Amy Brittain has this story in the Washington Post. It's bottom line should not be news -- everyone should know this.
To identify trends among fatal shootings by police, The Post studied whether the individuals killed were unarmed or armed with weapons and reviewed the actions they took in the immediate moments before police shot them. The Post has compiled a database of all fatal shootings nationwide by officers in the line of duty in 2015.Why doesn't everyone already know that?
[The story describes the case of bank robber Steven Snyder and Trooper Trevor Casper, who shot and killed each other, Snyder firing first.]
But only a small number of the shootings -- roughly 5 percent -- occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were, like Snyder, armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats.
Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police, said The Post's findings confirm what police officers already know.
This does confirm what we already know, and it puts pat the lies spouted by Obama and Holder in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting.
One of the more reprehensible comments (and there were many) from Obama regarding the Michael Brown shooting was his comment after the grand jury returned a no bill. He noted that some people were angry and that the reaction was "understandable." Oh really? Since there was no evidence that would support a charge against Darren Wilson, what Obama is saying is that people had a right to want him to go through the wringer of a criminal prosecution when he was attacked and was defending himself. That is an ugly comment, and it's beyond disgusting that the GOP failed to call out Obama on that.
If you look at the shootings in more detail, the numbers are even better.
For some reason, WAPO codes "unarmed"quite broadly: it includes passengers incidentally shot when the suspect was armed (e.g. India Kager, Joshua Dyer), suspects who grab the officer's gun (e.g. Ryan Christopher Rodriguez), hitting cops with a vehicle but being shot outside it (e.g. Victor Emanuel Larosa), attacking cops with a metal pole (e.g. Alfredo Rials-Torres), a radio (e.g. David Felix), or mace (e.g. Jamison Childress), etc. In other words, even a good number of the "unarmed" suspects were anything but.
Thanks for your comment. Since Yahoo doesn't give you a recognizable user name, please adopt a handle and "sign" your comments in the text, so everyone can see which comments come from the same person.
Sorry, I'm not sure why it doesn't just show my Yahoo profile name. It wouldn't let me sign in from Google either. But I'll be sure to sign any comments.
-Jihan
Thanks. Our blog software has many shortcomings. Replacing it is on the "to do" list.
If you, or any other regular commenter, would like a username and password so as to sign in through the blog itself and not mess with Yahoo, email me at ccadmin + at sign + blog domain name.
Here's a difficulty with this claim.
Germany: 2-3 citizens shot and killed by police each year. Approximately 40 bullets fired as suspects total.
Australia: about 2 citizens shot and killed by police each year.
UK: about 1 citizen shot and killed by police each year. Last year special armed police units responded to 12,000 incidents and only fired 3 bullets.
Iceland: In 2013 just had their first police shooting fatality in their 71-year-history.
Finland: Police fired a total of 6 bullets at suspects last year.
And then you have America, with 1,150 people killed by police, 975 of them shot and killed, with "only 50 of so" of those ones we're supposed to be upset about.
First off, that "only 50" is an enormous number compared to everyone else.
Secondly, we're obviously doing something really really wrong at multiple stages to get 1,000 other killings too. The fact that the final situation is "justified" doesn't mean that there wasn't a better way to avoid it a lot earlier.