{"id":28900,"date":"2023-01-10T06:33:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T06:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/10\/independent-reporting-shows-cops-are-still-killing-people-at-an-alarming-rate\/"},"modified":"2023-01-10T06:33:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T06:33:10","slug":"independent-reporting-shows-cops-are-still-killing-people-at-an-alarming-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/10\/independent-reporting-shows-cops-are-still-killing-people-at-an-alarming-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent Reporting Shows Cops Are Still Killing People At An Alarming Rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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from the us-vs.-them-means-they-still-get-to-kill-us-with-impunity<\/i> dept<\/h3>\n

Law enforcement agencies have no interest in tracking how often officers kill people. Despite all the talk about police reform, very few states require accurate reporting on deadly force deployments. <\/p>\n

Even the DOJ doesn\u2019t care. The federal face of law enforcement has been required to compile this data for over two decades. It has yet to provide an accurate account<\/a> of US law enforcement deadly force use. Part of that isn\u2019t the DOJ\u2019s fault. It can\u2019t mandate reporting due to the US Constitution, which limits how much direct intervention the federal government can engage in when dealing with state and local level issues.<\/p>\n

The other factor in this perpetual under-reporting is due to the DOJ\u2019s disinterest<\/a> in obtaining accurate force deployment stats. Doing the job correctly would just turn local agencies<\/a> with a predilection for killing against the DOJ, which means less cooperation when things the DOJ actually<\/em> considers important (drug busts, forfeitures<\/a>, etc.) are on the line.<\/p>\n

This means that, for years, the private sector<\/a> has been forced to do the government\u2019s work<\/a> for it. Multiple efforts have been mounted to accurately track killings by police officers, utilizing open-source data and public record requests to provide a fuller picture than the DOJ \u2014 with all of its billions in funding \u2014 has continually failed to provide. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s treated as \u201cofficial\u201d by government agencies is a massive misrepresentation<\/a> of the actual facts. The private sector doesn\u2019t need billions to accomplish what governments won\u2019t. All it needs is people interested in reporting the truth. <\/p>\n

And the uncomfortable truth is that law enforcement at all levels hasn\u2019t been reformed, at least not noticeably. The tally for last year outpaces the years leading up to the supposed law enforcement reckoning that followed the murder<\/a> of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Here\u2019s Trone Dowd, reporting for Vice News<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Mapping Police Violence<\/a>\u2019s 2022 tracking found that\u00a01,176 people died during encounters<\/a>\u00a0with police last year, the highest number the organization has ever recorded. Samuel Sinyangwe, the creator of the project,\u00a0said the number<\/a>\u00a0includes anyone who was killed by police, be it by shooting or other forms of force. According to Mapping Police Violence,\u00a0 police killed the equivalent of 3.2 people per day in 2022\u2014and there were only 12 days in the whole year when a deadly police encounter was not reported.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Suppose you were an idiot. You might respond to this by saying something like, \u201cWell, cops routinely deal with violent and dangerous people, so it\u2019s no surprise they\u2019ve killed [this year\u2019s death total].\u201d <\/p>\n

Well, let\u2019s talk about the \u201cdanger\u201d and \u201cviolence\u201d you (a rhetorical idiot) might present as a supposedly valid counterpoint. Here\u2019s more data\u2026 again not<\/em> collected, compiled, reported, collated, documented, or distributed by any actual government-powered clearinghouse.<\/p>\n

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More than a third of those killed by police encountered the authorities during a traffic stop, a mental health and welfare check, or a non-violent offense.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cops turn routine stops into dangerous encounters by engaging in pretextual stops<\/a> predicated on minor moving violations that soon escalate into full-blown, warrantless, ad hoc criminal investigations that convert \u201croutine stops\u201d into Ralph-Wiggum-on-the-bus without any assistance from those being pulled over.<\/p>\n

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When you create the danger, you can\u2019t use that danger to excuse your actions. I mean, theoretically. In practicality, it happens all the time. So, if traffic stops turn deadly, it\u2019s probably because officers are engaging in fishing expeditions, rather than getting to the alleged point of the stop.<\/p>\n

The other cases are the unhealthy side effects of sending cops out to \u201chelp\u201d people. That\u2019s not their job and it\u2019s certainly nothing they\u2019re trained to do. Most training involves securing scenes and neutralizing threats. Mental health issues present cops with people behaving unpredictably. And their training mandates they treat unexpected behavior as a threat to their safety. Consequently, people in need of mental health assistance are often helped to death<\/a> by officers whose mental health toolkit is composed of bad information and bullets. <\/p>\n

The same thing can be said about welfare checks. Cops see welfare checks as an opportunity to happen upon other criminal activity. People in need of a welfare check seldom expect police to react with violence to a secondhand cry for help. Case in point: Ft. Worth police officer Aaron Dean, who was recently convicted of manslaughter for shooting a woman through the window of her house while performing a \u201cwelfare check\u201d that involved him walking around in the dark outside of Atatiana Wilson\u2019s home without announcing his presence and shooting her within one second<\/em><\/strong><\/a> of spotting her through her window.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all broken. And all the efforts to reform police haven\u2019t changed a thing. It\u2019s still the way it\u2019s always been. Cops can kill. With impunity.<\/p>\n

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According to the data, 98.1 percent of officers involved in the death of a citizen between 2013 and 2022 faced no charges. Less than 0.3 percent of officers were convicted.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s a lot that needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, after decades of neglect and rot, a lot of this seems irreparable. But if we could just stop cops from killing people they were asked to help, we might finally see a drastic reduction in annual \u201ckilled by cops\u201d numbers. But if cops don\u2019t even want to be honest about killings they assert are always justified, what hope do we have that reform efforts that ignore the root of the problem (entrenched law enforcement culture) will ever succeed?<\/p>\n

\nFiled Under: deadly force<\/a>, police<\/a>, police killing<\/a>, police violence<\/a>
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