Friday, December 31, 2004

Jobs more dangerous than a police officer

CrimProf blog points to an MSNBC report that says 154 U.S. police officers died in the line of duty in 2004, half in traffic accidents, and one-third in shootings.

Police officers' jobs are dangerous, but not that much more so than other common jobs. A few years ago I compiled a partial list of jobs more dangerous than a police officer from the 2000 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. They include obviously dangerous jobs like miners, but also jobs you wouldn't think of like truck drivers, groundskeepers, fishermen, construction workers, and airplane pilots. That's right -- the groundskeeper trimming trees in the city park statistically has a more dangerous job than the local cop. Actually, cutting trees is dangerous business. It's ten times more dangerous to be a lumberjack than a police officer.

6 comments:

Gritsforbreakfast said...

"where there are none"?

I dispute your premise. Grieving families mourn equally, sir, and it's a cold fact that families of timber cutters are ten times more likely to face such grief than families of police officers. That should be good news for police. It's kind of funny people are defensive about it. I think that's mostly because the statistics belie a lot of the high-blown rhetoric.

Adam RainStopper said...

How many cops have been forced by highjackers to fly in to buildings? How many cops freeze to death? How often do you think cops have to worry about storm-tossed waters? How many cops get cancer from asbestos exposure? You talk about being "assaulted", as if the statistics on that are based on anything real. You mean 15K were CHARGED with assault on an officer. That means nothing. I have been charged with the same 3 times in the past 5 years, and I swear on my life I never actually laid a fucking hand on a single one of them. However, I said things to them that they didn't want to hear, so the next day at arraignment, they needed an explanation for the mangled state of my face, and so they cried assault. 99% of assault on an officer cases are just such bogus cover stories, which is why 99% of them are dropped later in the plea bargain where the defendant cops to what he ACTUALLY did. They pistol whipped my 16 year old sister, then charged her with assaulting them when she spit blood on one cop's boot. Now we are white kids, just imagine what they would have done if we were black or hispanic. Police have training, dogs, kevlar, firearms, helmets when they need them, and of course, hundreds of fellow officers backing them against a single "suspect", so the danger really isn't too serious, and if it was, well gee, there's plenty of jobs out there that are at least as easy to get as that one, most of which pay about the same, or more. It is out of sadism that they choose locking human beings in cages for their career, instead of cutting timber, not because they are heroic and think that "someone's gotta do it". Other than the statistic of on-the-job death, there are "danger" factors in EVERY job, but being a pig is comparitively cushy and safe compared to most kinds of labor that are carried out anywhere but behind a desk. The vast majority of police officers actually get quite a bit less than they dish out in violence and injury, and rarely is a police officer EVER murdered on the job resulting from anything other than a grudge that began with his or her own abuse of power. The cops who get killed are the ones who get themselves killed. Just because they wear badges doesn't mean they are exempt from accountability and the wages of making enemies everywhere they go. If I kidnapped several people a day and locked them in cages, I'd be looking over my shoulder nonstop, just waiting for it to catch up with me. Cops on the other hand, think they are invincible, so they walk around like they own the world, and sooner or later, a crooked cop will find himself sleeping with the fishes. It is the way of the cosmic forces of Karma, and human nature, and it happens indiscriminately to those who deliberately inflict harm upon others. Eventually, every dog has his day. Open up your eyes Scott KKK.

Carolyn said...

Adam,
You said:
"...and rarely is a police officer EVER murdered on the job resulting from anything other than a grudge that began with his or her own abuse of power. The cops who get killed are the ones who get themselves killed."

I would love to see some proof of this.

Adam RainStopper said...

Proof? What, you want videos of cops being corrupt and making enemies? Common sense should be all the proof you need, but I am afraid you will have to draw your own conclusion. If you want this conclusion to be realistic and correct, then you should consider the facts, and much of it is public information, but it is all going to be circumstantial, because the people who say "oh, you pistol whipped my sister? Well, time for you to die." and then kill them are not likely to make a brutality complaint against an officer whom they intend to kill. That would be rather foolish for anyone who doesn't want to be shot up with poison in a state prison's death row medical ward. However, they generally don't get killed by the first person they ever rape, beat, pistol whip, handcuff to a telephone pole and strip naked, etc, so if you look in to the backgrounds of a handful of cops who got killed, you are going to find some complaints of abuse of some kind. They all do it, if you want proof of that, die your hair pink and walk down my street every day for a week, and you'll have your proof. Some do it more than others, and they end up dead. Look up internal affairs records yourself, don't tell me to do it for you. I owe you no proof, prove to me that you aren't a troll, and study some information on your own. You will find proof if you are willing to see it. You won't if you are not.

Anonymous said...

The point of this article was to compare how dangerous a given occupation is.Being murdered is one of occupation hazards for being a cop, such as downing is to a fisherman, or getting crushed by a tree for a lumberjack.

The point of course is to figure out how often these things happens. And according to the Census data it doesn't happen nearly as much as people would. think. Yes police work can be dangerous but so can many other occupations such as cab drivers which stats show a much higher mortality rate than being a peace officer.

adam said...

Let's consider the rate of people being killed by the actions of other people. Compare how many cops are killed on the job to how many civilians are killed by cops. Most police officers survive to retirement, but few of them retire having never once used their service weapon, and the statistical majority of fatal shootings of suspects by police are actually circumstances in which the suspect was unarmed. In many cases, superior officers give the green light to shoot to kill if you have skipped out on bail and flee when you see them coming. I grew up in Hartford CT, and every one of the cops in that city carries TWO firearms: his service weapon, and a "disposable" that he can plant in the hand of anyone he happens to shoot dead. This cover-ass technique is widely known and accepted among city cops. They are more violent than the bloods and crips, better organized than columbian cartels, and more ruthless than the mob, so I can't help rolling my eyes when a cop gets shot and they have a memorial that has the entire city shut down for a week.