
How do police handle violence in countries where officers don’t carry guns? - ZeljkoS
http://qz.com/727941/how-do-police-handle-violence-in-countries-where-officers-dont-carry-guns/
======
usrusr
The short answer is that they stop not having guns when they face someone
similarly armed.

But this is not the most interesting question to ask. In the US, a disarmed
police force would probably just carry privately, while on the job.

A much more interesting question is why so many armed police forces in the
world get by with a level of violence not so much different from their non-
carrying peers. The U.S. traditionally condemns many nonviolent police
activities (like searching, or requesting ID, which theoretically does not
even exist there) as oppressive, anti-freedom, unamerican. Other countries do
not have this cultural expectation, that the police should never interfere
with the life of non-criminals. Thise countries therefore have a wide, nuanced
range of police/citizen interaction that only involves guns as the very last
level of escalation. If culture (and/or law, but I think that culture is much
more important here) only acknowledges police authority stemming from a
pointed gun, officers will find excuses to point guns.

But the biggest reason for US police gun violence must be the high general
level of gun violence. It seems very natural that when criminals are trigger-
happy, the police force adapts by lowering their thresholds accordingly.
Inevitably, this will also fatally affect law abiding citizens. I haven't
checked the numbers, but maybe, in relation to total gun deaths (instead of in
relation to total population), American police are not even as terrible as
they seem?

~~~
k-mcgrady
Personally I think one of the main reasons US police don't hesitate to use
deadly force is that they are not held accountable for it. In the UK it s a
big deal when an officer uses his weapon, there are investigations etc. In the
US, as we've seen in the last couple of years, there can be start to finish
video evidence of an officer using deadly force completely unnecessarily and
he/she gets away with it. If you start prosecuting officers for using deadly
force without proper cause I'm sure use of it would drop pretty dramatically.

~~~
jeffmould
The problem is not the lack of prosecution in the US. There are in fact
countless attempts to prosecute officers for deadly force. The problem is that
the bar for determining justified vs unjustified is low in the US. This bar
makes it extremely, if not almost impossible except in very rare cases, to
prosecute an officer for deadly force. There were two Supreme Court rulings
that created the bar that we see today. First is Tennessee vs. Garner and the
second is Graham vs. Conner.

The US has bigger issues that are at the root of police shootings in my
opinion. These issues stem from extreme poverty, lack of jobs,
disenfranchisement laws for convicted criminals, a lack of responsibility or
taking responsibility for actions, and a growing distrust of the police that
is so large community members would rather not report any crime. As an
example, there is an article this morning in the DC news[1] calling for the
police department to be completely eliminated and allow citizens to enforce
the laws. I don't even know where to begin with that idea and I know it will
never happen, but to have so much distrust that you call for eliminating the
entire department shows a bigger problem.

How do you fix it? That's a good question. I am huge proponent of community
policing. Taking officers out of cars and putting them on foot in the
communities. But unfortunately community policing creates another set of
problems in the US. There are limited police resources and therefore those
resources logically are deployed to areas that most need them. Right or wrong,
these areas tend to be poor communities or inner city areas where minority
populations are larger. In turn community policing is often viewed as
targeting.

I am not going to sit here and deny that "profiling" does not occur and that
there have not been extreme instances of "targeting". It is easy for me as a
white male to be numb to the day-to-day problems that minorities face. But
these terms, in my opinion, have become overused and the media has no problem
turning "community policing" into acts of "targeting" solely for profit.

Instead of focusing on these isolated shootings (and they are isolated
compared to the amount of policing that occurs daily) we, as a society, need
to focus on solving the bigger issues. You start addressing the poverty, the
education system, disenfranchisement laws, and working to build families
instead of tearing them apart, only then will we see reduced incidents of
officer involved shootings.

[1] [http://wjla.com/news/local/black-lives-matter-dc-speaks-
out-...](http://wjla.com/news/local/black-lives-matter-dc-speaks-out-against-
killing-police-officers)

~~~
tremon
_There are in fact countless attempts to prosecute officers for deadly force.
The problem is that the bar for determining justified vs unjustified is low in
the US_

To be fair, the GP talked about accountability of the officers. If 99% of the
officers are prosecuted, acquitted, and they keep their jobs, in effect they
are not held to account.

~~~
jeffmould
I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't make sense. If the officer is
prosecuted and found not guilty then why shouldn't he be able to keep his job?
This country would be a bigger mess if we said that every person who is
arrested, prosecuted, and found not guilty should still be treated as if they
were guilty, should lose their job, and ultimately punished.

What you are really trying to address is the difference between criminal law
and department policy. It is completely possible to violate department policy
and not break the law. It is also possible to break the law and not department
policy. Unfortunately when it comes to use of force, many department policies
follow the line of the law.

Is this right or should it be different? That's a tough answer. Where do you
draw the line? Do you say that every officer who fires his gun is
automatically subject to termination? Do you create public panels that
investigate every officer involved use of force? I can see a benefit to that,
and actually think that if implemented correctly, could go a long way to
resolving some of these issues. However, that too has to be handled delicately
as it stands to create a lynch mob effect. You also need to ensure that the
people on the panel understand the existing laws as they stand. If someone is
found not guilty, you don't blame the system, you blame the law and work to
change the law, not the system.

There is also a difference between being criminally liable and civilly liable.
Just like there is a difference between something being morally wrong and
being criminally wrong.

~~~
travmatt
I'd strip the police departments of the powers to just charge the taxpayers
for money in settlements and make them purchase malpractice insurance, just
like every other professional. Insurance underwriters would bring department
policies nationwide up to a single uniform standard. I'd hope this skin in the
game + increased investment in officer training would effect changes.

~~~
jeffmould
Not sure what you refer to "charge the taxpayers for money in settlements"?

Also, with the insurance, many departments themselves are insured. I think
what you mean is to have the individual officer have to provide their own
coverage in the form of a deduction on their paycheck. While it puts a
financial stake in the officer to prevent, it also now creates a whole new
problem and does not solve the underlying problem.

First, if an officer is insured, it has the potential to create one of two
scenarios. Scenario one is they take no action because they are afraid their
"insurance rates" will go up. Similar to the way people avoid going to the
doctor. Scenario two is you get the other extreme where the officer now says
I'm all in if I don't have to worry about paying for my brutality.

More importantly though, everyone keeps focusing on the police brutality
issue. I'm not denying there is a problem in isolated incidents. However, the
solution isn't attacking the departments or officers themselves. You want to
work for change, start focusing on the bigger issues at hand. Fighting crime
in the neighborhoods, working to find solutions for poverty, creating jobs,
changing disenfranchisement laws, encouraging the building of families instead
of the tearing them apart, and finally getting people to take responsibility
for their actions.

We could wake up tomorrow with new laws that eliminate police brutality, but
the unfortunate truth is that those laws wouldn't change any of the above or
work to stop racism in this country.

[edit: fix typos]

------
lb1lf
Here in Norway, a police officer is most likely to be shot by...

...a fellow police officer.

Police were unarmed until quite recently (however, they did have firearms
available should need arise, also compulsory training and certification at
fixed intervals)

When our DoJ decided to arm police due to some perceived terror threat, the
number of accidental discharges (unsurprisingly) skyrocketed.

The terror never materialised, but several officers today limp after quite
literally shooting themselves in the foot.

~~~
nraynaud
I guess they decided to arm the police after the Breivik attack?

~~~
marvin
No, it actually happened four years later, presumably due to a concrete threat
of islamic extremist terrorist attacks, the details of which were never
disclosed to the public. To no one's surprise, the decision, which was touted
as temporary in the political debate that ensued, is still in effect.

~~~
kristopolous
See the whole premise that someone can call up some government official and go
"booga booga" and actually get a real change in policy while citizens fight
for years to be heard really makes me think there's a bit more to the
narrative ...

It's almost like governments repressing their people is like a little kid
looking for an excuse to eat candy.

~~~
digi_owl
Well it didn't help that the Progress Party, the right wing populists, was in
government for the first time ever, and got their boy in the minister of
justice chair.

------
klausjensen
Quote: "In one of these countries, Iceland, it’s legal for citizens to carry
guns—and roughly a third choose to do so."

Absolute bullshit. I lived in Iceland for 4 years and still have a place
there, and hundreds of Icelandic friends. Not once have I ever heard about
anybody carrying a gun - unless out hunting.

~~~
fleitz
It's similar in Canada lots of people have guns, we use them for hunting, not
carrying around.

~~~
vidarh
Same in Norway - the number of guns per capita is very high. But they're
mostly hunting rifles, and they're generally (or you'll be breaking the law)
locked down and inoperable except when people are actually out hunting.

------
chris_wot
Rather seems to be missing the point. In Australia, police carry guns.
Unfortunately, there are police shootings but they are very rare and when it
does occur there is a full and thorough investigation done. I don't think I've
ever heard of a case in the last 15 years of anyone in the Australian police
firing a gun at someone unless they were literally in imminent danger of
serious violence from the one they were shooting at.

As an Australian citizen, whilst the police here aren't perfect, I also
believe they aren't as trigger happy because, quite frankly, we don't carry
guns on our person in Australia. This means that when police make a routine
stop because of a broken tail-light they aren't as likely to feel like their
life is in danger, and this almost certainly means they hesitate to fire their
weapon unless they are _really_ in danger. They are also aware that if they do
discharge their weapon then there is a full investigation done. The
investigations are quite thorough and actually normally very fair, but no
police officer wants to be investigated really and all police officers know
what a serious thing it is to fire their sidearm.

I don't expect any citizens of the U.S. to agree with me. But it occurs to me
that as more people carry increasingly powerful weapons, the police have had
to upgrade their own weaponry, body armour and tactics in response. From my
vantage point here in Australia, it puzzles me why this isn't obvious: the
more people who carry guns, the less likely law enforcement will try to
negotiate and use minimal force.

From my perspective, America's gun culture is bizarre.

~~~
darkseas
While deadly police incidents seem less common in Australia, don't kid
yourself that our police always get it right.

They could do with better de-escalation training to deal with situations in
critical environments like crowds [1] or when dealing with mentally ill people
[2].

I think anyone carry a deadly weapon, civilian or government officer should
bear _extra_ responsibility to safeguard the safety of _all_ people around
them.

[1] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-09/four-injured-as-
police...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-09/four-injured-as-police-shoot-
man-hornsby-shopping-centre/7496102)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tyler_Cassidy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tyler_Cassidy)

~~~
chris_wot
I didn't, and I agree that they need to improve. They always need to improve,
but I have to agree with the coroner on the Tyler Cassidy shooting - I'm not
entirely sure what else they could have done. But, they do get it wrong -
especially, it seems for some reason, in Victoria.

The incidence of police shooting across our entire population is by far
significantly less than in the U.S. - which is not to say that even one
avoidable shooting is acceptable, only that it happens far less often.

------
rurban
There's the old-testament revenge style of conflict resolution, and the new-
testament style of conflict resolution. The new ones works better, that's why
almost everyone uses it.

Even in the UK and in Norway police officers are allowed to carry gun's but
they rarely do, and rarely have to. There are special forces who are called
when wide-reaching bullet forces are needed, and even then deadly force is
rarely needed to take out an attacker.

Third civilized countries have the principle of consequence of lawlessness. If
a police officer oversteps his powers he has to face the consequences,
otherwise he will continue to abuse his powers. A very simple but powerful
principle, which is esp. needed for those who have state-granted special
powers.

Forth, civilized countries invest a lot into marketing of police powers. TV
broadcasts crime investigations and police dramas all the time, round the
clock, where police is presented to serve the people, so they are presented in
a positive light. This might be useful to cover up police abuse, but is in
fact more useful as a positive role model to the enforcers. Officers stepping
out of line are clearly overstepping their line. Whilst in the US the lone cop
hero taking down the suspect with a well-aimed shot is the patriotic hero,
saving the community from crime and violence. Marketing is different there,
the state powers don't invest in these kind of TV dramas.

~~~
anexprogrammer
> Even in the UK and in Norway police officers are allowed to carry gun's but
> they rarely do, and rarely have to.

Not sure about Norway, but in the case of UK and Ireland most police officers
are not allowed anywhere near firearms.

If an incident takes place that requires armed officers a senior policeman
authorises the use of armed unit. Every force has access to them, and training
is as much about de-escalation and negotiation as shooting. They are drawn
from regular police and undergo significant extra regular training.

Wikipedia tells me roughly 6,000 of something like 140,000 UK police are
authorised to carry firearms.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorised_Firearms_Officer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorised_Firearms_Officer)

~~~
insin
Police Service of Northern Ireland [1] officers routinely carry guns, but I
don't understand the culture where a sidearm is drawn and pointed at a driver
from the start in a routine broken tail light/uninsured driver type stop. That
would probably make the news in NI.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ire...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland)

~~~
tzs
They usually do not draw a weapon on a routine stop. The stops with weapons
drawn are usually when they have some reason to suspect that they are dealing
with an actual criminal.

As for why they might pull their sidearm in such a case, just ponder the
following statistics.

United States: 112 guns per 100 residents.

United Kingdom: 6.6 guns per 100 residents.

The United States has around 5% of the world's population, but 30-50% of the
world's civilian owned guns. The gun homicide rate in the US is about 60 times
that of the UK.

~~~
rhizome
I've been seeing this logic quite a bit this week and I don't agree with it.

For one, the numbers I've seen for per-capita are around 88% (2014, I think),
not 112%.

However, the number of _gun owners_ is estimated from anywhere between 12-33%.
So no, number of guns in the country can't be used as a rationale for the
probability that an officer will encounter a gun in a stop. Gun owners are a
minority.

------
jgrahamc
An important cultural difference is the concept of "policing by consent"

[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policing-by-
conse...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policing-by-consent)

"To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions
and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and
behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect."

~~~
PaulKeeble
It used to be the premise in the UK, its not anymore and hasn't been for a
long time. The UK police is the army of the government deployed on UK soil,
its definitely not by consent.

~~~
richlewis42
I'm pretty sure >95% of the UK population would support the existence of the
police.

------
rmk2
I think lots of people here have made excellent points about the UK etc., so I
would like to add something else, which is the _representation_ of gun usage
in the media. Let's compare a show like Flashpoint with, say, NCIS Los
Angeles.

A Canadian series, Flashpoint shows you in its very first episode a SWAT
situation (that's what the show is about) in which one team member acts as a
sniper and kills a man who is holding somebody hostage. The first thing you
see is that, as the sniper emerges from the building he was positioned on, his
gun is taken away and he is led away by internal investigation to be
interviewed. In the same episode, a proper investigation is launched, all team
members are questioned and a judge ultimately has to decide whether the
killing was warranted or not. The usual approach in all of the episodes is a
gradual escalation from negotiation to non-lethal to lethal methods,
highlighting specifically that the least amount of violence possible is
_always_ to be preferred.

In NCIS Los Angeles, between the four main investigators, they probably shoot
on average one or two people _per episode_ , and nothing ever seems to come of
it. Not just do the characters not seem to mind or care, but nobody else seems
to be concerned either. If an investigation ever happens, it happens as a plot
device or conspiracy, not as a _routine_ investigation of law enforcement
conduct or the lawfulness of a police killing.

Of course, all of these events are fictional, but they nevertheless show a
very different approach to gun usage as well as general
escalation/deescalation strategies employed. Furthermore, they have an impact
on how people conceive of law enforcement, setting expectations but also
showing examples. Is every show like NCIS Los Angeles? Certainly not, and not
every Canadian show is like Flashpoint, either. However, I do think that these
shows emblemise very different understandings of law enforcement and what is
appropriate conduct as well as what constitutes reasonable violence.

------
Havoc
The article treats these police forces as something special when really the
unusual case/outlier here is the US.

The US has a bit of a culture problem on this front - everyone is armed to the
teeth & violence has been made acceptable via Hollywood etc. Plus there is the
old "if you have a hammer everything starts looking like a nail" issue. People
will resort to what they have available. And you can't really do much about it
because the gun freedom crowd will howl if you take away their guns.

I guess people will just have to keep dying.

~~~
vesinisa
> violence has been made acceptable via Hollywood

Pretty sure Hollywood films are just as popular in all the countries mentioned
in the article.

~~~
Havoc
Probably. Me mentioning firms was meant more as a shorthand for "in popular
consciousness". You don't really see that same widespread fascination with
guns in other countries.

------
ljosa
My father was a cop in Norway. He told me that they once tickled a belligerent
drunk to get him to surrender.

------
jdub
It was fairly controversial when the Australian Government recently decided to
have submachine gun-armed Federal Police provide security at our national
Parliament House. It was rationalised by claims of terrorist threats, of
course.

To an Australian, it's very weird to see submachine guns at all, let alone
around our national buildings.

(Another thing to consider about different attitudes: There's a bunch of
interesting politicisation about the terms "Police Force" vs. "Police Service"
in some jurisdictions around the world, to the point that, in general,
conservatives prefer "force", progressives prefer "service".)

~~~
0xADEADBEE
Is this correct? I lived in Australia last year and frequently saw police with
firearms. I'm guessing it varies from state to state, but isn't a sidearm
predominantly standard issue?

~~~
jdub
Yes, state cops on the beat have pistols. The special AFP officers who guard
parliament house (who replaced private security contractors) have submachine
guns.

------
rodgerd
> Of course, in all but Iceland, citizens in these countries generally don’t
> have access to guns.

As a Kiwi I'm surprised to hear that. Perhaps the author is speaking of some
parallel New Zealand, but in the one I inhabit it's not especially hard to own
a shotgun or rifle: get a license, buy your firearm.

Pistols, high-capacity semi-automatic rifles, automatic weapons are very hard
or impossible to own, but guns themselves are not uncommon.

~~~
Daviey
In the UK, it can take >6 months for the police to issue a firearm
certificate. Not because of any lengthy checks.. but because they are
inefficient and have large backlogs.

But.. City of London averages 3-4 days...
[https://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-
content/up...](https://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-
content/uploads/sites/6/2015/10/timetogetshotguncertificate.jpg)

~~~
tudorw
interesting treatment in London, shooting 'clay pigeons' for sport is a past-
time of the monied in these parts, I wonder if the fast track city licences
are mostly for bankers weekend jollies?

~~~
evgen
Got it in one :) A noob investment banker who is going shooting in the country
with a well-heeled client is the motivator, and you also need to understand
that the "City of London" is not the London that you are thinking of. The
former is a weird holdover from ancient times that is centuries older than the
city of London that you visit on vacation. It has its own special laws, and
for a long time it had its own police force.

~~~
vidarh
Well, quite a lot of tourists do visit City because of things like St Pauls
and Museum of London.

To put it differently: City is one of 33 regions of London (the other 32 are
boroughs; City is not a borough), and one of the very smallest.

> and for a long time it had its own police force

It still does:
[https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/](https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/)

------
dogma1138
"Don't show up with a knife to a gunfight" is what most people would say, but
in many occasions the opposite holds true too. When the officers are
implicitly armed it by default escalates the situation. That said the US
always had a problem with "gun violence" and even some level of "utter
lawlessness", the wild west, the prohibition era, and now the more modern gang
violence. You think of 1930's you think of tommy guns, you think of bonnie and
clyde you think of the hails of bullets shot at them by the FBI, somehow the
US has been always that extreme. I don't know if that's actually was the case
or that turn of the century popular culture is too American centric especially
due to hollywood, but at least to me that always seemed the case.

~~~
digi_owl
My history may be faulty, but i seem to recall that the designer of the Tommy
Gun meant it for military use during WW1, but could not get army attention
before the war was over.

To recoup costs he then started selling it to the general public.

Mix that with the prohibition, and things escalated quickly.

------
franciscop
The main problem I see is the "free flow" of legal and ilegal guns for
citizens. In Japan, a disarmed society, the amount of deaths by gunfire are
almost nil. They also have a really tight gun control, which arguably it's
easy since it's a "small-ish" island.

Of course there are many more reasons, and I think that America's youth
thinking of "gangster's are cool" is way off. Hech, in Japan even a knife
stabbing reaches all newspapers and makes a big fuss.

But doing that in USA would make the economy slightly worse and "cut their
freedom": tighter border control on imports, regulating the shit that is on
TV, better education, etc.

~~~
rtpg
Americans are also major gun manufacturers. If guns became illegal the supply
would get a lot lower.

~~~
nojvek
Sometimes I wonder "is America too big to get anything done for its citizens".
It seems they are equally opposite views for any law. Plus lobbying means big
companies will usually win over citizens.

Healthcare is insanely expensive, universities put you in endless debt, police
killing more people than terrorists with guns.

Would the solution be for the states to have more power? I.e implement the
policies state by state? Just the way LGBT marriage and cannabis laws are
propagating?

------
cm3
Assuming tasers are effective, do US police forces carry them? If they do, why
is it not the first choice? If they don't carry, what's the problem with
tasers?

If tasers are not effective, I'm still wondering why non-lethal weapons do not
seem to be the first choice. Would all known non-lethal restraining tools be
inefficient (too slow) if we assume the civilian will make use of a firearm? I
mean, let's say tasers are not good enough, maybe pepper spray or something
else can be used.

Genuinely curious and probably missing important details.

~~~
yodsanklai
> Assuming tasers are effective, do US police forces carry them?

I remember watching the Cops documentary/show [1]. You can see cops regularly
using their tasers. Actually, it's amazing to see how easily they may "tase"
non violent people.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cops_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cops_\(TV_series\))

------
simbalion
The 2nd amendment applies to police officers as well as non-police officers,
so even if their job did not demand they carry, they would be allowed to
carry.

Asking this question shows one significant way that people do not understand
our 2nd amendment freedom. I use 'how people' rather than 'the author' because
this is the 2nd time in 24 hours that I've seen this topic raised.

------
GrumpyNl
Most gun related crimes in Holland are drugs related. Regulate drugs, problem
solved.

~~~
tremon
Actually, they are related to organized crime. Sure, most of that is drug-
related but that's because there's plenty of money to be made there.

Regulate drugs, organized crime might shift to a different product or scope.
It's way too simple to say that it will "solve" the problem.

------
ihdncj849593
So now that there's over 300 million guns in the hands of American citizens,
what are they supposed to do? We are where we are, this article doesn't help
shit.

~~~
vidarh
For starters train US police in gradual escalation rather than have them use a
gun by default.

E.g. one big difference between US and UK police irrespective of weapons is
that US police seem far quicker to rush into a situation to end it instantly,
while UK police will only do that in extreme cases (e.g. someone is actually
being harmed right now). Otherwise, police will secure a perimeter and get
people away if necessary, ensure they have overwhelming force, and only then
approach the suspect.

There was the case a while ago where some axe-wielding idiot was shot in the
US after attacking a police officer. Only said police officer was only in
range because they'd pointlessly rushed in to try to arrest him without trying
to de-escalate from a safe distance first. When that situation had first been
created, it was probably the right decision to shoot, but that situation
wouldn't have existed if police weren't acting recklessly in the first case.

If UK police were in the same situation, the two initial responders would
likely have gotten people away, kept their distance, and waited to have a
dozen or so colleagues in place and kept trying to de-escalate the situation
as long as possible before intervening.

The more police are careful about escalation, the less reason criminals will
have to risk escalation as well.

------
ihdncj849593
Anybody remember the Battle of North Hollywood?

------
mamon
I agree that 19 weeks of training for police officer in US is very low, and
that leaves officers poorly qualified for their job.

On the other hand, the attached video of how British policeman handle a man
with machette is nothing but pathetic, the kind of stuff that we regulary make
fun of.

As the very minimum, if the policeman does not carry a gun he should carry a
taser instead. This would resolve machette man situation in seconds, and only
took one policeman to do so, instead of dozen.

~~~
tremon
_the attached video of how British policeman handle a man with machette is
nothing but pathetic_

Incidentally, this attitude is a perfect illustration why violence is so
prevalent in US society.

~~~
mamon
Why do you think that expecting reasonable level of competence and
effectiveness from police officers is a bad attitude? All I'm arguing here is
that policemen should have enough training and enough equipment, including
weapons, so that it wouldn't take 12 men to take down one guy with melee
weapon. Typical two person patrol should be enough.

~~~
tremon
My point is that "take down" is not the goal. There is more than one way to
defuse a threat, and as other commenters have pointed out, the strategy was
effective.

------
tzs
> Another week, another police shooting in the United States. So far this
> year, 569 people have be killed by US police, according to The Guardian’s
> count. Police brutality is a horrific normality and, in more ways than one,
> black men being shot by police has become the modern-day equivalent of
> lynching.

This is greatly exaggerated. It makes it sound like black men are being gunned
down by police left and right, usually without justification, and it makes it
sound like the majority of people shot by police are black.

Black men _are_ being shot at a higher rate than other groups (except for
Native Americans), but they are only about 1/4 of the police shootings. Here
are numbers as of a few days ago:

Number shot in 2016:

    
    
      • 10 Asian/Pacific Islanders
      • 13 Native Americans
      • 40 Other/Unknown
      • 88 Hispanic/Latino
      • 136 Black
      • 279 White
    

Here are the rates per one million group population:

    
    
      • 0.56 Asian/Pacific Islander
      • 1.41 White
      • 1.59 Hispanic/Latino
      • 3.23 Black
      • 3.4 Native American
    

Source: [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-
interactive/2015/jun/0...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-
interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database)

To try to get a better idea of what is actually going on, I used a random
number generator to pick 10 entries from the list of 2016 police killings at
[http://www.killedbypolice.net/](http://www.killedbypolice.net/) and looked at
each and classified it as either "Justified" or "Not Justified".

KilledByPolice.net tries to keep a running list of all police killings in the
US, and for each they give race/ethnicity, gender, age, state, and links to
the news report on the killing and to the KilledByPolice Facebook post on the
killing (which usually duplicates that news link, but also includes followup
news stories).

Here were the 10 that I looked at, my summary of the facts as gleaned from the
news reports, and my verdict as to whether it was justified or not justified.

Keep in mind that this was only a sample of ten. I'd be curious to see other
people's sampling results (or even better, the results of someone with the
time and interest to go through them all and classify them as justified or
not).

The numbering in this list matches the numbering at KilledByPolice.net.

#94, black male. He was fleeing from an arrest attempt, slipped and fell, and
a gun that had been concealed fell out. The officer told him not to reach for
the gun. The suspect reached for the gun, and was shot. (It later turned out
the gun was just a BB gun, but the officer did not know that). My verdict:
Justified.

#110, white female. She was the wife of a reserve office. He was cleaning his
gun in their home and it accidentally fired, shooting her. My verdict: Not
Justified (although also not criminal).

#263, white male. Former officer, fell on hard times and turned to robbery.
Killed 2 people during a robbery, and then was killed by police who arrived in
response to that. My verdict: Justified.

#272, white male. Suspect was driving/parking suspiciously. Officer talked to
him, then headed back to patrol car. Suspect started shooting at the officer,
officer shot back. My verdict: Justified.

#328, latino male. Burglar, with knife holding a hostage when police arrived
and shot him. My verdict: Justified.

#398, black male. Armed robber, shot at officers several times and hit one.
They shot back. My verdict: Justified.

#446, white male. Man walking down the center of the street, bare chested,
complaining of chest pains. Police and paramedics arrived to help and/or take
him to the hospital. Man became combative and police handcuffed him. He then
went into medical distress. CPR was given, but he dies on the scene. I'm
unsure how to score this one...it is not clear it should even count as a
police killing. However, if I'm going to rate every item as either "justified"
or "not justified", then I'll give it: Not Justified.

#475, latino male. Shot a customer in an auto detail shop, then shot at
responding officers who shot him. My verdict: Justified.

#505, white male. Police responding to a 911 call about gunshots and a woman
yelling for help got the wrong address. The man who answered at that address
had a gun, and ignored police orders to drop it. It's unclear whether or not
the police identified themselves sufficiently, and there had been a home
invasion next door not too long before, so I'm going to tentatively call this
one Not Justified.

#535, white male. Reports of a drunk driver causing damage. Police find the
car, but the driver is gone. While the officer was working on paperwork, the
driver returned and pulled a gun out of his car. The officer struggled with
him for control of the gun, and another officer arrived and jumped in to help.
After over a minute of struggling, and dozens of commands to drop the weapon,
one of the officers finally shot the suspect. (It later turned out the gun was
just a BB pistol, but it looked like a regular gun). My verdict: Justified.

So...that's 7 justified, 3 not justified.

Of the three that I classified as not justified, only one remotely fits into
the trigger-happy police narrative.

This is quite different from the impression I would have if I had relied
solely on what the press is telling me about US police shootings.

