The United Police States of America

[Joe Guy]

And after the cameras were off the cop proceeded to pepper spray the mother and arrest her for child endangerment...

[Scooter]

I'm just trying to think of another profession that gets the routine performance of its expected duties trumpeted regularly in the press, along with its misdeeds, you know, to provide that "balance" that is so sorely lacking when stories about police slaughtering innocent people appear without reporting that the same cop helped an old lady across the street five years before.

I'm trying to think of the last time a story about, say, a doctor who had committed medical malpractice, had been preceded over the length of his career with stories about all the lives he/she had saved.

Or when a story about an accountant who committed embezzlement was buried for lack of "balance", because no stories had ever been published about all the ways he/she had saved his/her employer money over the years.

If police are not satisfied with the amount of free PR their profession receives on a daily basis (every time there is a story about the arrest of an alleged criminal, for example), then they should think about entering a profession where the media fawns over them just because they exist, like acting. At least that's a profession that most of them have experience with, at least whenever they get on a witness stand.

[Long Run]

1. My post was mainly aimed at the several posts asserting that police misconduct has gotten worse. My question is whether it is actually worse, or maybe police on the whole are better now than in the past for all we know since the media presentation (on this and pretty much every type of subject) is all about selling stories rather than actually reporting facts.

2. Police misconduct should be exposed with reporting that is vigilant but also balanced and accurate (I know, I'm a dreamer).

3. Police, like fire fighters and the military, and unlike say, accountants, engage in interesting actions every single day. That's why there are endless tv shows and movies about them -- it is easy to create plausible story lines that are interesting. L.A. Law and Ally McBeal had to contort reality to create enough interesting stories about lawyers. But with respect to any story, there should be some semblance of balance and perspective (i.e., what is the scope of the problem) so that we don't end up with the wanton hatred that leads to innocent police being murdered in their cars; let alone being accurate so that good and justified policing is not turned on its head by a discredited press as "cop kills innocent man" ala Michael Brown.

[MajGenl.Meade]

In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937.

The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square[2] in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.

May 30, 1937 was a sunny, hot day with afternoon temperatures reaching 88 degrees. ... Police on the east end of the line moved to cut off any possible attempt by the marchers to outflank the police line. Some marchers were beginning to move back toward Sam's Place when a stick rose from the rear of the marchers' line and flew toward the police. Almost simultaneously, tear gas bombs were thrown by police at the marchers...an officer in the rear rank of police drew his revolver without orders and shot into the air. Suddenly, policemen in the front ranks drew their revolvers and fired point blank into the retreating marchers. Approximately 200 shots rang out. Within 15 seconds the shooting had ended, but the violence was not over.

The entire police line now moved forward wielding billy clubs against any in their path. Marchers who had dropped to the ground to avoid the bullets were struck repeatedly by policemen. Even women suffered from these indiscriminate beatings. The film clearly shows Lupe Marshall, a social worker from Chicago's Hull House, being prodded and arrested.

This period of beatings lasted for several minutes after which indiscriminate arrests were made. Patrol wagons designed for eiqht prisoners were filled with as many as sixteen, the seriously wounded thrown in without any attempt to treat or dress their wounds...Four marchers had been fatally shot and six others were mortally wounded. Thirty others had suffered gunshot wounds

13 January 1874
The original Tompkins Square Riot. As unemployed workers demonstrated in New York's Tompkins Square Park, a detachment of mounted police charged into the crowd, beating men, women and children indiscriminately with billy clubs and leaving hundreds of casualties in their wake. Commented Abram Duryee, the Commissioner of Police: "It was the most glorious sight I ever saw..."

[wesw]

well, from my experience, a local city police force not in my current town, became more arrogant and more violent during the the open air crack market era of the 80 s and 90 s. they seemed to hire many young shaved headed frustrated ex football players who liked to keep up their tackling skills.

[Gob]

American police killed more people in March (111) than the entire UK police have killed since 1900

Apr 01, 2015 11:49am PDT by Shaun King

Yeah. Those numbers are real.

A total of 111 people were killed by police in the United States in March of 2015. Since 1900, in the entire United Kingdom, 52 people have been killed by police.

Don't bother adjusting for population differences, or poverty, or mental illness, or anything else. The sheer fact that American police kill TWICE as many people per month as police have killed in the modern history of the United Kingdom is sick, preposterous, and alarming.

In March:

Police beat Phillip White to death in New Jersey. He was unarmed.

Police shot and killed Meagan Hockaday, a 26-year-old mother of three.

Police shot and killed Nicholas Thomas, an unarmed man on his job at Goodyear in metro Atlanta.

Police shot and killed Anthony Hill, an unarmed war veteran fighting through mental illness, in metro Atlanta.

I could tell 107 more of those stories.

This has to end.

[BoSoxGal]

[Econoline]

Actually, Andy...that figure is a few days out of date: it's 381 now.

[Lord Jim]

con·text
ˈkäntekst/
noun
noun: context; plural noun: contexts

the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I see that amongst some highly divisive and questionable police actions in that list, there are a significant number of events such as, "man killed in shoot out", "deputy attacked by man with samurai sword", "2-state high speed chase ends in fatal crash" and so on. As LJ said, context is key.

There are many here who express regret that police didn't shoot so-and-so because he thoroughly deserved it for the crimes he'd just committed (or was committing).

None of this is to say that there are not wrongful deaths caused by excessive use of force by police persons - but there was one in Kent OH in March. An off-duty policewoman was attacked in her own home and shot her assailant (a former boyfriend). Is she in that 311 in March?

Lies, damn lies and statistics. It's a pity to obscure real problems by false claims.

[Econoline]

con·text
ˈkäntekst/
noun
noun: context; plural noun: contexts

the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

Since 1900, in the entire United Kingdom, 52 people have been killed by police.

[MajGenl.Meade]

... and that number 52 comes from where?

Police officers in England and Wales didn’t kill anyone with a gun in the two-year period that ended March 31, 2014, after killing an average of three people each year in the prior eight years. (One-hundred-and-thirty people died in other ways during or after contact with English and Welsh police officers in the year that ended in March, according to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.)

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/poli ... g-someone/

Context: the violence (and armaments) of US lawbreakers vs. UK lawbreakers.

Again, the purpose of justice is not served by gross exaggeration and false comparisons.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, my oh my - guess what happens when people rely on the Wiki for "facts"? (And then the interwebs take over with millions of lying blogs):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... utput=html

Oh dear - 54 police shootings in the UK resulting in death 1990 - 2012. That's 1990 - not 1900.

1,433 people in England and Wales have died either in police custody or following other police contact since 1990, according to data compiled by Inquest, a charity specialising in the investigation of contentious deaths.

950 deaths took place in custody, 317 following a police pursuit, 112 were the result of a road traffic incident involving a police vehicle and 54 were police shootings.

From that bastion of conservative lies - the Grauniad
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... stody-data

Who on earth would have thought that 52 shootings since 1900 could possibly be... er... total crap?

[wesw]

thank you meade. tho I seldom give much credence to polls charts graphs surveys or studies with which I am not familiar, and don t know the methodology used in the said study, or with which I am not sure of the political leanings held by the creators of such studies, I never thought that the post would be completely inaccurate.

...of course I didn t double check you either............

[Econoline]

Touché, Meade....and in the immortal words of Miss Emily Litella, "Oh, never mind."

[BoSoxGal]

Well, I'm far less ashamed now . . . not.

One of the interesting things I've learned in exploring the recent police shootings (I started a while before it was such a national news story, as I was following the DOJ investigation of Albuquerque's troubling police shooting record of recent years) is that there is no FBI database compiling detailed information on police shootings of citizens.

I should think that establishing a monitoring system for such activities of law enforcement on all levels would be something we can ALL get behind, no? Seems the DOJ should track such things, and not charitable organizations doing their best with limited access to confidential criminal justice information.

[Lord Jim]

there is no FBI database compiling detailed information on police shootings of citizens.

I should think that establishing a monitoring system for such activities of law enforcement on all levels would be something we can ALL get behind

I read about that too, BSG, and I agree with you...

I think that is something, (like body cams) that would help protect both the public and the police. It would help provide the kind of context I was referring to.

[Big RR]

I agree as well.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Moi aussi

[BoSoxGal]

I should have also mentioned that one of the most shocking things I learned is that not only does the FBI not track these statistics, they don't even require that LE organizations at the local/state level even report these incidents.

LE organizations ARE required to report all violent (and most other) crime in their jurisdictions, because the Bureau keeps national crime statistics which are readily available to the public on their website.

Even IF the FBI for some reason could justify not making police shooting incident stats public (and I can't imagine how they could justify that), it's unbelievable to me that they aren't even tracking it themselves.

I hope that the very minimum that comes out of these recent high-profile incidences is that the FBI begins to mandate reporting and tracking police use of force incidents, so they can see problems as they occur rather than coming in after the fact in so many communities to do investigations through the civil rights division.