
Mapping Police Violence - deathgrips
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
======
M4v3R
Not sure I agree with the premise behind this map. The title says "Mapping
Police Violence" and then "Police killed 1,099 people in 2019", which to me
implies, that it shows cases where police killed that many innocent
people/killed without any real reason. Then it also goes to say that "There is
no accountability" and "99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not
resulted in officers being charged with a crime" which further underlines that
these killings were something that the officers should be charged/convicted
for.

And yet when I was clicking through the cases most of them seemed to be armed
suspects that were shooting at other people and/or at the officers arriving at
the scene. In which case I don't see how shooting at the suspect should be
condemned in any way.

Maybe I'm missing something here? I'm all in for charging and convicting
unlawful use of violence and firearms by the police but this website seems a
bit misleading to me because it misrepresents the scope of the problem. It
would be much more useful to prove its point if it only showed cases where the
suspect was not armed and dangerous.

~~~
michaelchisari
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country)

If you look at the rate per 10 Million people, we're right in-between Mexico
and Bangladesh with 28.4

Germany is 1.3, UK is 0.5, Japan is 0.2

That tells me there's a problem that isn't solved by breaking the numbers into
two columns of _justified_ and _non-justified_.

~~~
ajsnigrutin
But how many criminals in germany and UK shoot at the police officers? I think
that this US number is also very different from the German/UK number.

~~~
chrisseaton
Maybe criminals in the US carry and use guns because they fear violence from
the police?

If you think the police are going to kill you either way, you might as well go
out shooting! In the UK you know the police are going to respectfully arrest
you and treat you well, so might as well give in rather than escalate it to a
firefight.

But generally I think it's crazy that the police in the US are armed. Most
policing doesn't need lethal weaponry, and community officers shouldn't be
armed. Leave guns to specialist units when required.

I know Floyd wasn't killed with a gun, but I think disarming the police would
be the right response and first step towards reducing police violence, as it
de-escalates every interaction.

~~~
gridlockd
> Maybe criminals in the US carry and use guns because they fear violence from
> the police?

Criminals carry guns because _other_ criminals carry guns, and because
prospective victims generally do _not_ carry guns.

Most criminals are not going to be interested to pull a gun on the police. If
they can make the gun disappear when encountering the police, they will.

> In the UK you know the police are going to respectfully arrest you and treat
> you well, so might as well give in rather than escalate it to a firefight.

In the UK you also don't face the same penalties. If it's twenty-five to life,
people are likely to resist arrest by all means.

> But generally I think it's crazy that the police in the US are armed. Most
> policing doesn't need lethal weaponry, and community officers shouldn't be
> armed. Leave guns to specialist units when required.

Sure, most policing doesn't need arms, but most behavior doesn't need policing
either.

If you were a police officer, would you, unarmed, engage another person
wielding a hatchet? I'd say that's unlikely. Would you even _take the job_ if
you were unarmed?

Of course that means police kill/injure fewer people, but they also prevent
fewer people from killing or injuring others.

> I know Floyd wasn't killed with a gun, but I think disarming the police
> would be the right response and first step towards reducing police violence,
> as it de-escalates every interaction.

It would de-escalate in the sense that there won't be any policing. Officers
aren't going to engage a potentially armed criminal with just pepper spray.

If you could assume that the person you are trying to arrest most likely does
not carry a gun, like in Europe, it would be different. That's just not going
to happen in the US.

~~~
chrisseaton
> If you were a police officer, would you, unarmed, engage another person
> wielding a hatchet? I'd say that's unlikely. Would you even take the job if
> you were unarmed?

Great example! Here's how the UK engage someone wielding a machete, without
guns or any other weapons beside extendable batons.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY)

They try to deescalate, they bring in reinforcements, they surround, then they
disarm him using shields, not weapons, and he survives to stand a fair trial.
No guns needed.

And if they thought they couldn't arrest him using shields they could call in
a specialist firearms unit, who are specifically trained, authorised, and
accountable.

~~~
gridlockd
This is ridiculous. You have six or seven officers trying to _verbally reason_
with the screaming guy. Then, at an unspecified later time, you have about
_twenty to thirty_ officers subduing the guy.

Look, in this case maybe the screaming guy didn't actually intend to hurt
anyone. You can tell by the fact that he isn't actually attacking. There also
weren't any victims or bystanders involved.

Now, what happens if somebody actually tries to assault people? The
perpetrator gets shot from a safe distance when those "special units" finally
arrive:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50594810](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50594810)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-
london-51349664](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-51349664)

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2020/mar/09/westminster-...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2020/mar/09/westminster-shooting-police-kill-suspect-who-had-knives-says-
met)

~~~
chrisseaton
> This is ridiculous.

In the US, this man would be dead. Here, he survived. That's not ridiculous.

> Now, what happens if somebody actually tries to assault people? The
> perpetrator gets shot from a safe distance, when those "special units"
> finally arrive:

Yes - that's how it should be. Leave an actual firefight to specially
appointed marksman with specialist weapons, not day-to-day officers waving
pistols around. And they don't need those weapons when attending other
incidents.

~~~
gridlockd
> In the US, this man would be dead. Here, he survived.

Well alright, that's one machete-wielding life that was saved. How many non-
machete-wielding lives are lost by having an underpowered police force?

I guess we'll never know.

> That's not ridiculous.

It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize the
threat, which may not even have been a real threat.

> Yes - that's how it should be. Leave an actual firefight to specially
> appointed marksman with specialist weapons, not day-to-day officers waving
> pistols around. And they don't need those weapons when attending other
> incidents.

So, you get called to a minor domestic disturbance, the _unarmed_ cops show up
and it turns out that the guy in question "upgraded" to a kitchen knife.
They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the
properly equipped force shows up.

I'm sure there's a trade-off between having police officers armed and
dangerous versus having them be harmless. However, most countries in Europe -
even those with low crime rates - choose to arm their officers. Deadly
incidents remain rare:

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

~~~
chrisseaton
> It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize
> the threat, which may not even have been a real threat.

So just kill people to save a handful of officers having to spend 15 minutes
sorting a situation out?

> So, you get called to a minor domestic disturbance, the unarmed cops show up
> and it turns out that the guy in question "upgraded" to a kitchen knife.
> They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until
> the properly equipped force shows up.

How do you think it works in practice in the UK at the moment? If someone
attacks you with a kitchen knife you can defend yourself and arrest them using
a baton or a Tazer - you don't need a _gun_ that's an insane murderous
overreaction.

Our rate of both people killed by the police, and people killed by other
people, is very low. Learn from what we're doing.

~~~
gridlockd
> So just kill people to save a handful of officers having to spend 15 minutes
> sorting a situation out?

That's a false dichotomy. What if it had been only two officers? That would be
the situation if there happened to be a patrol around.

How do you know how the crazy guy would've reacted when facing a gun? Perhaps
he would have surrendered.

What about the officer's safety? Having a gun doesn't mean you _have_ to shoot
it, it means you have better means to defend yourself _and others_.

The fact that almost all other police forces in Europe have guns but then tend
to _not_ fire them at people tells me that guns are not the problem.

Either way, I'm not willing to put the lives of police officers on the line
just to save a couple of machete-wielding crazy people from a "suicide by cop"
situation.

> How do you think it works in practice in the UK at the moment? If someone
> attacks you with a kitchen knife you can defend yourself and arrest them
> using a baton or a Tazer - you don't need a gun that's an insane murderous
> overreaction.

No it isn't. If you are getting attacked with a knife, you and or other
person, officer or not, are morally and legally entitled to defend yourself
and others with lethal force.

For your own safety, _don 't_ bring a baton to a knife fight. You can not
intervene at a distance and you're risking your life.

As for Tazers, they don't have the same psychological impact as a gun and they
have limited range. You're welcome to use them, but I wouldn't put my or any
officer's body on the line just to prevent _the attacker_ from harm.

------
bresqa
I always struggle with racial (and religious) topics - everything about it is
so emotionally charged and a lot of the time I find that data is presented
superficially and can support any claim you'd like it to support. I'd like to
imagine that we're living in 2020 and that race is not as much as of a problem
as for example economic inequality.

For example - to me, a more plausible hypothesis in this "modern world" would
be that people from poor neighbourhoods suffer from police violence more. Has
anyone correlated those police departments with median income?

Even statistical claims on this website seem charged to me sometimes - for
example this is the first sentence on the site "Black people were 24% of those
killed despite being only 13% of the population." \- however upon
(superficial) research - in 2016[1] of all crimes committed 26.9% were by
black perpetrators. So in relation to that statistic - the other percentage
doesn't seem that surprising any more. But without that extra piece of info
the whole sentence (any maybe the whole site) exhibits bias because the
correlation is skewed.

[1] [https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21)

~~~
stonogo
This sort of comparison is unacceptable. For one thing, "committing a crime"
is insufficent justification for onsite execution by a police officer. For
another thing, the table you linked is _arrests_ \-- not convictions, not even
charges filed.

You have, in other words constructed exactly the sort of thinly-supported
narrative that you complained about in your opening salvo. We do live in 2020
and racism -- not "race" \-- is in fact a problem, no matter what you'd like
to imagine.

Of course class-related analyses are available, but I'm not sure how much
value there is to be had in continuing to engage on this topic before you take
an opportunity to consider deeply what conclusions you are comfortable
accepting and which ones you are merely interested in rendering less
"surprising."

I apologize if this comment comes across as hostile; I find your assessment
here to be highly offensive. It's one thing to attempt to maintain
objectivity; it's another to speak with such detachment and lack of self-
awareness as to make it extremely difficult to accept your text at face value.

~~~
bresqa
Your comment is exactly why I find these topics difficult - responses come
back disproportionally emotional and as you put it "hostile" in relation to
(what I believe to be) a pretty neutral comment.

For one - I believe there is never sufficient justification for "onsite
execution". I don't see how looking at convictions vs. arrests changes
anything about that? We could compare it to convictions if you'd like - the
gap might be even larger I believe.

My main point was that I hypothesise most of these issues are in fact due to
income inequality more than anything else. It's still a huge issue - but a
whole other issue - why that income inequality gap might be larger within the
black population in the US.

Crime rate vs. number of persons killed is something that I find a lot more
comfortable accepting then just blindly comparing the relations to the total
population. It would be just as easy for me to question your detachment from
reality or the lack of self-awareness.

------
samdamsamm
As usual, the most reliable correlate is completely ignored: __poverty __.
That is not a mistake.

The ruling class wants race war to distract from their class war.

[https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-
not-...](https://nonsite.org/editorial/how-racial-disparity-does-not-help-
make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence)

~~~
threatofrain
Racial injustice is a smell people can either deal with or not but it’s all
over the air. What does Black 2030 smell like? Optimistic?

When will being black in America no longer “correlate” with poverty and
pessimism? If Americans want to focus on poverty and move past matters of
racial cruelty, ought they not deal with the odor in the air? What does Black
2030 mean in America?

~~~
softawre
Of course we don't want to deal with poverty. We just want it as a scapegoat.

------
kenneth
Most of the time, the complaint is that black people are being killed by
police disproportionally. It's not often explicitly said what they are killed
disproportionally to, but it is usually implied as compared to demographics.
This chart says a black man is 3x more likely to be killed by police than a
white man.

The uncomfortable fact is that black people also commit a disproportionate
amount of the crime in the USA.

I was curious to see whether these police killings are disproportionate to the
amount of crime being committed. Is a black criminal 3x more likely to get
killed than a white criminal?

Digging into the numbers, on this database there were 3,379 killings of white
people by police, and 1,945 black people. In 2018 there were 589k property
crimes committed by white people, vs. 264k by black people. [1]

For each black crime, there were 2.2 white crimes.

For each black killing, there were 1.7 white killings.

So, yes, the data does support that black crime leads to a disproportionate
amount of killings at the hand of the police, even accounting for higher rates
of crime. A black criminal is 30% more likely to die at the hands of the
police than a white criminal. Not 3x, however.

[1]: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-
propert...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/252486/number-of-property-
crimes-in-the-us-by-type-and-race/)

EDIT: dead comment below points to some other statistics from the FBI:
[https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21)

If we look at the rates of violent crime categories only (murder, robbery, and
aggravated assault), the data actually indicates that a greater proportion of
these crimes are committed by black perpetrators.

There are 1.6 white perpetrators of aggravated assault per black perpetrator,
0.8 white robbers per black robber, and 0.85 white murderers per black
murderer.

This suggest that in this category, the police killings are actually
disproportionate in that more white people are killed by police than the rates
of violent crime committed would warrant.

~~~
eirini1
regardless of the reasons black people overall might commit more crime, or
whether they actually commit more crime or are just singled out by police more
often, do you feel that this is relevant to how often police kill people?

Capital punishment is the mechanism through which the justice system has the
right to kill people for their crimes. Cops do not have the authority to
decide who is guilty, let alone what their punishment will be. Therefore I ask
again, how is the crime rate of black people (even if that number is taken in
good faith and not heavily questioned as any competent statistician should)
relevant when we are discussing how often officers murder black people, before
a court has decided whether they have actually committed a crime or not?

~~~
gridlockd
> Cops do not have the authority to decide who is guilty, let alone what their
> punishment will be.

Cops _do_ have the legal authority to use lethal force on people resisting
arrest if there's probable cause for injury to themselves or others.

~~~
eirini1
right, and the fact that there is no institution that seems to hold cops
legitimately accountable as to wether or not there was actually probable cause
seems to be a big issue here.

------
xlii
After downloading the DB and deselecting "Allegedly Armed" there are 281
records so only 1/4th.

Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun
availability. Just few weeks back I was listening to a podcast where one of
the guys went to US for couple weeks for vacations. They discussed the
difference of the approach of the police.

Where I am, it's usually silly, when cop stops my car he salutes in overly
formal way and in really angry tone (like really really angry) described what
I have done and if I comply if not. Probably 99% of the danger for the cop
him/herself is that I'm going to curse him and his family 3 generations back.

Whereas in US, it's all about police-safety first. They will scan back of the
car, will ask (demand even) absolute compliance. This makes sense (to some
degree, as police person is protecting their own life) since I could have a
weapon and be a criminal or maybe even insane enough to try to pull this
stunt. After living with this possibility for a while and having to estimate
situation dozen if not hundreds time each day it's not surprising that police
killings do happen.

613 of those 1089 killings in 2019 (56%) were gun related. And that's 75% of
the "victim armed" cases. In contrary only 119 victims were confirmed to be
unarmed.

That's probably something completely different than the authors wanted to
communicate, but I think it shows how complex the matter is and undoubtedly
can't be attributed to only single class of the issues.

~~~
deathgrips
>Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun
availability

Almost no effect. I live in a state where over 2/3 of people own guns (usually
multiple guns) and we have one of the lowest murder rates in America and a
very low rate of police killing.

------
throwwwaway
It doesn't make sense to compare absolute number of deaths across different
cities. You need to normalise against number of police interactions with the
public (approximated by population size * crime rate).

~~~
sideshowb
With my geographer hat on - and not being from the US, so I don't
instinctively know where all the cities are - I was disappointed not to see a
static display of deaths on a map. Ideally with the option to normalize at the
users choice, both by population size alone, and by the crime rate suggestion
above. The best sort of display would probably be circles for each city or
state that scale in size, as choropleth maps tend to under-represent small
areas.

I don't mean to criticize the animated map, as it's impactful, just not very
good for understanding the geography of the problem. e.g. are all US cities
like this, or is it disproportionately a few of them? is the problem clustered
spatially in particular regions?

------
paganel
That's really cool, especially as I think one of the first map mashups was
Chicago Crime [1], which was followed soon enough by countless others (I know
I did one for my city back in 2007-ish). It would have been interesting for us
to have had this type of map alongside the original "crime" maps from the very
beginning, but I think relevant data was hard to come by.

[1] [http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-
tribute/](http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/)

------
VSerge
It's interesting to read about accountability (just scroll down a bit on the
page). 99% of the officers involved in a killing are not held accountable. It
could mean that 99% of killings were lawful, or it could mean impunity, and
that while there are lawful killings (when facing armed criminal posing a
threat), there are cases where officers are quite literally getting away with
murder. The lack of correlation between killings and violent crime rates (also
on this page) makes it likely unlawful killings do not result in the
prosecution they require.

~~~
grey-area
That a police officer is willing to choke a man to death in public over 10
minutes, and the illegal attacks on press over the last few days, even while
being filmed, tells you how accountable they feel.

------
ajuc
Looking from outside USA seems to be on a verge of a revolution, and not
because of these particular riots, it's just a symptom of lots of systematic
failures.

Crazy high incarceration levels for a developed country, high crime levels,
huge number of healthcare-related bankrupcies, low level of higher education
and inescapable student's debt gating higher class jobs, huge inequalities,
decreasing standards of living for the middle class.

Basically it looks like either the system will change or fail altogether.

I'm not even sure these riots are about race.

~~~
adontz
It seems, but it's not true. There is no well defined organization or any
other structure behind these protests, no funding and no force. Revolution is
always about army, and I don't think U.S. army will go against U.S. police or
at least stay neutral.

From another side, in my country, when a few people were hurt (but not killed)
by police, during police operation, it ended with months of protests. And
also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my
country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure people
would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up to
pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation.

Don;t get me wrong, we respect police. But we are not afraid of police. They
serve us, we are not their cattle. From perspective of my culture, which I'm
not stating is the best, U.S. people with all their amendments look like
voiceless lambs. Police officer drives into crowd and crowd lets that car
through. They do not break glass, do not cut tires, do not pull that officer
off the car to describe with expressive gestures how upset they are by his
actions.

~~~
ajuc
> And also, I hardly understand U.S. people at all. If a police officer in my
> country would stand on a person's neck, in public, I am absolutely sure
> people would start shouting at him, throwing stones and so similar things up
> to pulling him off that person in direct physical confrontation.

For a comparison here's an intervention from my city that got viral a few
months ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnRrHI5Ofw)

Everybody involved is white, but here everybody is white, it's just not a
factor.

~~~
082349872349872
How much violence was there when the Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa became the
Rzeczpospolita Polska?

The US transition to end slavery (ca 1860) was very violent, and the US
attempt to end lynching (ca 1960) was not without deaths.

~~~
ajuc
Much more. 90s were a pretty violent period, there was a lot of organized
crime. It mostly solved itself by mid 00s for several reasons related to EU
accession.

~~~
082349872349872
That's a bummer. You all managed to have a bloodless revolution, then got lots
of violence in return. Sorry to hear, but glad it's much better now.

------
tasubotadas
I don't live in the US and I think the behavior of the police is rather...
unsettling but even to me, this looks biased and sensationalist.

6x more black guys killed than white? That does not mean anything. What if
there are x12 more black guys committing a crime?

"27 days without killing anybody" \- if the country were to be 600M or 1B big,
it would probably have just 1 day - it doesn't mean anything really.

99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were
innocent old ladies.

Why do people mess up good ideas, with cheap sensationalism?

~~~
deathgrips
>What if there are x12 more black guys committing a crime?

There's a difference between x12 black guys committing a crime and x12 black
guys convicted of a crime.

>99% cases of no accountability? This assumes that all the suspects were
innocent old ladies.

Yes, America presumes innocence.

~~~
tasubotadas
>Yes, America presumes innocence.

Does the USA do trials for the dead people?

~~~
deathgrips
Presumption of innocence is a principle, not computer code.

------
utopcell
A couple of interesting points:

\- "Compare Places" -> "Compare States" shows consequences for officers
involved.

\- The 10 highest rated police departments in CA are in Tracy, San Mateo,
Carlsbad, Palo Alto, Tustin, Escondido, Alameda, Mountain View, Chula Vista
and Salinas. It is interesting to note that East Palo Alto (once the crime
capital of the US) is in San Mateo.

~~~
utopcell
although on second thought, this refers to San Mateo the city, not the
county..

------
fareesh
In the context of US society, with all its socioeconomic and cultural baggage:

\- Is it possible to design a system with zero unjustified killings /
violence?

\- Can you program 100% of policemen to be 100% lawful all the time? If not,
what is the expected failure rate of the system, and how far is the US from
that number?

Obligatory disclaimer, I am one of those people who think it is justified to
use violence against violent criminals, and shoot criminals who imminently
endanger anyone. From what I read on social media, this does not seem to be a
universally held view.

Incidentally I find that this whole topic is so emotionally charged that
people tend to speak in absolutes and frankly that is just not something you
can honestly engage with because there is no agreement on first principles, if
at all there are any to begin with. Most of the talk I see surrounding the
topic seems to be rooted in idealism and moral posturing with very little to
offer in terms of solutions.

Here in my country India, the general public often welcomes it when the police
beat up criminals. It is common for the criminal to receive their first set of
beatings from the mob that captures them, and then another round during
interrogation. Police shootings (colloquially referred to as "encounter-
killings") happen quite often as well, and are generally assumed to be staged.
Apart from a few activists, most of the country does not really care about
this issue. It is incredibly privileged for American society to even be having
a national conversation about police violence or police reform to begin with.
The third world has largely accepted this to be a fact of life for anyone
remotely involved in criminal activities, or people who dare to to stand up to
corruption.

Also the race angle of police violence seems to be entirely manufactured by
the media. I have yet to see a single statistic that shows a disproportionate
degree of violence towards a particular race. We are in the middle of a
pandemic, and from the videos I am watching online, it looks like a large
number of people have removed this from their minds completely because it is
not in the "news-cycle" anymore, which to me just reinforces my earlier claim
that the race angle is a complete fiction invented by the media to sell
advertisements, because the society at large seems to be programmable by what
the news tells them.

That being said, I am 100% sure that that the many of the police across
countries and cultures are biased against certain ethnicities, because that's
how human brains work (pattern recognition) - is this a solvable problem
either?

~~~
082349872349872
From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country)
it appears that encounter-killings occur almost 30 times more frequently in
the US than in India.

Indian encounter-killings occur at rates similar to German or Taiwanese. US
encounter-killings occur at rates similar to Pakistani or Rwandese.

~~~
fareesh
Likely due to the large number of armed suspects in the USA by comparison.
Private gun ownership is practically illegal in India.

------
lysp
Here is an exert from one state in Australia's police force review from 1994.

This took place _26_ years ago. Even though it was so long ago, it seems to
directly reflect solutions mentioned on the site.

For the TLDR crowd:

* Too much force was being used by police

* Mental illness was a factor in some shootings / use of force (4%)

* Standardised training for all police members

* Safety first approach taken:

* - Safety of offender is included in that approach (officers first, public next, offender third)

* - Contain first, avoid confrontation, avoid force

* - If needed, only use minimum force required

* - Forced property entry only as last resort

* All police undertake mandatory 5 day mental health training

* Police to take refresher mental health training every 6 months

* Any use of force - from minor (forced fingerprinting/cuffing) through to major (riots) - to be placed on register for tracking

* Increased trends noticed in force register will be addressed in 6 monthly training

\-------------------------

3\. Project Beacon

The establishment of Project Beacon followed a number of shooting incidents
involving the use of firearms by the Victoria police. Between 1987 and 1994,
officers were involved in operational incidents which resulted in the deaths
of 29 offenders or suspects. Police were required to attend 15 to 20 incidents
per day where use of force was employed and up to three "critical incidents"
per week. A critical incident is defined as "any incident requiring police
management which involves violence or a threat of violence and is, or is
potentially, life-threatening". By mid-1994 this trend became the catalyst for
fundamental change in operational safety tactics and training within the
Victoria police. Expert analysis revealed that a number of factors may have
contributed to this increase; namely, a feeling of vulnerability within the
police force, a desire on the part of the community for instant solutions and
a belief within the force that "there was no one else to solve these
problems".

It was also felt that this trend was in part contributed to by the de-
institutionalisation of patients with mental illness in Victoria in the early
1990s. Six of nine fatal shooting incidents in 1994 by police (and one in
1995) involved persons with a mental illness. Statistics revealed that such
persons were involved in 44% of all critical incidents reported to Project
Beacon between October, 1994 and December, 1995. It was further noted that
persons with mental illness were involved in approximately 4% of all "use of
force" incidents, i.e., where force is used or threatened by or against the
police. Emotionally disturbed persons attempting suicide and/or self-
mutilation constituted a further 3.5% of use of force incidents. In general, a
significant number of emotionally disturbed persons and people with
behavioural problems, who may not have had histories of mental illness,
regularly came to the police attention.

A number of reviews, both internal and with the assistance of international
policing experts, were undertaken in an attempt to identify solutions. On 6th
April, 1994, the Commissioner of the Victoria police, Mr. Neil Comrie, wrote
to all commissioned officers emphasising the philosophy that "the success of
an operation will primarily be judged by the extent to which the use of force
is avoided or minimised".

On 19th September, 1994, Project Beacon was established and involved the
standardisation of training so that all officers were trained to the same
level of competence. The core principles of Project Beacon inform the response
to every incident and the planning of operations which may involve any
potential use of force. These core principles may be summarised as follows:

* "Safety First — the safety of police, the public and the offender or suspect is paramount.

* Risk Assessment — is to be applied to all incidents and operations.

* Take Charge — effective command and control must be exercised.

* Planned Response — every opportunity should be taken to convert an unplanned response into a planned operation.

* Cordon and Containment — unless impractical, a cordon and containment approach is to be adopted.

* Avoid Confrontation — a violent confrontation is to be avoided.

* Avoid Force — the use of force is to be avoided.

* Minimum Force — where the use of force is to be avoided, only the minimum amount reasonably necessary is to be used.

* Forced Entry Searches — are to be used only as a last resort.

* Resources — it is accepted that the "safety first" principle may require the deployment of more resources, more complex planning and more time to complete".

The primary principle of Project Beacon is "safety first". The safety of the
police officer is paramount, followed by the safety of the public and the
safety of the subject. Mr. Shuey utilised the example of a doctor attending a
collision to treat a patient: "the doctor wouldn’t stand in the middle of the
road to do the treatment of the patient because he would be exposing himself
to the risk of being run over by a car". If the police officer is in a
position of security, he or she will be more competent and capable of handling
the situation. If a police officer is not involved in anything which is
unsafe, he will have a clearer perspective of what is happening and be able to
deal with the situation accordingly. If you expose a police officer to a "kill
or be killed" situation, the risk of a fatal confrontation increases.

A significant objective of Project Beacon was to assist police in dealing with
persons with mental illness, emotionally disturbed individuals and persons
with behavioural problems. Project Beacon, in collaboration with the Victoria
Department of Health and Community Services, developed a comprehensive
integrated approach for dealing with such persons which was incorporated into
police training courses. The training involved video scenarios and role-
playing and in December, 1995, a video called "Similar Expectations" was
produced. It offered a range of methods for dealing with persons with mental
illness, and provided advice from mental health experts. The video received
widespread acceptance in law enforcement and mental health agencies and was
automatically incorporated into every police officer’s training; it was not
confined to the training of those who participated in dedicated negotiators
courses. Further training programmes were developed by persons with expertise
in psychiatric mental health with the assistance of a police psychologist.

8,500 police officers, student and operational, were placed on an initial,
five day training course complemented by mandatory two-day refresher training
every six months. It is now part of ongoing training of police officers in the
state of Victoria. Training for the Special Operations Group is rigorous and
ongoing, taking place on most occasions when its members are not involved in
operational response duties.

A "use of force register" is now maintained by the Victoria Police. Use of
force incidents range from the forcible obtainment of fingerprints and
handcuffing, through to riot situations. All such incidents are recorded in
the register. This enables the police force in Victoria to track the number of
incidents where force is a factor, and enables trend analysis in relation to
the type of force and weapons that are used. This acts as a "catalyst" for the
next six months of training. The information is analysed and if there is an
excessive increase in crimes involving firearms or knives etc., the training
in the following six months will be highlighted in that direction.

~~~
082349872349872
Thank you. Out of curiosity, how long is the training for police officers in
Australia? 36 weeks? (here it takes 2 years: trainees sign a contract saying
they won't leave the force for a certain period, to justify the expense of
their training)

~~~
lysp
It's around about that amount of time - living on-campus or at home if you're
relatively close by. You get paid a wage of $33k USD from the day you start.
With it increasing as you get experience. If you quit, it's like any other
job.

Another slight difference is we generally only have 1 police force per state.
You can transfer between different stations/areas - but they are all under
control of a single state body. If you stuff up badly enough to get fired from
one - you can't transfer. You could theoretically go to a different state -
but you'd need to declare any past history and if it's bad you won't get a job
there either.

In total we have less than about 30 law enforcement agencies nation-wide -
including state police, military, fisheries, federal police, prisons and
border control.

It's my understanding in the US there are many many police agencies - per
county as well as schools, banks, etc. Which adds up to around 18,000 over 50
states.

For our schools or shops we have security guards which have different training
and far less powers than police. They basically have the similar powers to a
normal citizen. They are used more as a deterrent rather than anything
functional.

------
tonyedgecombe
_Police killed 1,099 people in 2019._

As a contrast 3 people died at the hands of the police in the UK in 2019.

~~~
gherkinnn
Internet Rule #69:

Never, ever, ever, claim that another country does something better than the
US. You will be flooded by US Exceptionalism.

Then again: [https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-
na...](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-
this-r-1823016659)

~~~
082349872349872
Off topic: I consider the '-' in my comment scores to be the forum equivalent
of a dueling scar. People who won't refute downvote.

Oddly enough, while attempting to say another country does (in a single
particular instance, not even overall) something better than the US, only gets
downvotes to negative, when I actually attempt to defend the US (some of my
best friends are Americans!), the whole tree gets flagged.

In US social mores, is it considered uppity to mention that other countries
and other people exist?

On topic:
[https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/chmVn/3/](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/chmVn/3/)
12 uses (not necessarily deadly) of a gun in 2018 would be what, 480, scaled
to US population? In the last 20 years, police snipers have had to kill once.
That would be twice per year for the US.

------
hkai
It seems weirdly specific to create a map of only police brutality, like
creating a map of murders by white people below the age 25.

I am also not sure why it needs to have a geographic component. Perhaps you
don't really care on which block the police brutality occurred as much as the
outcome of the case.

------
kypro
This is useful because it highlights how black people are not the only, or
even primary victims of police violence.

I think it's a real shame that what should be racially blind protest about
police brutality that affects all communities has turned racial when the
statistics for doing so really don't make much sense. Especially considering
how many police forces in the US are headed by minorities and how much of the
police force consists of minorities.

~~~
ppcdeveloper
A police force headed by a minority means nothing if the racism before that
person joined is still there and he or she does not do anything to help
change. It's like getting a Black president and saying racism and lynching was
abolished by voting this person in office. The statistics show that the
murders of unarmed people of color at the hands of police officers is
disproportionately higher than that of the white people. And the is
specifically true for back men. Out of every 100K black people 8 of the men of
that population will die, unarmed, at the hands of the police force that
happen to be white. These statistics enable the "seeing" process. Sources for
the statistics are given in the article. You are free to calculate your own
conclusions.

~~~
kypro
> The statistics show that the murders of unarmed people of color at the hands
> of police officers is disproportionately higher than that of the white
> people.

The statistics show all kinds of things. It would show the same for men vs
women, young vs old, it would even show the same poor urban areas vs rich
suburbs.

It's unfortunate, but also clear that certain demographics simply present a
higher threat. Perhaps the police should be blind to age, race, neighbourhood
and gender, but in reality that's not going to happen. It's a survival
instinct we all have and if you pretend you feel less threatened when a group
of young men walk pass you in a rough area compared to an elderly couple in
the suburbs, then you're lying.

What you really need to be asking is whether these stats are a product of the
increased threat young black men pose to the police or whether this is simply
straight up racism. But the fact these statistics are not comparable to other
minority ethnic groups living in the US, nor to black women, you have to
question if racism is the best explanation of the data. Indeed if it is
racism, it seems to be a very unusual type of racism which has prejudice
specifically for young, male, poor, and of course, black individuals.

------
peter_retief
What a load of nonsense. Police are in the front line against violent
criminals and need to be respected and supported. This childish graphic is
highly offensive and should be removed.

~~~
Jataman606
If you would read it you would see that killings have little correlation to
violent crimes.

~~~
peter_retief
What are you talking about? Killings have little correlation to violent
crimes?

------
air7
I dislike websites like this and their agenda. They are fueling the racial war
instead of trying to fight it.

It makes it seem like this is a white against black thing and it most surely
isn't (or at the very least not primarily).

For one, they add "Hispanic" in to the mix just to hint how Whites
discriminate against them too, but less. However "Asian" is usually left out
because they are killed and persecuted even less than "White" so that doesn't
go well with the narrative.

Also, a good portion of the police force is non-white, but the front cover
stories are always of a white cop killing a black man.

Police deal with criminal activity which is correlated with skin color
(through poverty most likely), so it's harder to prove that the numbers are
even higher than they're expected to be.

Of course apparent atrocities like George Floyd are terrible and the officers
involved should be prosecuted and the rage is understandable, but the race
card shouldn't be played too easily otherwise the situation is just
perpetuated.

~~~
Ensorceled
Where did you get "white against black thing"? This "agenda" is entirely in
your head since the website is quite clearly a "police against black thing".

The fact that you are associating police with "white" in your head and getting
upset about it is a huge part of this problem.

~~~
air7
From this quote "Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police than
white people".

Perhaps the interpretation is indeed only in my head but it seems that a white
cop killing a black perpetrator will generate substantially more attention and
rage than any other racial combination. This in turn fuels the confirmation
bias that make it seem that (white) police are just shooting unarmed black
people left and right. The same site shows that black people are "only" 1.3x
times more likely to be unarmed compared to white meaning that it happens a
lot yet how many stories of unarmed white deaths caused mass riots?

A quote such as above implies causation, yet the numbers while technically
true, don't. For example "White people are 3x times more likely to be killed
by police than Asian/Pacific Islanders" is also true [0]. Also, the same
source shows that "Men are 20x times more likely to be killed by police than
women". All these quotes have the same structure yet only cause outrage (and
imply causation) when the race/genders are in an order that confirms an
implicit agenda such as white>black or men>women.

My point is that police brutality, like most things, is complicated and has
many factors in play and allowing it to be hijacked to a racial discussion as
"police against black thing" isn't doing anyone any good.

[0]
[https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793)

~~~
Ensorceled
> From this quote "Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police than
> white people".

How is that a "white vs black thing"? That's direct evidence of the sites
premise; police are more likely to be deadly violent towards black people.

The site makes no claim to causation, it's just numbers. The rest of your
numbers are "whataboutism" but also continue to show that the way the police
operate is problematic. That police are more likely to be brutal towards men
than women is another issue, not the issue this site is trying to raise
awareness off.

