Friday, April 22, 2016

Texas cops shoot people at higher rates than Yankees

According to this chart (which was crafted from this data), people who live in Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, or Corpus Christi are more than four times as likely to be shot and killed by a police officer than someone who lives in New York City, Philadelphia, or Detroit. People in Arlington are six times more likely to be killed by police than Big Apple residents.

For our Okie readers: those living in Oklahoma City were five times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than residents of Tulsa.


Source.

13 comments:

  1. If the data was formulated and published by persons that didn't have an agenda, it would have much greater impact. Hard to believe that the information/facts weren't skewed to the agenda/point of view of the Black activists that compiled it.

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  2. General compliance would make those numbers near zero.

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  3. 2:03 -

    I know exactly how you feel. I've had the same thought about commenters on blogs. We aren't going to get anywhere until we eliminate all the comments from people with points of view. Maybe we need a rule - people only get to speak about things they have no opinion about.

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  4. I suspect the numbers are actually higher, given that not all deaths by police shooting are recorded as such.

    And I have no agenda.

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  5. I've always felt that the law enforcement exemption in TPIA incentivizes Texas cops to shoot to kill rather than shoot to immobilize a suspect. Here's the logic.

    Police organizations aren't required to release records (video, audio) of police shootings unless a conviction emerges in the case. A suspect who survives a police shooting can be convicted and thus cause all of the records to be released. But a suspect who dies combined with an officer exonerated by a friendly investigation does not yield the conviction required to release the records. Only civil lawsuits force organizations to release records.

    I'm not saying police organizations don't release records when there is a public outcry. I'm saying they don't have to by law. And when the evidence is damning, they don't release the records.

    If you want better outcomes in police shootings, make it mandatory that when a suspect dies, ALL of the records are subject to TPIA. If the suspect survives a shooting, have an independent review board make recommend whether or not the records should be immediately released. But leave the decision up to the Chief of Police as to whether to follow the recommendation of the review board. This then places the responsibility for transparency where it belongs--with the Chief. If the suspect is later convicted or the department sued and it demonstrates that the Chief concealed wrongdoing....well, you see where this is going.

    Easy fix to TPIA right there.

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  6. It is surprising that the public doesn't realize that Texas cops kill more suspects than the death penalty. Madness.

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  7. Generally comes down to compliance.

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  8. @8:55-

    When you comply (as the cops stated, not the victim), this is what happens...

    http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/08/texas-cops-this-woman-in-public-then-threatened-to-break-her-legs-when-she-complained/

    At least she wasn't shot, huh.

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  9. Generally comes down to compliance? I can show you cases where the police shot deaf people, people who can't speak English and of course the routine category of mentally disturbed people. These are 3 types of people for whom compliance is not straightforwardly possible. In Memphis they had a shooting problem like this and fixed it with training. No one is proud of an incident that results in a suspect being shot. The culture that allows it starts with the chief of police.

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  10. General compliance was not met as universal compliance, but even the deaf, non-English speakers, and the mentally disturbed would likely not be the rule. Excluding the mentally ill; most individuals should be able to understand that bringing a weapon to an incident or crime involving or requiring a law enforcement response isn't smart. Even those without weapons, can take actions that increase or decrease any law enforcement response/actions. Compliance CAN go a long way to reducing a confrontation.

    I'd be interested in what percentage of these are suicide-by-cop.

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  11. General compliance. Universal compliance. You're missing the point. The law says if an officer warns a suspect who is placing others in immediate danger, that suspect may be shot if they ignore the warning. I'm telling you the law is wrong and I have examples where sufficient justification is not met even when a warning is issued.

    The standard needs to be dialed back and the way to do that is improve the local police policies and training just as they did in Memphis. You can dig a hole and stick your head in it but civil awards for cases like Tamir Rice will eventually teach you the lesson.

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  12. While the Tamir Rice was a set of tragic events; Rice shouldn't have had a realistic looking gun waving it around. HIS decision(s) led to his own death

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  13. Rice was murdered by a scared cop, you can't logically come to any other conclusion.

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