they’re constantly making hay out of BLM concerns.

    Yes yes, just obey the government goon like a good little slave. Also implying cops don’t relish murdering white people as much as murdering black people

    Well, if that’s what brings you back home alive, yes, some obeyin’ might be in order. You’d think that this would be a more prevalent attitude among blacks, and anyone trying to see fewer of them killed, instead it’s the opposite.

    • >Well, if that’s what brings you back home alive, yes, some obeyin’ might be in order
      >blaming the victim
      >don’t even bother to criticize the murderers

      All that statist bootlicking.

        • He’s a home grown self radicalized jihadi that gets positively orgasmic over American soldiers being killed and praises the jihadis at every turn.

          He also posts under the names of blain cooper, good riddence, waco biker, sexual tyranasaures and a few others. Very much a trolls troll.

          Notice how he jumps on anyone that “grovels” to the man, in his opinion, but he’s never answered a direct question about he behaves with the man.

        • The death of every invading soldier is a blessing for humanity. Doesn’t matter what uniform he wears. In Afghanistan, it was Soviet or American. No difference whatsoever, fill those body bags up. Remember, all your friends died in Vietnam so politicians can rake in money on the lecture circuit.

          I like how you demand to know my personal interaction with your government idols. As if that was somehow relevant. Didn’t do so well in debate class? Or were you too busy shooting Vietnamese villagers while your intellectual betters were in college?

        • “It’s black peoples’ fault for getting killed because they refuse to wear white peoples’ clothing.”

          Hey maybe you should tell the Christians in the Middle East to stop wearing crosses if they don’t want to get beheaded by ISIS.

        • JQP, do you see, now? Somebody should have outed this moron before you wasted so much time reasoning with him, we generally assume he’s a 12-year-old playing in mommy’s basement. His rantings rarely (although I can’t say “never”) make any sense to anyone here, please do not judge the site by him. And welcome!

        • >why don’t black people dress white?
          >reasoning

          Larry proves yet again that pro-police bootlickers are the intellectual dregs of society. 🙂

  19. In other news:

    Cologne Mayor: Women Should Be More Careful After Migrant Mass Rapes, Promises ‘Guidance’ So They Can ‘Prepare’

    Wow, just wow (:)). Liberals throw women right under the bus for Islam and open borders. This kind of story is how you sort out the liberal pecking order.

    “She shouldn’t have worn that dress. What was she doing out so late?”

    Hell, they’re practically throwing civilization under the bus for Muslims and open borders. “Here you go Muslim invaders, take this neighborhood, we won’t police it anymore. Here, have some kebabs.”

    • So how is your “black males should dress white” line any different from the muslim saying women deserve rape due to supposedly provocative attire?

    • Sure, the only difference is that on one hand is the evil mooooslem, but on the other is a cop. So you defend the latter for doing the same thing as the muslim. It is quite obvious.

    • >Slager didn’t even attempt to claim he was tasered
      >you actually make stuff up to defend this murderer

      Shill harder. 🙂

  22. even when presented with the statistics you guys still wont accept the truth, just like anti gunners.

    • There’s lies, damn lies and then there’s stats. They can be tailer made to fit any given cause.

      • Not properly.

        Mark Twain’s quote, taken himself from Disraeli, was that the misuse of statistics by someone that does not understand the underlying mathematics would be akin to lying.

        Statistics are just numbers. That’s all. They have no more agency than a holstered gun. Saying that they “can be tailer[sic] to fit any cause” is disingenuous. It’s no different than saying guns “go off.”

        Properly presented (that is objectively), statistics cannot be manipulated to fit a cause. But, that takes knowledge regarding what those computed quantities represent…something that has been purposefully obfuscated by over a century of gutting mathematics education by the public school institutional machinery.

        Shoot…even the very notion that statistics can “lie” is part of that same obfuscation.

    • I’m not sure to whom you are referring, but remember, there is a 99.3% correlation between margarine and divorce rates in Maine between the years of 2000 and 2009.

      • I can see the causation there: clearly margarine is so disgusting that anyone who is a spouse to someone who buys it is highly likely to immediately file for divorce.

  25. Police criminals are able to routinely harass, set up and kill citizens because the police unions have been able to infiltrate the state legislatures and bend laws that create a protected class of criminals that are able to kill without oversight or prosecution.

    Example: In December 2012, the U.S. Federal Appellate Court in Chicago totally overturned IL’s concealed weapon statute, which had been on the books since 1963.

    With the best chance in FIFTY years to pass a carry bill, NRA contract lobbyist Donald Todd Vandermyde put Duty to Inform w/ criminal penalties of 6 MONTHS or 1 YEAR in state Rep. Brandon Phelps HB183 “NRA backed” carry bill. Orland Park police chief Tim McCarthy was president of the anti-gun Chiefs of Police when Vandermyde cut the deal. McCarthy was a Secret Service agent when President Ronald Reagan was shot, and does press conferences to promote gun control with Jim & Sarah Brady.

    Rep. Brandon Phelps hails from Harrisburg, IL, 30 miles from Kentucky in Little Egypt. To Phelps and all the retards in southern IL, the police are your friends, because “we’re all on the same side,” and “we’re the good guys.” State legislatures all across America are loaded with racist hicks like Phelps who want to cops to be able to kill without question, and give them the legal tools to accomplish this without prosecution.

    Example: IL passed a much ballyhooed body cam bill in May, but there are no criminal penalties for deleting or “losing” the footage. Destruction of evidence is encouraged. The police unions influence in the state legislatures comprise the greatest domestic threat to the Constitution and the rule of law in America today.

Comments are closed.