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A comment on A Distinctly American Problem, Police Killings, Needs Systematic Investigation. Parent comment

Re:A Distinctly American Problem, Police Killings, Needs Sys... by lacker on Monday April 19, 2021 @09:51AM (#26862742)
I think you’re picking the wrong stats here. The article says that 55 unarmed people were killed by police last year. If armed people are killed by police in a shootout, that isn’t the same sort of obvious tragedy that a plane crash is.
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Re:A Distinctly American Problem, Police Killings, Needs Sys... by wombatpm on Monday April 19, 2021 @11:29AM (#26863839)
Statistics around this are hard to verify. Chicago just had a 13 yr old killed. Police thought he was pointing a gun. Toy gun found on scene. But camera footage showed no gun and hands up when he was shot.

Is that classified as an armed or unarmed shooting?

Philando Castile had a gun is his car of which he informed the officer. Was that an armed or unarmed shooting?

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Re:A Distinctly American Problem, Police Killings, Needs Sys... by jdmichal on Monday April 19, 2021 @01:43PM (#26865743)
The source I provided has the following:

* 80 unarmed.

* 65 "armed" with a vehicle.

* 180 armed with a knife or other sharp object.

* 59 armed with "another object".

* 670 armed with a gun.

* 73 undetermined.

So sure, let's just handwave that all those armed with a gun and also undetermined were justified self-defense, with whatever definition that carries. That still leaves 384 deaths.

See my other response here regarding my thoughts around "justified" killings:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26865592

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