They are both worried about criminals. The fact that some criminals have badges and guns and a conspiracy of accomplices in positions of power shielding them from accountability for their crimes doesn't make them any less criminals.

> Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the police" or "defund the police", because from their point of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street, more so than random criminals

That's starting in the general direction of the truth, but not correct. It's not so much that Black community members (much less BLM activists, who are more likely to have detailed statistics at hand) think police are the most likely threat, but that police as currently constituted are a threat that Black communities both pay for and get poor returns from, both because of actual abuse by police and because their actual law enforcement needs (and other needs which society has shoveled into the police portfolio) are simultaneously underserved (and not just when it comes to crimes by cops; BLM, after all, didn't start in response to police violence.)

If the tables were turned and the police were no longer the servants of the white community, how might that look?

Patrol cars driving around suburbs at night blasting sirens then arresting people who came out to complain. Harassing middle class white dads mowing their lawns by telling them to stop and go inside, then escalating into one-sided physical altercations requiring reinforcements. Ticketing mom groups for loitering and trespassing for congregating to chat on sidewalks with baby strollers on front of their homes, or threatening them with CPS. Breaking into homes and shooting pets and family members of kids who brought home pot, or their neighbors if they show up at the wrong house.

Who would these people call to complain to if no one else cared? How would these communities look after years of being afraid? Of having to accept that their lives were forfeit and losing loved ones to the police was just a fact of life?

Unfortunately, we already know.

I don't understand. You're saying that individual police members are not at fault for their actions? That the police institution is rotten (barrel) but stops at the individual officer (apple)?

I 100% agree that the barrel is rotten, but there are plenty of bad individuals as a result of the barrel being rotten for so long.

A way to test this, change the 'barrel' and see which 'apples' stick around. i.e. if all apples are good changing the barrel doesn't result in difference in apples just the apples' actions.

We're already seeing #bluflu, walk outs, resignations because in some specific areas of the country, the barrel is being changed out piece by piece.

I disagree that apples are not bad. Lots of them are. It'll be a painful transition, but it will be one for better if we can keep it up.

To my knowledge, that is what has been done until now - and it evidently didn't work.

I'm just trying to understand what the parent comment said because I honestly am confused.

A variety of domain-specialized community services organizations, many of which will have enforcement components, some armed, and probably at least one of which is investigatory/enforcement focussed, but no single monolithic paramilitary organization.

Not a neighborhood watch, but more like how federal law enforcement, and despite the fact that “state police” organizations do exist, that of most states, is organized.

Honestly? My fear is that governments will privatize policing. Because that's the policy that both parties can agree on / take bribes from.

For comparison in Italy in 2019 there have been 3 people killed by the police, and people have - rightfully IMO - complained every single time.

In US more than 1k (1040 to be precise) died shot by cops

If we compare the population, there should have been at least 180 victims of police gunning in Italy

That's clearly unacceptable.

Or, from another angle, it means that criminality in US is so much worse than the average EU country that it's ok to kill so many people in the name of safety.

Number of homicides in the USA in 2017: 19,510

Deaths per 100,000 population: 6.0

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

Number of homicides in Italy in 2017: 357

Deaths per 100,000 population: 0.6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Italy

On top of that, most experts say the US has a broken criminal justice system that actively prevents rehabilitation. If you count the resulting increase in the crime rate against the police, courts and jails, then their collective actions lead to way more than 5% of the killings.

* Change rules of engagement for police to emphasise de-escalation when possible and gradual escalation when absolutely necessary. E.g. in the UK police won't even have firearms on them most of the time unless specifically called to deal with a suspected incident involving weapons, but even if they do, the focus tends to be on de-escalation and waiting the situation out if possible (e.g. someone sat in a car with a gun for about 12 hours a couple of miles from me some months ago; police just got people out of the way and waited until he calmed down, while neighbours talked to the press and whined about why they didn't just shoot him - he had mental issue and a young daughter that presumably was very happy police were calm and collected).

One of my pet examples here was a case in the US were a guy with an axe was shot after charging a police officer. This was a justified killing in that the police officer was under real threat. But she shouldn't have been in danger in the first place - two of them charged in and confronted the man, instead of clearing a perimeter and waiting for backing. In contrast when I called police (UK) over a possible assault near my house a couple of years ago, they sent 8 officers for an incident with no suspected weapons involved.

Bonus points for:

* Reducing sentences for crimes carried out without weapons significantly. E.g. in Norway, using firearms can easily add 10 years to a sentence that might be 5 or less without weapons.

* Treat any use of weapons to stop e.g. a robber as murder if it's not clearly done in self defense.

Point being that criminals needs to see it as worthwhile to not bring a gun. If it is more dangerous for them to do something unarmed than it is to do it armed, and there's little meaningful difference in sentencing, then why wouldn't they go in armed?

The US has created a perverse incentive for criminals to arm themselves to the teeth.

Part of the reason for the quick escalation is that (American) cops are taught things like the Tueller Drill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwHYRBNc9r8 that claims that an attacker can close 21 feet in 1500 milliseconds and stab a victim so many times that even a fast ambulance response won't save him from bleeding out.

This idea means the cop has to unholster a pistol as soon as any sign of noncompliance is showm, start firing if a person "reaches for their waist", and empty the magazine because this Olympian attacker won't be stopped by a few bullets.

They just "want to get home to their families" despite the fact that car accidents are deadlier to cops and garbage men have more dangerous jobs.

Since UK police only exceptionally carry firearms, they have to play things safer. E.g. respond with more people. Keeping greater distance.

But lots of other police forces have - sometimes heavily - armed police with better results because they effectively act on the basis that using their weapon is an absolute last resort, and so you keep your distance if there's a risk they're armed, and call for backup rather than approach etc.

The question to the US is: how can they become less insular and more open to ways of living that aren't strictly 'American'? You would think the constitution is now set in stone: societal progression is at a complete halt after committing to a few rules 200 or so years ago. And I know that sounds hyperbolic, but even in that time it's still the case that race is a fundamental issue in the US.

Look at a Norway prison

Now take a look at an American one

Thank you for the reply. Yes, I understand that Scandinavian countries do a lot of things better. I also understand that prisons are terrible in the US and jails are worse still.

However, from stories I've heard about "interrogation techniques"...

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=https:/...

My understanding is that it is unlawful to torture (physically, mentally, ...) into answering questions and/or confessing to any crime in the US and you have a right to remain silent (in theory at least) in police custody. How well is enforced in other countries?

From what I understand, local police (talking about custody, not jail or prison) in the US will sometimes use torture techniques like isolation or suicide watch and will beat suspects when they get a chance (moving between rooms or whatever) but this is uncommon.

First, they can't really arrest you without motiv, they can't even detain you without motiv.

Second: you can confront a police officer in EU, they won't shoot you or handcuff you, unless you pose a real danger to public safety.

I had a fight with one of them three months ago, he almost ran over me with his bike and when I confronted him he removed his jacket and told he was a police officer. I said "you are two times wrong then" He yelled at me he was going to bring me in, I said "no way" and meanwhile people gathered around me and started saying to the police officer he was abusing his powers, that they had seen what he'd done with his bike and where ready to testify against him, if he didn't apologize.

He went away.

That's almost impossible in the US, where officers are trained to respond physically to basically anything that they consider a threat.

Stefano Cucchi is a very peculiar case he wasn't lawfully tortured, he was killed by the police and then they tried to cover it up.

I went to many events in support of his cause.

After years of trial the officers have been condemned and many high ranking officers asked for forgiveness to Stefano's sister, Ilaria, a great woman who stood alone against the injustice her brother faced.

But it's been a very popular case all over the news, for years, there have been a few others in Italy, but the point is it is unlawful and you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

The real problem in Italy is that it takes decades to get a final judgement.

And right now the right wing parties, that also support Trump, that wants free guns for everybody like in the US.

Anyway, torture is a crime in Italy and it is considerd an aggravating factor if it is committed by an officer.

Thank you. I appreciate your answering my questions and not assuming I am asking rhetorical questions (something I am not very good at yet). I didn't know about the case and saw it when I googled for any case.

> And right now the right wing parties, that also support Trump, that wants free guns for everybody like in the US.

I don't know for sure as I am not friends with many 45 supporters but my understanding is the "base" is more interested in guns for everyone more than 45 himself. Not that it matters in the larger scheme but just thought I'd share my understanding.

I don't blame the people of US, but their cultural system, I do.

Those who criticize or just reports things that don't work in the States are immediately flagged as anti American, it's like an instinct.

Their homicide stats are worse than many developing countries in Africa, four time worse than Canada, six times worse than China, ten times worse than Europe and Asia

Singapore's homicide rate is 30 times lower than in US!

It's really a lot

It's a failure, no matter how one frames it

But it's still very hard to get the general population to confront the numbers

They say you shouldn't shoot the messenger, but even on HN, where people are generally more educated than the average, it's really hard to start a conversation about the causes of this debacle

I lost 20 points of karma in two days because I showed stats about police brutality in US

I hope they'll get it one day, I live in Europe, my country has a lot of problems and there are many things that US does better and we looked at them for decades in search of a solution to our shortcomings

But if there's one thing we do well in EU is how our police handles critical situation, it varies from country to country of course and there are exceptions, Poland is not Spain, but in general it's true

So why not try to listen for once?

I don't have an answer honestly.

The increase in crime in the 60s and 70s didn't correlate with more guns, the decrease in crime in the late 90's didn't correlate with fewer guns.

There is clearly something going on in the US that drives crime that is not guns. Culture, welfare state, war on drugs, inequality, segregation, failure of the family. Better cases to be made on any of those things than guns.

I think the GP is correct to point out the gun thing too. Having lived in a place where guns aren’t as accessible and observing how people live, I’m sure there is some correlation.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesi...

Some people thrive on the empowerment, liberty and responsibility associated with these incredible death machines. But that's no reason to mistreat the data. For instance, the ratio associated with other death machines like cars, which have somewhat similar availability across the pond between US and Europe, is a more reasonable factor of 2/3.

I didn't say they don't affect crime, but if crime spikes, then drops then spikes, while gun ownership remains steady, then it is a piece of evidence that crime is largely driven by something other than the quantity of guns.

Who will enforce this anyways?

[0] WTF is a "criminal" anyways? I use illegal substances sometimes. I drive above the speed limit (like everyone else does) most of the time. Back when I played poker on US sites I didn't pay taxes on my winnings even though I should have. I can think of a ton of examples where I simply do not follow the law and so according to the definition of the word I am a criminal.

Why should you have a gun? It is a personal preference. Like art or poetry. You are free to want whatever you want. If you do not like/want guns, please do not have them. But, please do not impose your preferences on others.

We have an inner city culture whose music celebrates violence and does not celebrate women but instead treats them like property or worse. We have an inner city culture where schools teach kids to rely on the government and not their parents and the adults. We have an culture where not getting an education can sometimes be seen as a badge of honor and time in jail as the same. We networks with endless broadcasts of cop shows and other crime and violence shows which normalize the environment

Then on top of this you get the police. A group which has been militarized from day one from boot camp, supposedly part of which is to insure healthy cops but rarely is the physical requirement part of a continued job requirement. Who have ranks like any military organization. Who salute each other like any military organization. Who have uniforms , some for daily use, which makes it near impossible to separate them from military members. Who are issued guns for all routes and allowed to keep them on their person off duty. Who are trained by their organization and union that it is them versus the bad guys.

So there is a lot to fix but it starts at the top. Politicians must be held accountable for the mess they create and division they foster. We have to get to the music industry to police itself and tone down the violence of their lyrics and treatment of women. We need a entertainment industry which does not rely on the crime and shows with excessive violence. We need schools to emphasize the good of society and how to improve each student's outcome regardless of situation.

We did not get here overnight. The riots in Detroit back in the 60s should have been understood better but instead politicians capitalized on the fear, drove further wedges among all races, and empowered the police to be more militant. Remember who has controlled politics in most major cities since then and you may understand the lie sold to everyone. They never intended to fix the problem, they intended to feed on it. The political class used it as a guarantee of power.

Edit: so, to summarize, yes, I do think that our crazy high number of people shot by police per capita is because of and strongly related to our crazy high number of people shooting each other and themselves.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

You are comparing the number of gun deaths in 2 populations and concluding that the difference in total deaths indicates a commensurate increase in dangerous situations faced by officers. Your inclusion of gun suicides makes it extremely difficult to be charitable with your interpretation.

Greater gun suicides correlates with hopelessness and availability of guns not danger to officers and these deaths of despair are literally 60% of the gun deaths you are talking about! Half of the remaining were murdered by someone they know. Most of the remaining 20 not 100 daily murders seemingly random violent murders aren't really random they are criminals murdering other criminals.

Cops aren't overwhelmingly dealing with gang bangers they are overwhelmingly dealing with members of the general population and lots of low level offenders because that is what's out there. That is who they are murdering. They are murdering a broad swath of the population mostly not entirely focused on black people literally because they can get away with it.

Instead of pretending we can't look at the deaths in proper context we ought to analyze the deaths in their proper context. Although this is hard to do in a comment thread your reasoning is in this case worse than nothing because it gives one the false impression that you have a handle on it.

Please stop apologizing for murderers.

Edit: as such, I would remove the "because of" part of the last sentence of my previous comment, and leave the "strongly related to". My bad.

If we had guaranteed medical, we'd have a check on mental health. Probably the #1 cause of crimes in America is poor mental health and the stress of living in America.

There were about 1100 police killings in 2019. This includes people shot or beaten to death by officers on or off duty. [1] About 10% of these people were unarmed. This statistic is the one which is most likely under-reported. About 50 police are feloniously killed per year [2]

[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ [2] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...

US is a a dangerous country and the police is not doing a good job at all

If there are so many homicides, who should prevent them?

If after killing a hundred people a month (by shooting at them, I presented only the numbers of those killed by a police shooting) they can't even make a dent on the (horrible) numbers, it means they are doing a very bad job.

Tertium non datur

The mob kills less people here.

And we have at least two of the main five criminal organizations in the entire world.

At least 106 people shot, 14 fatally, in Chicago weekend violence

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-week...

Or, in US police is at war

Which is equally bad

EDIT: to give more context

If poverty rate in US was worse than in Nigeria, people would say that something went horribly wrong

Homicide rate in US is actually 1.5 times worse than Nigeria and two times worse than Uganda and Congo

Police murders aren't meaningfully correlated with crime prevention.

When she told the police this, their response was "I don’t believe you because you’re talking to police officers."

She ended up being arrested for obstruction because they kept failing to understand that her reluctance to comply was because they terrified her, and they can be heard in the bodycam footage [1] going "This is nonsense, there's something in this vehicle" after listening to her telling her dad she's afraid the police officer is going to harm her.

When the police officer starts dragging her out, she is screaming over the phone for her dad to call the police.

The officer is thankfully relatively calm, and it ended without physical harm to her, but this is a quite stark demonstration of the kind of fear the police has created, and how they then perpetuate that by not teaching their officers to understand the existence of that fear and interpret non-compliance resulting from that fear as indication of criminal activity.

She's was cleared, and is pursuing a claim against the police, but of course a claim will not address the fundamental ignorance among a lot of police officers about the fear they are inducing.

I can only imagine how much worse that fear must be in the US - at least in the UK police is rarely carrying firearms - and how awful that fear must be for parents.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/18/nurse-claims-m...

This attitude is exactly part of the problem

> Also, you can see the full bodycam footage and UK peoples take on this stop at https://old.reddit.com/r/policeuk/comments/hbbhkb/a_calm_col....

The bodycam footage is in the article I linked too, thank you, and the comments on that sub are disgusting examples of exactly the lack of understanding I described.

> Bear in mind she was stopped because the car she was in had (illegally) tinted front windows.

It was established in court that the windows were not illegally tinted.

Stop spreading nonsense.

> All in all, she seems like someone who is ingesting too much American culture, most noticable in her saying: "You are killing black people" - what??

And it's this kind of dismissal of peoples fears that are propagating this problem.

Also, at no point did I claim the officers did anything sexist or racist. That entirely misses the point that the problem is his failure to understand that the way he is choosing to act is pointlessly escalating a situation because he failed to pause and reassess and rushed ahead with a course of action he had no reason to rush into*.

I've seen UK police be far more patient than this - they're fully capable of taking their time. There was no compelling need here to be in that kind of hurry.

I have seen it. I'm not denying the cop was calm. I called that out in my original comment.

But that does not change the point I made, that he keeps dismissing her obvious signs of distress as lies or indications of guilt, and in doing so demonstrates that he does not understand that people do have genuine reactions of fear to police.

By dismissing that fear and acting the way he is doing he is perpetrating that fear.

> Playing the race card in a country where there really is not systemic racism in the police force is disgusting.

Even Theresa May admits that the Met has issues with systemic racism, after a report commissioned by David Cameron revealed massive disparities in Met treatment by race.

To suggest there is not systemic racism in the police force is disgusting, when official reports as well as former top police officers have confirmed there is.

> You don't think her statement of "you're killing black people" is silly.

No, I think it is an expression of fear and panic, that whether or not that specific fear is justified should be sign to the police officer that they're escalating a situation there is no need to escalate.

I do find it deeply offensive that you keep mocking peoples fear response to this though.

It's not the job of the police to hold the hands of every paranoid individual and shush them back to a state of tranquility.

Is Theresa May some sort of authority on policing that her name keeps being mentioned here? As an external observer it seems that she was a complete failure at everything during her tenure, surely there's someone more appropriate that offered an opinion on this topic.

I said calm, not professional. I consider his failure to notice her distress and panic to make him totally unsuited to work with the public in pretty much any capacity. It was blatantly obvious that she was in distress. Had he seen someone acting like that towards someone not a police officer, he'd have run to assist in what would have seemed like a dangerous situation on the basis of her reaction.

He was blinded by a failure to understand that someone could react with that kind of fear to the police, and as a result proceeded to completely counter-productively escalate a situation that need not have been escalated at all.

> It's not the job of the police to hold the hands of every paranoid individual and shush them back to a state of tranquility.

A large part of the job of the police is to deal with people in distress; often with mental health issues. If they are unable to deal with people in distress with empathy they're not suitable to do the job.

> Is Theresa May some sort of authority on policing that her name keeps being mentioned here? As an external observer it seems that she was a complete failure at everything during her tenure, surely there's someone more appropriate that offered an opinion on this topic.

The point is that even she accepted the report that Cameron commissioned that demonstrated extensive systemic racism in the Met, despite the reluctance of her party to deal with racism in general. Someone else posted a bunch of links about systemic racism in the UK. At this point it is willful ignorance to suggest this isn't a real problem.

And if anyone arguing against the approach you support is apparently ignorant or provoking your disgust, I think I'd rather let you focus on fighting this good fight and dealing with its Brexit consequence.

Umm... It kinda should be. yeah. It certainly shouldn't be their job to shoot those people, or tackle those people, or manhandle those people.

If you find it offensive that some people actually expect the police to treat people with empathy and understand they may be dealing with scared and panicked people or people with mental health issues, then I have no sympathy whatsoever.

The police exists to serve, not to scare innocent people into staying home - at the moment that happens, the police has become the problem and needs to be dismantled.

I think you might find it helpful to do a bit of reading on systemic racism in the UK

[1] https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/cjm/article/...

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[3] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-jus...

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/europe/black-britain-systemic...

That is not the question.

The assertion is that the lady was terrified, the constable failed to acknowledge this, and failed to act appropriately.

The constable doesn't seem like a raging racist to me. That makes this video even more important to learn from. Let me recap.

1. The car was not moving. 2. It was dark. 3. The constable thinks the window is too tinted, but it's hard to tell in the dark. 4. The lady doesn't want to be handled by police. 5. The constable agrees to get a woman officer on site, but is suspicious about the civilian's failure to cooperate. 6. The constable is irritated about being defied. 7. The officer chooses not to wait 10 minutes for the lady officer to arrive.

The end result is a confrontation between a civilian and police officers, then somebody jailed for legally tinted windows.

I am not black. I cannot completely put myself in the woman's place. But I don't have to do that to see problems here.

1. Making an issue of a parked car with possibly tinted windows after dark is a clear fishing expedition. It doesn't have to be racially motivated to be wrong.

2. De-escalate. De-escalate. De-escalate. Just chill for 10 minutes and let the lady officer show up. While you're waiting, ask the woman about the weather, if she's done anything interesting that day. Did she pay to have the windows tinted? Small talk. Build some rapport. Maybe even just outline a bit of what is going to happen when the lady officer does show up.

If the constable was suspicious about the tinting, the most he would have expected was to write a citation. But he was prepared from the very beginning to smash windows and detain by force if necessary. Why would that be necessary? Why was there some expectation of that from the outset?

The fellow seems nice. He seems polite. He seems very suspicious. He acts suspicious. He escalates when he is defied. There's no real way around it. He picked a fight. That's not nice.

I can totally see myself mishandling this situation. To me, that makes it a great video to pick apart and study inside and out to learn from.

Lesson #1: Why did you approach the car in the first place? What was your true suspicion? What was your real intent?

Be honest. This is really, really important. Getting this answer right really, really matters.

It's not that this officer need to have gone after her for being black. The big issue is that he just simply can not comprehend - as he indicates from the start - why she would be afraid of the police if she hasn't done anything wrong.

And then everything goes downhill once he's made the decision not to believe that she's actually scared, and interprets everything in that light.

Unfortunately this problem self-amplifies - this woman got one more reason to be afraid of the police, and this story gives other people reasons to be afraid of the police, and the only way to deal with that is for the police to learn to deal with that fear.

What people also seem to forget is that irrespective of racism, police needs to be able to deal with people who get panic attacks or have mental health issues or are intoxicated all the time. If they can not understand that someone might be genuinely in panic without being a criminal, and acting accordingly, the racism or not those officers will treat innocent people in ways they don't deserve.

> Just chill for 10 minutes

Not an option AT ALL. Chill outside the vehicle is what was offered to her, she refused

Once stopped, that woman is in police custody. If anything happens her or she injures herself whilst in police custody, it is a MASSIVE deal.

As the officer knows nothing about this woman other than she is refusing to engage, he had reason to believe she may have something in the car which was of danger to the woman herself or others. This may be something as benign as a bag of drugs which she then chokes on. Ridiculous as it sounds, that's why policies and procedures are put in place.

At the end of the day, coppers on the street who interact with the public everyday are much more attuned to peoples behaviour than armchair experts on the internet.

Outside her vehicle she doesn't benefit from the HEPA air filter of her car. She could get bitten by a stray dog. She could step on the needle of a careless drug user. She could be struck by a frisbee.

See how stupid it is to make dumb hypotheticals?

Here's a not-so-hypothetical. She could get in a physical confrontation with a police officer.

It seems incredible that anyone would argue she is safer outside her car than inside her car. There is no reason for her to have to get out of her car. If the window is too tinted, write the citation. If the vehicle is unfit for the road, let her call a tow truck or a friend with a trailer without getting out of her car until she feels safe.

You write that is sounds ridiculous. That is because it IS ridiculous. That is why policies and procedures are put in place?

Coppers on the street are not the only people who interact with the public everyday. When their policies and procedures are ridiculous, they should not get a free pass.

Here's a thought experiment for you. Imagine the officer was a librarian instead. A librarian with lots of experience interacting with the public. Imagine that the suspected infraction was an overdue or ruined book. Do the policies and procedures still make sense? Does the officer's behavior still make sense?

From the article linked in the parent's post:

"Court documents later established they were within the legal limit."

There was no need for the police to use violent force against this terrified woman, but they did it anyway.

How do you think police determine if they're in limit or not. They test them. She could have been on her way in 5 minutes but chose to act like an idiot.

UK police are generally quite good at de-escalating situations they understand. I've praised them for that many times. E.g. they will go into situations with completely irate people without weapons, and rely on deescalation to bring it under control.

What was it about this situation that prevented this officer from doing that? I've seen first hand that UK police are fully capable of being far more patient in far more serious situations. What was the urgency here?

The police officer chose to escalate in a situation where the suspect was calm until he acted, and where his basis for wanting to search her vehicle in the first place was her fear reaction.

Police need to be able to handle people with mental health issues, so whether or not you think her fear was justified, their way of handling it demonstrated a total failure of compassion in a situation where they had no basis for knowing why she was expressing fear.

The issue remains all too often entirely blind to this kind of fear because they don't believe it is real and fail to understand it, and reacts by making all kinds of flawed conclusions, like in this case where the footage shows signal after signal that her fear of him is genuine, and his response is to assume the only explanation is that she is hiding something.

As we know in retrospect, he demonstrated that he can not be relied on to make that kind of judgement.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscruton/2014/08/30/why-did...

Do people choose to have panic attacks? There are lots of documented cases of people who have panic attacks on planes and flip out. Are they "idiots" in your mind?

> A consultant psychiatrist’s note says Bennett had a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder from a serious house fire and is likely to have been unable to comply with police instructions because she was experiencing a severe panic attack.

I'm fairly sure the concept of a police constable giving a member of the public a "lawful order" doesn't exist in UK law. There are laws that give the police discretion to do things in particular situations, but no blanket ability to issue orders.

And thankfully, illegality is determined by the courts on the basis of evidence and circumstance, not the police.

Over window tinting.

But she could very well be having a legitimate physiological response (of which a panic attack could be one)... in which case she's not "being an idiot". As long as it was a good faith emotional response, your conclusions still aren't warranted.

They could have given her one of those saying take the paperwork for the windows to the police station any time in the next week. She could have taken a friend with her if she's nervous.

Violence is never the answer in a situation like that. The police officer was entirely wrong.

From the cam video I've seen she was clearly frightened of them. They could have chosen to use empathy instead of force.

They really ought to use this and cases like it as a training case to teach officers to recognize when they start doubling down on a course of action that is so obviously counter-productive instead of pausing to reassess, as whether or not they were technically "wrong", he clearly did an awful job and ended up wasting police resources.

So even in a scenario where the police don't care about empathy at all this way of responding was counter-productive.

What is the point?

/s

This is the fault of the media which is fishing for clicks and demonizing the police to the point that people are becoming paranoid.

Even Theresa May acknowledged in her very first speech as PM that there were problems with institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police for example.

And top Met officers have also talked about problems with racism [1] and warned about misuse of stop and search. Each little abuse of power adds to an environment of fear.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/14/former-top-m...

I prefer 'Police Out Of Poor Neighborhoods'. Police actually add value in rich neighborhoods (maybe by definition), and it's got a humorous acronym.

Edit: And police are much less likely to be shot at in rich neighborhoods. It's really win-win-win.

I think this is one of the two culture clashes happening with police versus civilians right now.

After the protests in the wake of the Michael Brown killing, there were articles written[1][2] about how there are a ton (many dozens) of tiny towns around Saint Louis each only a few city blocks large that prey on their citizens like parasites. Middle class people have largely moved out of these towns so they avoid this problem.

I don't think "defund the police" is a particularly good slogan and this is likely the reason other comfortably middle class families are likely to reject that calling.

But I also think that those who are comfortably middle class and ignoring the very real struggles of the lower class at the hands of the police and their governments have a duty to help lift their fellow Americans up and at least learn about the problems they face, if not do something about them. If we don't, we are no better than the pre Civil War city dwellers of the North comfortably ignoring the plight of the slaves and the indentured servants in the agrarian south.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/343143937/in-ferguson-court-f...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/0...

The trouble as I see it is that police broadly have two functions: to respond to emergencies where violence is likely and to suppress or tax the grey and black economy (huh. just noticed the ufnordunate linguistics of that). The 'responding to emergencies' function will of course still need to be performed, but it's fairly reliable that the poorer a neighbourhood is the less likely the residents are to voluntarily call 911 if an emergency does happen. In truly poor places the 'taxing grey and black markets' part of police work completely overshadows the good done by the 'responding to emergencies' part.

That is understandably very difficult for wealthy people to imagine, because they have very few examples of grey or black markets in their own lives, let alone instances where they have no other options. The thought that most people in any area would rather have enterprising teenagers sell bootleg cigarettes without hassle isn't even repugnant to them, it's just foreign.

The inescapable conclusion to withdrawing the police is: 1 - response times will go up drastically, 2 - security will deteriorate, 3 - wealthier and middle class folks will stop visiting/living in those areas because of #1 and #2, 4 - the tax base will evaporate, 5 - the infrastructure, schools, and all other communal areas will deteriorate, 6 - the class divide will become a gaping chasm between the poor who are relegated to the slums and everyone else. We don't have to try this again. We know that this is what happens from our own history in the 20th century!

The empathy exercise for those of us in privileged neighborhoods is to imagine: How toxic must the dynamic be for entire communities to feel less safe with police and want them out altogether?

Technically a crime. But we all knew they and their children needed the meat. If everyone did it, the deer population would collapse and no one could hunt effectively even in-season. If someone had called a wildlife officer they could have certainly made the trek down. But no one would think to call the wildlife officers on them, because we knew it would lead to their children going hungry.

I think the thing people from rich neighbourhoods miss about that sort of thing is that when they hear stories of that nature [1], people's children going hungry over a minor infraction is seen as a failure of empathy on the constabulary's part. It's not. It's a failure of the law, and the constabulary's job is to uphold the law, not play social worker to people who break it. Hence our community's collective judgement that it was in everyone's best interest if the wildlife officer never found out about our neighbor's poaching activities.

[1] Joe Oliver has a great rant about a similar situation, lest readers think this only works in rural settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto

I grew up poor, white, in a neighborhood with non-whites (black, asian, and hispanic). None of us was safe from the police, though whites were in marginally less danger generally.

Edit: I guess I should propose a solution instead of just railing against this idea. How about we: 1 - end the war on drugs, and 2 - fundamentally address poverty for once in this country.

That's why all this crying over law and order in response to the protests is kind of hilarious. Their heavy handed tactics have backfired hard, and I have no sympathy for any of them. I feel for the police the same way I'd feel for an occupying army facing resistance.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Eschew flamebait."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/apocalypse...

It's a night and day difference, and I can only imagine it's much worse for those with different skin colors.

But if we're going off statistics...

Black people are more likely to die or be injured from other black people more than they are by cops.

By, like, a lot.

this article showcases how impervious cops are to taking responsibility, especially against the poor and powerless.

But your comment of being more afraid of the cops over the crime in their own neighborhoods reeks of Americans being more scared of terrorism than heart disease.

People who live their lives in a fashion as they are extremely unlikely to be harmed still worry that cops will murder their children for no reason. People also fear uncontrollable danger more so than things that they feel they can control even if they are in fact doing a bad job of it.

> reeks of Americans being more scared of terrorism than heart disease

I'd like to point out it's not just any black people that are most likely to kill/injure others. There is a very small subset (likely less than 1%) of the population. In that way, being deathly afraid of other black people in the USA, being deathly afraid of police in the USA, and being deathly afraid of terrorists in the USA are all irrational (or at least disproportionate) fears.

That said, we don't tell people their fears of lightning are unfounded or disproportionate to furniture falling on them. Using pure statistics against a limbic system response isn't particularly useful. Your limbic system remains fearful, even if your cognitive brain knows the odds don't require that same level of fear.

I 100% agree with your comment.

I cannot believe how many people I see here saying (in other places, not in the comments in this story) "see, this is proof that systemic racism is gone" ... just blows my mind.

I don’t think that is framed correctly.

Black or white statistically you are far more likely to be killed (or assaulted) by non-police Of the same race as you.

I think everyone knows that, and to say police are the most likely to assault of kill black people takes the wind out of the sails of the legitimate issues. In other words police represent an additional threat to one of the groups and not the other, but in either instance the police are not the most likely perpetrators to either group.

That really doesn't matter that much. If a stranger assaults someone and a police office assaults someone, those are not equal. The stranger can be tried and convicted, but the police officer not as easily if at all. Also the stranger is a stranger, while the police officer I pay for and exists to serve and protect me.

An example of this is a police office in San Diego sexually assaulted (forced oral sex) 16 women after going to their house after they called the police to report a crime. That is so much worse than a stranger doing those things. And by the way... the police officer was convicted and served six months.

Not if law enforcement institutions, and society as a whole (including jurors) doesn't treat crimes as seriously where people who look like you are the victim. Were that the case, you might want to correct it by starting a movement dedicated to convincing society of the proposition “Lives of people who look like me matter”.

Not that there is a currently-relevant group with exactly that origin story, where the crystallizing event was the lack of accountability for a particular act of non-police homicide.

I assure you it matters to the victims and their families.

And I don’t disagree about the morality of police abusing their powers...but a death is a death and a tragedy is a tragedy. No one is celebrating the death of their loved one no matter what the killers skin color or occupation.

> That is so much worse than a stranger doing those things.

Again it’s not like the victim of a sexual assault is saying thank god I was rapped by a non-officer.

Aside from the fact that such a victim may very well feel that way (or more likely the inverse: I wish the person who raped me had not been an officer so I could seek justice) this observation seems orthogonal to the point since it is a question of perception.

The person who has not (yet) been raped is justified in being more fearful of a random police officer than of another random human because there is the perception (and indeed often the reality) that the police officer is able to act with impunity.

Also, for some groups, each interaction with a stranger comes with a small chance that they are a criminal who seeks to do you harm, but interacting with police carries a near 100% chance that they are suspicious of you and carefully watching your every move looking to find any justification to bust you.

I am not black and I am more fearful/wary of police officers than other strangers on the street. I never even considered the actual odds before.

I have been pepper sprayed by police officers for consuming cannabis in public. I have been mugged in the night by a black man with a gun. The mugger never pointed his gun at me. When he found the food stamps in my wallet he gave it back to me and told me to "stay safe". I am more scared of random police officers than I am of black men I encounter.

Your assurance is no different than my opinion. You are speaking for victims just as I am, but I've been hurt by people I trust and I've been hurt by strangers. They aren't equal to me and I don't think I'm alone in that.

> Again it’s not like the victim of a sexual assault is saying thank god I was rapped by a non-officer.

If you think that is what I was trying to imply then I must have severely mis-worded my previous comment.

I’m the first to welcome enhanced penalties for officers committing crimes in their official capacity...but I find your words very disturbing.

The number of unarmed black men shot by police across the entire US in 2019 was 14. [0] How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest?

Also, do people actually think the police generally and on average does more harm than good as to request abolishing it?

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...

People are protesting because the same factors present in wrongful deaths are also present in lower-level harassment by police. Black people have lots of personal stories about police encounters which will never be widely shared because there's no video and you have to trust the storyteller that the police acted wrongly. From the article:

> A recent CCRB report focused on police abuse against Black and Latino boys: “Young teens or pre-teens of color were handcuffed, arrested, or held at gunpoint while participating in age-appropriate activities such as running, playing with friends, high-fiving, sitting on a stoop, or carrying a backpack.”

The report doesn't focus on police shootings, it focuses on police abuse. Protestors are using uncommon events to highlight common events.

An encounter with the police is actually 3 times more dangerous for citizens than it is for the police. And that's for an unarmed person.

If we concede that the police "have a dangerous job", then interacting with them, (which again, is three times more dangerous) should reasonably be pretty terrifying.

I've lived in neighborhoods in Denver where people didn't call the police. Not because they feared retribution from others, but because over and over the police have hurt them, their family, or their friends. And examples of them helping in those neighborhoods are much harder to come by( I can't think of a single time? ). The general feeling is that the police are not there to help you, they are there to watch you and keep you in line.

It doesn't. The protests aren't limited to all of the extreme cases you mention.

The way I see it, the protests are joined in by a large number of cohorts who wouldn't care about that smaller very specific demographic, but lots of people have found some reason to be empathetic to victims of police or otherwise critical of the legal/incarceration system.

Some people want more police accountability (via either employment contracts, civil law, or criminal law). Some people want to reduce or eliminate no-knock warrants/raids. Some people want to decriminalize lots of recreational drug use. Some people just want to be able to walk/drive without getting pulled over because some cop thinks they "fit a description". Some are tired of the legal system abusing/harassing them so they can see a friend / family member in jail.

Add up the list of people who have some grievances with police and I doubt you get too far from a majority of the country. There are still a ton of people who "support the police", even if they also have a grievance with "the system".

It's vaguely like optimizing a funnel in e-commerce. The point is to reduce friction at all points to optimize for the best ratio of people who are exposed to your system who then complete the desired action (purchase and have a positive experience). Police have almost no incentive to fix any of these interactions. Their fitness function as an industry has more to do with pumping stats and clearance rates and little to do with making sure your interaction with the police was pleasant. That is... unless you are a family member with police (I do so I see it).

Because it's on the news, while the 51 unarmed whites killed by police in 2019 [1] aren't.

[1] https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends

1. Most people who dislike or distrust the police don't actually trust those numbers. There are decades worth of documented evidence of police lying about people carrying weapons, and sometimes even carrying weapons to plant on people they kill. So from the start, a lot of us think that number is an undercount, possibly by a dramatic degree.

2. Even among the people who are armed who are shot by police, there are people who weren't doing anything wrong who were still shot. The most recent high profile version of this was Philando Castile. Technically, he was armed when he was shot, but when he was killed, he had already informed the police about his licensed, legal firearm and was moving slowly towards the glove compartment, as instructed by an officer, to retrieve his registration. So it's not just shootings of unarmed people.

3. Police don't just shoot people to death. George Floyd was not shot; Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for just under nine minutes. Eric Garner was not shot; Daniel Panteleo choked him to death with an illegal chokehold. Adam Trammell was not shot; he was hit with a Taser, 18 times, while in the shower and experiencing mental issues, and it caused his heart to stop. Sandra Bland was not shot; she supposedly hung herself with a plastic grocery bag in her cell after being arrested as a result of a pretextual traffic stop. This list could go much, much longer. Only looking at shooting deaths artificially constrains the number of people police kill in a very deceptive way.

4. There are so very many other ways that police can make your life absolutely miserable without shooting or killing you. I am not Black, and so I have been spared many of these experiences, but of my Black friends and family, I can tell you this: every single one of them has had police harass them for absurdly minor issues, or sometimes no issue at all. A number of them have had a police officer point a gun at them. Almost all of them have been at some point unofficially detained for some length of time. Some of them have been arrested and then eventually released without charges. All of them who drive get pulled over at least a few times per year, without fail. These are mostly middle- or upper-middle-class professionals. They live all over the United States, in cities and towns, in places with large Black populations and small Black populations, and yet their experiences all share a commonality that is terrifying when you pull back even a little bit and look at them as a pattern.

5. But maybe this should have been #1...what do you think is a reasonable number of shootings of unarmed people? Personally, I think that number is zero, so even "just 14" is absolutely grounds for extreme anger, even if you want to ignore my first four points. I don't think the police, people who are given special dispensation and training to use violence in the name of the state, should ever shoot and kill an unarmed person. I actually think any number of deaths caused by police is too many deaths. In every situation, they are the people with the most training. They are (ultimately) the best-armed. I recognize that, in a country with as many guns as the US, maybe the police will have to kill some small number of people per year, but I think every time they do, that shooting should be heavily scrutinized. We give them these weapons and powers so they can protect people, even people who commit crimes, and if they have to kill someone, they have failed to protect that person.

I hope those points answer your first question, and start to explain the answer to your second question. In response to that, though, I would first ask what you've read about police abolition so far.

I humbly suggest that if you give this some thought, you'll see that isn't a very good answer. Any complex system, especially one that involves humans, will have errors. There's no way around that. So the only way to eliminate errors completely is to eliminate the system entirely. This understanding is perhaps what fuels the call for police abolition: No amount of reform and training will get the error rate to zero, so the only way to get zero police accidents is to not have any police.

To illustrate my point further, consider medical malpractice. How many deaths caused by doctor error is acceptable? If the answer is zero, one needs to abolish medicine. How many automobile accidents are acceptable? If zero, we must abolish all motorized transport. I think for the most part people accept the unfortunate fact that accidents are an inevitable part of any system, and should be accepted if we consider the system to do more good than harm.

That's not a small number, though. Do you think that any number is acceptable? Any number above 0 deserves the kind of protest response we see in America today.

Your post is invalidating to the centuries of oppression faced by Blacks in America and to their struggles today.

Because the police routinely treat people who aren't police or aren't visibly well to do (which being white goes a long way toward) like crap.

People will tolerate that or they'll tolerate some deaths but they won't tolerate both.

'defund the police' as I think of it isn't about defunding completely, but recognising that we are way off on the 'too many police per capita' side of the scale, possibly because poor neighborhoods are getting a police presence closer to the 'sweet spot' of rich neighborhoods.

This may be their view, but it is overwhelmingly incorrect.

And assault with a deadly weapon.

A minor but significant adjustment:

Average black parents worry about both

But when I went out, my mother (and elders in our community) would say specifically, may God protect you from the police. That is a significant statement.

The fear may be there, but I don't see it justified in the numbers.

It's not just about getting killed - it's about getting unfairly fined, arrested, beaten, jailed, and so on. From my own life experience, the fear is warranted.

But as Erem points out, the situations are fundamentally different in that when one is victimized by a criminal, one has a number of options. When one is victimized by law enforcement, those options are severely limited, especially if you don't have money or influence.

But you do have to do a sanity check with the numbers at some point, and reconcile them with the feelings/beliefs/narratives you get from the media and pop culture

I am a black man, that lives in a poor city with high-crime rates. I've spent significant time in "dangerous" neighborhoods, as a resident and visitor. The number of times I've gotten the treatment I've described from criminals is 0. The number of times I've gotten the treatment from the police is >0. The same can be said for pretty much all of my minority acquaintances here. I, for one, am not getting this narrative from the media and pop culture, I'm getting it from life experience. Yes, that's not the same as carefully collected statistics, but it's not based on nothing.

However, when you learn through experience that cops themselves seek to harm you, then what? There is no recourse! Who will try the cops? If you do fight back publicly, who will stop them from endlessly patrolling outside your house seeking some minor infraction? Who will stop them from burying you in fines? Your elected representatives are your only option and good luck with that. I'll assert that in human psychology this helplessness reasonably magnifies fear beyond the statistics.

In fact, when you come through experience to fear the cops it also makes the _criminals_ more terrifying -- calling the cops becomes like running to the lions because you are being chased by wolves. So you just give up and let the wolves consume you.

And pure conjecture here maybe criminals know that, which emboldens them to preferentially predate upon black people thereby producing your original murder statistic.

You are right that aggregated data is not the only thing that matters. It tends to represent only easily-quantifiable concepts.

But you do have to do a sanity check with the numbers at some point, and reconcile them with the feelings/beliefs/narratives you get from the media and pop culture.

The next step is that white people just say its all about economics. Its because they're poor. While being poor in america absolutely correlates to both committing and being a victim of crime, even when you take race out of it, there are countless instances of middle and upper class black people being treated like criminals in a way that absolutely NEVER happens to whites. A white person in an oxford shirt and khakis doesn't get arrested outside of their own home in Cambridge - it happened to a black professor.

Article on police harrassment of blacks: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-100-million-poli...

Source: https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/data/

Here's some additional data at least.

Recent protests and police reactions should be a starting point.

I assume you ignored and downvoted my other comment explaining the philosophy behind it, so I won't repost it.

My takeaway here is that people simply care A LOT more about police violence than ordinary violence, something like 20X.

I'm having a hard time figuring out the truth on this particular point. I've seen conflicting reports, such as this study from a black Harvard economics professor which found no racial bias [0].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evi...

A 2010 NY State report on police-on-police shootings, studying them nationally, found clear evidence of racial bias being a factor in suh shootings.

But I'm sure that either racial bias has been eliminated in the last decade or it somehow doesn't effect police interactions with people who aren’t unrecognized police officers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html?aut...

It's not that surprising that the same would apply to police officers, e.g. off-duty black officers live in black neighborhoods and black neighborhoods have a larger police presence or higher crime rates, so there are disproportionately many police shootings and black officers are no less affected than anyone else there.

The article seems to imply this:

> Of the 26 fatal shootings, 5, including Officer Ridley’s case, involved an off-duty officer who came across a crime in progress and moved to help other officers or a civilian, the report found. In five other cases, including the Edwards shooting, an off-duty officer was a crime victim and then tried to make an arrest or to take police action, the report found.

> In all but 2 of the 26 fatal shootings of officers that were examined, the victim was holding a gun and had it “displayed” when he or she was shot, the report found.

Sounds a lot like off-duty white officers may just be less likely to encounter situations in which they draw their weapons.

A study found that white police are no more likely to shoot minorities than non-white police, but that is dismissed as flawed reasoning. [1]

Another study examining lethal and non-lethal interactions with police;

> In the raw data, blacks are 21.3 percent more likely to be involved in an interaction with police in which at least a weapon is drawn than whites and the difference is statistically significant. Adding our full set of controls reduces the racial difference to 19.4 percent.

> In stark contrast to non-lethal uses of force, we find no racial differences in officer-involved shootings on either the extensive or intensive margins. Using data from Houston, Texas – where we have both officer-involved shootings and a randomly chosen set of potential interactions with police where lethal force may have been justified – we find, in the raw data, that blacks are 23.8 percent less likely to be shot at by police relative to whites. [2]

I think at this point the statistics can be used to argue both ways.

I think what’s left behind is the undeniable fact that certain inner cities are more like war zones than civilian population centers with the number of daily shooting and killings. Chicago just saw 18 murders in 24 hours, or nearly ~4,500 shootings per year. [3]

According to the Washington Post last year there were 9 fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police (19 of white people). Fatal police shootings in total were about 1,000 and ~25% were black, a number that under-represents black people relative to the rate of violent crime.

Compare to what the Atlantic describes as the “homicide plague afflicting black America“ of black on black civilian violence, which claims nearly 100,000 lives per decade. This is not whataboutism, this is flip sides of the same coin, because while “defunding” police can reduce the total number of armed and unarmed black people killed by police a maximum of ~2,500 per decade, what will it do to the 100,000 killed per decade in inner city gang wars?

In my estimation, the vilification of police as racist, declarations of “ACAB” and “Fuck 12”, and calling to abolish or defund the police is more likely to result in significantly more dangerous environments where the majority of black homicides are occurring.

[1] - https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/study-claims-white-p...

[2] - https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/l...

[3] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-...

The vilification of police as racist is political. It's always political. The police being jerks to everyone somehow seems less unfair and more acceptable than the police being jerks to only black people, so the people who want change argue that it's racism even though that's basically a lie. Because if it's racism you can get people angrier about it. (The problem is it also alienates all the non-black victims of police misconduct who would otherwise be allies, and also allows opponents to pretend there isn't a problem if they can disprove the racism, even though the misconduct and mistreatment still exist regardless of whether they're racially motivated.)

But the less extreme calls to "defund the police" aren't actually that unreasonable. Because you don't defund the murder police, only the rest of it. Reduce their number by narrowing their scope to only investigating major crimes, so that there aren't as many police needed, so that you're less likely to interact with any of them and have a bad experience.

You basically do the opposite of the "broken window" garbage -- forget about broken windows and instead concentrate on solving ~100% of the murders. Which becomes easier when you discontinue having a million BS traffic stops for revenue extraction and stop and frisk, since they only increase community resentment of the police and make them less likely to cooperate in investigations of serious crimes.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550620916071

The overall trend appears to be that racial minorities can expect more violence and shootings from the police, even though quantifying the exact numbers is difficult and subject to contextual considerations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23578103

Regardless, even if it is purely due to bias, it doesn't really justify the difference in fear between "carefree" and "won't go outside".

For instance, I've been reading lately that black men have been found hanging from trees by nooses in California recently, and that the deaths were ruled suicide. Do you believe that these deaths were suicide?

I guess there could be outright premeditated cold-blooded murders that are disguised as suicides, but I can't imagine that's very common. I mean, you can't bring a body in with a zillion bullet holes and tell the coroner it was suicide. And, as you point out, a noose is going to (hopefully) generate a lot of suspicion and a thorough investigation.

The main area of uncertainty is not the number of police killings, but the number of justified versus unjustified killings.

But you can bring in a body that was in the backseat of your cop car, handcuffed behind the back, and with two shotgun wounds to the chest and tell the coroner it was suicide, and have it signed off on...

Well, no, because “zillion” isn't a number.

But with actual numbers of bullet holes, yes, history shows that happens. And that the inconsistent injuries either get convenient explanations, or are left off the report as if they didn't happen. Now, when these things get additional public scrutiny, it's an embarrassment, but that usually hasn't happened, which is why there is a culture of impunity.

That isn't to say that coverups don't happen, and numbers aren't occasionally wrong or manipulated. But how far off do you think these numbers really are?

And do you expect these numbers are manipulated even in areas with black chiefs of police, attorneys general, and distict attorneys?

She had been shot eight times while sleeping.

You're a white supremacist and you are arguing in bad faith. Get the fuck into the sea, you vile fucking bigot.

How about beaten (see threads of hundreds). Arrested (in 2012 7% of black people were arrested vs 2.9% of whites). Sent to prison (2500 per 100,000 vs 450 for whites). How about being late to an important meeting because a cop saw you driving. People want freaking respect and your argument is minimizing it into just murders (which are absolutely HORRIFYING and TERRORIZE communities, which could've used a mention).

Please try to pay more attention to the actual arguments.

Others have pointed out that it's about a 9:1 ratio of civilian killings to police killings, which is an absolutely appalling ratio, made even worse by the fact that there are far fewer police than civilians.

But something I have seen here yet occurs to me after typing that: Cops protect each other over everything else, so if you're the victim of a cop, you literally have nobody to turn to for justice.

It' important to note that it's about a 10:1 ratio of civilian murders to police killings. Murder is by definition wrongful killing, but some significant majority of police shootings are a legitimate use of force.

That might be interesting, but the numbers around those things are much less reliable. Numbers about deaths are usually better data, more objective, and easier to find.

My point is just that 2-3X of a small number is still a small number. It shouldn't affect your decision about whether to go outside or not when there are much larger numbers to worry about (like the risk of getting murdered).

Having said that, a lot of criminal violence happens if you're mixed up in that world or frequenting a bad area as opposed to just random violence. There's something different about police violence where it has that random quality and can affect you anywhere, sometimes just minding your own business.

Plus it's doubly egregious because the police are supposed to protect you, not hurt you. Even before this became an issue, and as a white person, I get nervous with police interactions. You just don't know what kind of mood they're in or how they're interpreting the situation.

It's irrelevant to the real issue, but not to the upthread claim that blacks view police as the greatest threat. In the latter context, it is not irrelevant to point out that such a view does not seem to be in line with the evidence.

If only folks would listen to Black voices, they wouldn't be gumming up the conversation with irrelevance.

White on white crime is also much more prevalent than crime across racial boundaries. A priori you are much more likely to be a victim of crime by someone you know or in your immediate community. Because America is so segregated still, the conclusion follows pretty immediately.

This is, of course, as true as it is irrelevant. Because police can be 1/7th as likely to kill black people as non-police, and that's still far, far too many and a completely different category of murder (because the murderers are rarely punished, and are protected by the power of the state). Even if cops were 1/70th as likely to be the murderer of a black person, it's too many.

Some kinds of death are both avoidable and morally reprehensible for a society to allow or condone.

This page is a good summary of the relevant statistics: https://beehivemedia.com/dataviz/when_police_kill_in_black_a...

As you point out yourself, it doesn't necessarily if you consider the average black person. The average black person is not a gang member, not a criminal and doesn't hang out with those groups. It may very well be that for such a person the police are a bigger risk than criminals. It's simply that the massively higher violence amongst criminals shifts the overall numbers.

Polices are using unnecessarily lethal force indiscriminately for offenses and in situations that don't require in the least. They have been getting positive reinforcement by being not prosecuted and being protected by their force and the system in general.

Also, a number of cases have come out recently of police were disciplined, including dismissals, for reporting or intervening against excessive use of force by other cops, so there is negative reinforcement for good cops as well as positive reinforcement for the bad ones.

"Positive" and "negative" in reinforcement don't mean "good, pleasant, desired" and "bad, unpleasant, not desired". They mean "something was added" and "something was taken away". Better names would be "additive" and "subtractive".

The term for "good, pleasant, desired" is "reinforcement", for "bad, unpleasant, not desired" is punishment.

So:

Positive reinforcement --> Behaviour leads to addition of pleasurable stimulus. Eg. Press button, receive food.

Negative reinforcement --> Behaviour leads to removal of unpleasant stimulus. Eg. Press button, persistent loud noise is muted.

Positive punishment --> Behaviour leads to addition of unpleasant stimulus. Eg. Press button, loud noise begins.

Negative punishment --> Behaviour leads to removal of pleasant stimulus. Eg. Press button, food is taken away.

Yes, the world is not perfect in many ways.

That does not remove the logical fallacy of implying that because police are (wrongly, as you say) a mortal threat to those who resist arrests, therefore police are one of the biggest threats (if not the threat) in an average black persons life. The recent two cases do not offer convincing evidence for the latter (although other cases may do so).

Of course this (particular topic) isn't really a place for arguing for an argument's sake. Rather, it's for showing your compassion.

I don't think they have to be the biggest threat to acknowledge that the police are out of control and above the law. Fix them, or abolish them and recreate them if they can't be fixed.

This issue goes well beyond racism. Blacks feel it the most, but this problem affects everybody. Nobody wants police that can steal from you (civil forfeiture) or assault or even kill you without sufficient reason or consequences.

The US treats its outliers poorly. We have the highest rate of incarceration and a disquieting likelihood of police interactions ending in violence against suspects relative to other countries.

Sometimes, they are police themselves:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html?aut...

Also FYI, in the case of Rayshard Brooks (the victim who took the officer's Taser), the District Attorney said that the Taser "had already been fired twice and was thus empty and no longer a threat". https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-atlanta-ra...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnHecVdUysQ

The officer starts reaching for his gun between seconds 4 and 5, Brooks fires the tazer in second 5 and then is shot at the end of second 6.

And regardless, let's not move the goalposts to consider only the time after Brooks fired the Taser. After all, it's not like that was the first opportunity the officer had to calculate how many shots it had left.

>He made the decision to draw his gun in the first place already knowing

Which is different from the gun being drawn. You can clearly see the officer pass his tazer from his right to left hand and then reach for his gun prior to the tazer shot.

>And regardless, it's not like the moment that Brooks fired the Taser was the first opportunity the officer had to calculate how many shots it had left.

Having a second potentially valid argument doesn't change the accuracy of the one made.

>The NYTimes has a good breakdown: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/videos-rayshard-brooks....

Perhaps you should read it again since they agree with me:

>In seconds, Officer Rolfe passes his Taser from his right hand to his left hand, and reaches for his handgun.

>While being chased, and in full stride, Mr. Brooks looks behind him, points the Taser

Reaching for a holstered handgun and deciding to draw it are two separate things.

> Having a second potentially valid argument doesn't change the accuracy of the one made.

I'm making exactly one argument: the officer who killed Rayshard Brooks did so knowing that the Taser in his hand was useless. You've yet to offer any evidence to the contrary.

What I actually implied was that I hardly think these two are very good examples of “average” persons, or “average” black persons, which should be taken into consideration in parent's logic.

Especially the 2 minutes after another officer checked for and could not find a pulse.

To evaluate whether or not that is true, we just need two numbers: (1) how many black people a year are killed by the police, and (2) how many black people a year are killed by random criminals.

It's hard to think of a good reason one would narrow #2 to just "black-on-black" crime if the goal is to show that the original statement is wrong.

It's also kind of irrelevant in another sense. People have been working on stopping crime for millennia and are still nowhere near figuring it out.

Police killings are something we might actually be able to do something about, so it makes sense to concentrate on them even if they are not actually the biggest immediate danger to individuals.

The race of the murderer was irrelevant to my point, and the difference between police killing versus getting murdered would have been even more pronounced had I included all murders.

I'm a little confused about your point about stopping crime. Surely it can't be stopped completely, but just as surely, some policies are more effective than others. For instance, ending the war on drugs would likely dry up funding for gangs.

Lack of police accountability and oversight is the problem - regardless of color combinations of the murder and the victim.

The portrayal of black people as prone to violence and incorrigibly dangerous goes beyond fiction and well into the past to the founding of the United States.

For one example, consider the United States' nominal newspaper of record, the New York Times.

Do an internet search using the following terms (no quotes) "NYTimes Giant Negro".

Stereotypes of blacks as intimidating and dangerous go beyond fiction and the end of the Twentieth Century into the domain of "reported facts" and well into the past.

Black people. "Blacks" sounds totally dehumanising.

As a black person, I'm grateful for this feedback. Thank you.

Sure, but pop culture in large part expresses and transmits preexisting stereotypes (and even when it doesn’t, it is perceived through the lens of those stereotypes.)

I'm not saying it's not involved, just that it's not the source.

Urban black communities had (and have) a lot of violence. That's a fact, not a stereotype.

The stereotype is that this is due to the inherently violent, unintelligent, morally inferior nature of Blacks.

You can choose to fear who you want to fear, I guess. But the numbers seem to suggest pretty much everyone should be more concerned about being murdered than being killed by police.

Being killed by police is more of a betrayal, for sure. For that reason it might be worse in some sense. But I'm not sure why that should result in disproportionate fear on the order of 20X.

Also, I should say that it's much harder to pin down how many murders police prevent.

Because if you successfully defend yourself from a murderer you have a rightful plea to self defense.

If you successfully defend yourself from a cop trying to murder you. You will be lucky with life without the possibility of parole. There is an implicit cannot flee cannot fight in an interaction with a law enforcement officer. So pretty much your natural fight or flight is neutralized and that is a hell of a situation to be in.

Society is disquietingly tolerant of murder when the murderer is wearing a badge and executing a suspect "In the line of duty."

If not for the nationwide protests, it is extremely likely the murderers of George Floyd would still be employed by their police departments, forget arrested.

I agree.

But the original post seemed to be saying that it was rational for blacks to be carefree about criminals and afraid of police, which just doesn't seem in line with the data.

And it's also disquieting how little people seem to care about murder victims, who are much more numerous and also disproportionately black (by a greater factor than the disproportionate killings by police). Those black lives matter, too.

Police officers are instantly recognizable. If you're statistically more likely to be harmed by the police than by a regular person then it is completely rational to be concerned when you see one.

It's part of the story, though. The incident in the linked article started because a group of teens jumped another and stole his phone. If that's happening 10x as often then innocent kids in that neighborhood are going to be 10x as likely to be swept up in police action.

https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/126846376828518809...

- "Locking Up Our Own", James Foreman, an analysis by a black attorney discussing black crime, black recidivism and black involvement as attorneys and judges in the criminal justice system

- "In Contempt", Christopher Darden, an autobiography written by one of the attorneys in the OJ Simpson trial where swaths of the book are dedicated to Darner's views and interactions with other attorneys who tackled "black on black crime" in LA during the 90's prior to his time as a District Attorney

- "The Man Not" (the most recent publication in this non-exhaustive list), Tommy Curry, explorations on the victimization of black men by their black guardians, with some focus on sexual abuse and exploitation of their bodies as the lens through which Curry focuses a larger critique

- "Negroland", Margo Jefferson, a memoir of the black elite class of Chicago and ramifications of black success experienced sometimes at the expense of lower-class black Americans, perpetuated sometimes by upper-class black Americans

I'm a bit fatigued by the insinuation that black America is shirking a responsibility to tackle these in-group issues, because it's not as if there's a lack of poignant critical theory emerging from our group on the topic. It's all there and readily available, and the names and reference content I provided here isn't an exhaustive list either.

---

[0] https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/who-is-we-1833100853

Caveat lector: If we agree.

I don't agree with this idea that the statistics of criminality in the black community is a proxy for anything, and more that it is a result of multiple compounding issues that snowballed throughout generations of peoples bringing us to where we are today. In your mind what is this a proxy for? I'd like to hear this notion unpacked.

Those questions are varied and nuanced and their answers are equally varied and nuanced, and against the backdrop of exactly how certain members of the constabulary execute (pun most certainly and deliberately intended) violence in response to violence are people like me trying to desperately point at as this the topic we want to discuss when we say "Black Lives Matter", yet time and time again we have to stop and have the "black people commit more crimes" discussion with people who are focused on the math of crimes committed while black at the expense of just about any other valid variable in the equation.

So if we take the "black people commit more crimes" framework on its face, does that mean they deserve to die for all of them? Did Sandra Bland really need to be shot because she didn't want to put out a cigarette at a traffic stop or could the officer have written her the moving citation she probably actually deserved, and gone about his policing elsewhere?[0] Did Eric Garner need asphyxiation for a civil citation when he was stopped for selling illegal cigarettes? Did George Floyd need to have a knee on his neck for nearly 10 minutes for a counterfeit $20?

I challenge us all to think beyond just "well they committed a crime" and start asking some hard goddamn questions about what we're saying if that's going to be the response to critical theories of criminal justice-because many (not all) of the names commonly shouted out in discussion about police brutality committed petty offenses that should have received citations but instead received death sentences; highlighting a severely disproportionate view of policing scofflaws that breaks "well they broke the law" down into "contempt of cop"[1].

---

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/2...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop

Criminality, like I said.

I don't see anywhere in your post where you actually addressed the point I made. Again, that is if Black people commit X times as many crimes we should expect X times as many negative police interactions. Whether that be excessive violence or innocents being swept up in police action or anything else.

From this, allow me to make my position more clear:

No, we shouldn't "expect" an increase in police violence in response to black criminality, because it assumes violence is the appropriate and proportionate State response to deviant criminal behavior when often it is neither appropriate nor proportionate nor even necessary. Again, Sandra Bland: died during a traffic stop; George Floyd and Eric Garner died during Terry[0] stops. Breonna Taylor died while she was asleep. Cite for me the case law that admonishes an escalation of physical force to issue civil citations and I will consider the point earnestly and openly.

Furthermore, we need to narrow the scope and find an actionable definition for "officer safety" as many LEOs use as a defense against misconduct charges.

Resisting arrest should not be a death sentence, officers should be trained better and dealt with far more swiftly (it took nearly three months for an officer who blind-fired into Breonna Taylor's house to even be disciplined by his precinct and still has not faced charges[1]). If I blind fired my weapon onto the streets and bullets went into someone's home, I'd be arrested and charged. If I blind fired my weapon unprovoked as a member of the armed services, as I formerly was, I'd be court marshaled faster than the SR-71 can fly for failure to follow rules of engagement.

Public peace officers shouldn't be held to any lesser of a standard.

Your premise is therefore addressed, but rejected on merits.

---

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

[1] https://blavity.com/officer-brett-hankison-will-be-fired-fro...

I understand the concepts well, I just disagree with the premise as you've framed it, and I'd like to think I've done as much without making any insinuations about your intellect or ability to comprehend them or resorting any other form of red-herring personal attack.

Let's do better.

Why do you consider it okay for police to stop and harass innocent people with no evidence simply because they live in a certain neighborhood?

Bring up racism and police brutality though and people strongly deny it's a problem.

Everything else is beneath notice of the wider society. It's talked about, but no one outside of the community is listening. Which is fine, except when they base their response to the issues on which they do pay a little attention to assumption that what they aren't hearing on other issues is because it's not being talked about.

But that's beside the point. We fear the police because they operate with impunity, and especially so among black people.

- https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11510274/black-on-black-crime-...

- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/07/27/wh...

- https://www.amazon.com/Ghettoside-True-Story-Murder-America-...

For my part, I have not made such a claim nor do I hold such a position that fact-checking is not allowed-I'd encourage asking someone who actually said this.

In addition, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics, while blacks in the absolute cause 50% of the violent crime, when you control for income (white people have 10x the wealth) and location (rural, suburban, urban, etc) white people actually commit about 5% more violent crime i.e. poor urban white people commit more violent crime than poor urban black people.

People need to start understanding these facts, remove old narratives and realize there's more interesting things to focus on than race its self.

> Although half of the people shot and killed by police are white, black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate. They account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans

Pointing out that the point is the frequency and not absolute numbers. Yes, of course, murders by people within one's own community are most common (for people in any community). Domestic murders in particular are by far the most common. Does this make the police murder rate acceptable?

It also doesn't make fear of police in any way misplaced when the rate is more than twice the rate for black than for white (stat also taken from the source you provided).

That's a slightly confusing wording. More whites are killed by police than blacks, but due to the difference in the general population, the proportion of blacks killed by police is about 2-3X.

Nothing makes a police murder rate "acceptable" in the abstract, we should always try to improve on it, assuming we don't make something else worse. For instance, if we eliminate police, we will eliminate murders by police. But murders by others might increase by even more (I say "might" because it's hard to get exact numbers, so I'm just speculating), which would be a net loss.

The point about domestic murders is a good one, but I'm not sure if that applies to high-crime areas very well. For instance, over 100 people were shot in Chicago last weekend, and 14 died.

Even if tigers are really scary when you meet one, I am not afraid to go outside because I might get eaten by a tiger.

I guess we could do a lot of subgroup analysis here and try to figure out based on day of the week and the route you are taking how much of your fear should be allotted to police versus allotted to criminals. But you start with the big, easy-to-find numbers and do a basic sanity check. I don't think being carefree about criminals and afraid of police is rational in very many situations.

On the other hand, I’ve seen more than enough people being arrested for nonsense, having done nothing but tick an officer off in some apparently random way - and these people will always be released immediately before the police would have to explain to a judge why they had arrested this person. Being detained is plenty scary enough, and could cost you your job.

But interactions with police are less likely to go smoothly if you're black, and you're more likely to have those interactions, so the perceived threat is real, it's like being into extreme sports.

So I guess that is my assessment of black life in America...it's an "extreme sport" and it shouldn't be.

I am white and I have never once had a "good" interaction with a cop. Quite the opposite.

Actually, I am pretty sure there is a massive difference in experience with cops if you are a white woman vs a white man.

Whereas if I'm a Black individual, especially in a poor area that's over policed, I won't be able to pay for bail, and won't be able to afford a good lawyer if I'm pinned for murder. Over 90% of cases are settled by plea bargains, where the defendant will take a guilty sentence if it results in less jail time.

https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/126846376828518809...

It is also something exacerbated by the war on drugs, the criminal justice system and deap-seated discrimination. Police seems like a pretty good place to start fighting.

On complex topics is when it's most important to be clear about a point, rather than just throwing out a few data points and simplistic conclusions.

My point was that misplaced fear (e.g. not supported by data) has its own risks, and fear is probably not the right emotion for injustice anyway (anger makes more sense). The point may be right or wrong when the totality of the data is examined.

On HN, this could have been a productive discussion but my comment was a distraction. Next time I'll ask a question instead.

I'm assuming your username is an unfortunate coincidence.

In one example, you can fight back legally and protect yourself. You can be confident if found they'll go to jail. You can be confident that they have to hide who they are.

In another example you may not fight back legally and protect yourself. They will likely not go to jail. You know exactly who they are and they keep coming around your neighborhood.

We need systems in place to make people safe because of and from the people who police our streets.

Anyway, the presumption that any group should meet some standard before being deemed worth of justice is utterly repulsive.

its that one

Cops do their crimes with impunity. If a non-cop harms you or kills someone, it is at least possible for them to be caught, then brought to justice.

Depending on circumstance, one can combat or run away from a non-cop threat without being hunted down and kidnapped. Hell, even a non-cop street gang would have to recognize you and have the energy to come after you, vs. the cops that have the full force of government behind them.

Cop violence does not equal non-cop violence.

This bit is child abuse? Or the bit where the cops took some suspects in for questioning?

That point of view is just factually incorrect. It’s like thinking that the way to get rich is to become a movie star. Sure it might happen but that’s not the normal way.

Stop and frisk policies amount to codifying assault, in my opinion.

White Murder victims: 3,499 (2,854 of the victims were killed by other whites)

Black murder victims: 2,870 (2,570 of the victims were killed by other blacks)

2019 police killings by race:

White deceased: 370

Black deceased: 235

This conversation is missing another statistic: The percent of citizens who are also LEOs, which I'm seeing is about 1 in 300. Which means your chances of dying during an encounter with a random civilian are about 30 times less than your chance of dying during an encounter with a LEO. I cannot begin to express how deeply fucked up that is.

Your chances of encountering a bear in the woods are very low, but once you have done so, your focus should be almost entirely on the bear until the interaction has resolved itself. Any training you had should be employed. You should try to educate any hiking friends just in case they find themselves in such a situation.

Cops should not be a situation. They should not be like bears.

I can’t say what the ratio should be...How do you know what that ratio should be?

You say cops should not be a “situation”, not sure what that means but for many of them responding to crimes is exactly what their job entails.

In other words As it relates to your ratio, is is possible a police office is 10 times more likely to encounter a murder/violent criminal in the act than a citizen? I don’t know, but that seems reasonable and probably jacks up to 100:1 to intervening to stop a crime.

I’m really not one to ask, I’ve been on all sides of it: I’ve been arrested (multiple times, including for the victimless crime of possession of marijuana); I’ve been the victim of an armed kidnapping; I’ve represented criminal defendants as an attorney. I can certainly say even being the victim of an armed kidnapping I felt more victimized more by the detective after the fact Than by the kidnapper, I can also add I felt more victimized by the insurance company of the gas station I was kidnapped from and their attorneys than either the kidnapper and detective (they literally destroyed the video of the crimes against me, falsely tried to cover up their destruction of the video claiming it never existed, claimed I falsely alleged the crimes and paid they same detective to testify the crimes happened to me across the Street from the gas station).

You add up all those people and the ratio is about 100:1.

Now consider we have multiple data points of police committing murder and getting away with it. How can we argue that it's rare, given that we have several instances of police getting away with it and not being considered part of said recorded statistics?

Where we draw the line is debatable, but the person you were responding to wasn't really attempting to draw a line.

The vast majority of police killings are of people who were armed and chose to get in a fight with them. Even of the few unarmed cases, most of them were asking for it. So if you're just going about minding your own business, the chance is minuscule.

As the NY State report on police-on-police shootings I posted an article about elsewhere in the thread notes, rapidly turning your head to identify the source of a verbal command from a previoisly unseen police officer is the kind of thing that, to police, constitutes non-compliance and choosing to get in a fight with them. Even when you are an off-duty or plainclothes cop who has called for backup, and, much more likely if you are a Black or Latino out-of-uniform cop in that situation.

This is important point. Another one is that it's likely cops ARE some of the most violent people in society. For example, look at the instances of violent crime inside the home (i.e. when a cop is off-duty, so there should be no skew) - the numbers seem to indicate that domestic abuse is more common that not: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-...

The above poster said:

> from their point of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street, more so than random criminals

Leaving the "more so than criminals" part out of it:

- By your numbers, 10% of the killings are done by police officers.

- Police officers account for much less than 10% of the population.

Hence, a random police officer is much more likely to kill you than a random person.

Now, the "more so than random criminals" part is much harder to pin down. Anyway, you can't know whether someone is a criminal or not just by seeing them on the street, so I don't even see a point in trying.

It’s odd you would say I’m playing a dangerous game...we are talking about murder, and if you or a loved one is murdered there is a 90% chance you will be murdered by a non-LEO. Not to mention we are playing a dangerous game by converting all justified police killings to murder.

(2019 population numbers)

Whites killed by other whites: 1 per ~87982

Blacks killed by other blacks: 1 per ~17114

(2018 employed cop numbers)

Whites killed by cops: 1 per ~1855

Blacks killed by cops: 1 per ~2921

Numbers only say so much though

Hispanics are killed at a disproportionate rate, and blacks are killed at a vastly disproportionate rate - according to the below blacks are killed at twice the rate of whites.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...

Being a police officer is less dangerous than logging, fishing, flying an airplane, collecting trash, being an electrician, delivery driver, lawn maintenance, roofing, ... <7 other job categories>.

Why is it okay for cops to kill people because they're "scared" when it's not okay for people in any of those other jobs to do so?

If by “few people” you mean basically everyone, and every business, and every government everytime it happens, often with massive public memorial parades, etc., sure.

No one talks about lack of accountability for it because there is decidedly not such a lack of accountability, but people talk about the thing itself all the time.

Incidentally, abolishing the police also addresses that problem.

Perhaps that distinction is more pronounced in some locations than others. I don’t see this distinction in the big city where I live and each of my neighbors are black. We have regular police patrols where I live and almost no police interventions. We also have several police officers that live in the neighborhood. My city has greater than 900,000 people, is about 60% white, and has doubled in size over the last thirty years.

Not sure if anyone can feel anyone else's pain. If millions of people are complaining about a problem, why try to say the problem does not exist?

My experiences are nothing compared to the terrible stories I've heard from PoC, but I'll give you an example. I'm Muslim. In 2004, I ended up on the restricted fly list, effectively ending my Management Consulting career. My co-workers kept telling me, "just take your shoes off, get thru security, and stop complaining". None bothered to hear my real issue -- i could not fly. Forget security, I could not get a boarding pass issued. It would happen randomly, about 50% of the time. Once, I was stuck in Europe, unable to get back home (FYI: as a US born Citizen.) Many times, i'd get half a boarding pass and be stuck at some random airport (ATL, ORD, etc.) Once I had to take a train back from Washington DC because I couldnt get on a flight.

Co-worker opinion mattered, because it affected my ability to get on local projects (where I could avoid flights.) Eventually, I had to leave the consulting firm despite an imminent promotion.

It is so easy to dismiss people, but seriously -- if millions are complaining -- just accept there is probably something there.

Millions of people complaining about "Muslim terrorism" led to you being inappropriately placed on a no-fly list. Millions of people complaining about "the Jew" led to significant and severe atrocities (plural...).

Millions voted for Trump. Millions voted for Clinton. Millions voted for Bernie. And millions will vote for the next Stalin, Hitler, or Mao.

I don't disagree that there is a problem with policing but I can't conceive of a more evil world where millions of people are just listened to without question.

Not to put too fine a point on it and with all due respect, but are you black? Have you asked your black neighbors about it?

I am half-black and was raised in California. I have lived in SF for the last 10 years.

While I have not directly been troubled by police in SF, I put myself on notice every. Single. Time. I go outside.

Similarly I've been pulled out of cell sites at gunpoint and bent over the hood of my car, and patted down several times also for "looking out of place".

Part of it is also social effect. When multiple people encounter a similar problem they have a shared experience they can talk about and that social experience can seem to magnify the importance of the problem. When nobody is having the problem and almost nobody is talking about it the concern is much lower.

Police are generally highly biased in favor of military personnel regardless of their skin color outside of military base communities. For example if a person is pulled over, regardless of the validity of the stop or whether racial profiling is at play, the person is likely to drive away with only a warning if the officer happens to see a military ID and the person remains calm and polite. Military people have been sharing these stories for years.

Until I started working at the big bank the military is by far the most diverse group I have ever worked with.

Black people killed by police in 2018 [1]: 209

Black people murdered by civilians (of any race) in 2018 [2]: 7,407

White people killed by police in 2018 [1]: 399

White people murdered by civilians in 2018 [2]: 6088

Aren’t criminals a greater threat than police for both black and white peoples? Of course this isn’t the whole picture of what interactions with police look like, but if you are scared for your children’s lives, criminals seem to be a much greater threat regardless of race.

> the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street, more so than random criminals

This does not seem to be even remotely correct. Am I missing something?

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/251877/murder-victims-in...

The problem domain is much more granular than that. You would need to collect statistics on a specific community in order to get an informed conclusion about the events in that community.

This is a delusion - they are at least 2 orders of magnitude more likely to be assaulted or killed by another (non-police) black person.

This is yet another scenario where a relatively minor source of risk gets vastly disproportionate coverage and almost everyone falls for it.

ETA: it’s funny that this straightforward statement of objective fact is being so poorly received.

But the more important factor is that in most homicides the victim and the perpetrator know one another. On that basis minorities, and particularly middle-class and up members of minority groups, have good reason to be more concerned about abuse and/or murder at the hands of authorities as a more important consideration than truly random violence.

My mistake - this does not change the nature of my argument at all. That's still a massive difference in risk.

Why do you think it makes sense to ignore the majority of homicides (which don't fit a popular political narrative)? That's like saying "Most car crashes happen near home, so on that basis people have good reason to be more concerned about plane crashes."

If you are middle class and non-white your odds of being hassled by the police are quite high and probably validated by experience. The odds of such an experience escalating into violence or death may be empirically small but each and every instance of interaction with authorities is an instance of greatly increased risk and a risk that is in large part out of your control. This is something worth being concerned about and that concern has an impact on your day-to-day behaviour and well-being.

Being more concerned about police violence than random violence makes perfect sense to me. I suspect that if you dig into it that concern is also empirically more rational.

There are (at least) two different conditional probabilities we might be interested in here:

1. If a black child is assaulted or killed, who was responsible?

In this case you are partially correct: it is (by about one order of magnitude, not at least two) more likely that it was another non-police black person.

2. If a black child interacts with a particular person (e.g. police, or a non-police black person), how likely are they to be assaulted or killed?

If we are willing to assume (as is certainly the case) that black children have more interactions with non-police black people than they do with police, by more than one order of magnitude, then we can conclude that police are more likely to assault or kill than a non-police black person, conditional on an interaction. It is thus extremely reasonable for black parents to teach their children to avoid police and to try to keep them away from police.

Cops take more in assets than robbers. [1]

[0] https://granta.com/violence-in-blue/

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

Nota Bene: your down votes are from a lack of evidence combined with an aggressive demeanor. Neither are a good look.

Also, "at least 2 orders of magnitude" sounds like a big overestimate. In 2018, 2570 black people were killed in the US by other black people. About 250 were shot and killed by the police, in cases where the police self-admitted to killing them. This does not include the non-shooting deaths, either those that occur during an arrest, or while in custody.

Even if it were only 250/2570, that's still only about 1 order of magnitude.

You may be getting downvoted because of your false equivalences and your incorrect statistics, not because of your "objectivity."