WaPo: Fatal Police Shootings are Rare and Constant

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This Thursday July 15, 2021 photo provided by the Los Angeles Police Department shows an evidence photo of what a suspect was allegedly carrying who was shot and killed by an LAPD officer along Hollywood Blvd in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. The California attorney general’s office is launching its first newly required investigation of a police shooting of an unarmed civilian. It’s acting in a Los Angeles County death where police said the suspect walking on Hollywood Boulevard turned out to have a fake gun. (Los Angeles Police Department via AP)

In the United States, fatal shootings by police are both rare and constant. Tens of millions of people cross paths with police each year, and most of those encounters end without the use of force.

“The vast majority of those fatal shootings are lawful, righteous shootings,” said Daniel Oates, a former police chief in Miami Beach, Aurora, Colo., and Ann Arbor, Mich.

But, he said, “a percentage of them are bad training, bad policy, bad day by the cop, not performing at their best.” Prosecutors charged more officers for on-duty shootings in 2020 in comparison with 2019. Still, Oates said that despite the fusillade of criticism, policing has improved significantly.

“The narrative of the last year has been that ‘Oh my God, police are wildly out of control,’ ” Oates said. “That’s not true. If you tracked that [fatal shooting] data from 30, 40 years ago, I’m sure the numbers would be much, much, much, much higher. There’s been a reform movement around the use of force in American policing.”

The New York City Police Department, where Oates once worked, publishes annual reports on its officers’ uses of force. In the early 1970s, officers in the country’s biggest local police force shot and killed dozens of people each year. By the 2010s, the number was in the single digits in many years.

Nationwide data, however, are incomplete. Between 1976 and 2015, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program recorded no more than 460 fatal shootings by police in any single year. The [Washington] Post’s database, launched in 2015, has found more than double that number every year. The FBI’s long-promised new program meant to fill the gaps is voluntary — and still incomplete.

— Mark Berman, Julie Tate, and Jennifer Jenkins in Police shootings continue daily, despite a pandemic, protests and pushes for reform

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73 COMMENTS

  1. To steal a line from our resident Sea Lion, SA-Truppfuhrer miner49er, ‘If you don’t want to get shot by the police, follow their orders’.

    • My Dad said that the time to argue with a police officer was in court.. not the street where they “own” you. He was thinking of minor traffic violations…it applies to the serious $#it too.

    • That sounds like Nazi tyranny shit do what I tell you or I’ll kill you the fact that most police officers get six months of training is a joke and that most cops are dumb as fuckin rocks now it’s just getting to daylight with all of the accessibility to cameras at every moment of the day you’re finally seeing how shitty police are with their training I’m neither a left or a right but when they say defund the police as I go the fuck ahead cuz I’m a gun owner and I’m a damn better shot than any thug that’s going to be out on the street everybody can keep believing on left versus right but that’s the narrative both sides of run when they go home together and laugh at us “civilians” it’s elite versus the common Man not left vs right not black vs white that’s the game they want to keep playing

      • “…and that most cops are dumb as fuckin rocks now it’s just getting to daylight with all of the accessibility to cameras at every moment of the day you’re finally seeing how…”

        H’mm.

        In all the police reports I have ever read, at least cops have a passing familiarity with capitalization and punctuation when they write.

        Unlike you…

        • Like I said not left or right I’m just not a fucking idiot I’m sorry that the only thing yall could find in my comment to argue a point is with my punctuation and capitalization like a 12 year old

        • “… I’m sorry that the only thing yall could find in my comment to argue a point is with my punctuation and capitalization like a 12 year old”

          Bandit, errors are one thing. Everyone makes errors. Even I have made errors.

          The thing is, your comment didn’t have errors in punctuation and capitalization, it had a complete lack of either of them. (Oops, you did put quotes around “civilians”).

          All while you were ragging on cops being “dumb as fuckin rocks”.

          Do you not see the irony in that? 🙂

        • Still trying to go after that punctuation capitalization respond with an actual argument to the things that I said because you can’t cuz what I said is a truth I literally could list thousands of instances or cops are fucking retards like the time that cop arrested the ambulance driver for cutting him off at a red light when he was taking somebody to the hospital that was having a heart attack or the numerous times that police tell you you can’t record them when you legally can cops know nothing about law almost every cop in a small town is just a good old boy that got a badge dumb as f****** rocks oh no I forgot the punctuation that makes my argument invalid

        • cops know nothing about law

          Most cops KNOW the law, they are just counting on YOU NOT knowing the law…

      • I think that’s the longest run on sentence I’ve seen this week. You win the internets!

        • Which authoritarian group do you want to be compared to with your pro police bullshit? Anti cop is pro America.

      • Keyboards are cheap. Please buy yourself a new one, on which the period and comma buttons work.

    • most of these problems seem to emanate from blacks…who are often less than cooperative….

      • Blacks are never going to cooperate with the police. They are racist so your comment is racist. How could I pledge allegiance to a racist ass flag when the police are always harassing me for being black? Why should I comply with a non legal order? That’s fascism. Police are fascist to blacks and you don’t want to admit it because you are a bully.

    • Especially the part where the Washington Post finds that less than half are reported to the FBI’s national statistics. Kind of makes you wonder what the real numbers are.

  2. In other words to keep the peace let’s tuck tail and cater to criminals and other azzhats. It’s the sweep the dirt under the carpet solution. For such catering to work we must: 1) Tie the hands of the police. 2) Ramp up Gun Control. 3) Bow to Communism. It’s Puke, Puke and Puke.

    To whom it may concern…My commits are not intended for sensitive man-karens or others who are unable to handle facts and reality. My suggestions are to ignore my commits or take up knitting.

    • “To whom it may concern…My commits are not intended for…”

      Pfttttpt. Keep clobbering them, Deborah.

      It’s hilarious the unhinged reactions you get from them… 🙂

    • Hmmm, Lil Debbie loves her some progressive, tyrant Lincoln. With her pro cop attitude we can infer she would have supported the redcoats in 1776. This nation was founded by men who rioted, smuggled guns and drugs, evaded taxes, shot cops and owned slaves. It was destroyed by the men supported by Lil Debbie.

      • Chris. If your bs is true how was it destroyed by those men? Did you stand by and let it happen? Hide under your bed hoping they would go away?

  3. BLM narrative: police wake up in the morning looking to hunt down and kill black men.

    Reality: some BLM supporters wake up in the morning looking to hunt down and kill police officers, and they follow through with it.

  4. You can hire as many new cops as you want, if WE THE PEOPLE do not remove the worthless judicial infrastructure that is turning the criminals loose without any viable reform or consequences IT WILL BE THE SAME OLD CRAP. why would anybody with a working brain take a job that the results of doing your best at working in it can get you charged for doing what is necessary to fulfill it.

  5. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cops-arrested_n_576c2e13e4b0cedfa4b9470f

    Don’t like that source, there are others, including a WAPO article from 2016. Approximately 1000 cops are arrested every year for serious violations of the law, including for murder.

    Those of you who back the blue without question need to do some serious research. There really are bad cops out there. Even if it is only 1 bad cop in 10,000, that’s too many. If it’s 1 in 1,000, that is far too many. 1 in 100? Holy crap – just think how much serious damage that many bad cops could do in their careers.

    Worse than bad cops, is that “thin blue line” mentality. A police department may very well be aware that one of their officers is bad – but they won’t turn on him because it’s “us against the world”.

    No, that isn’t just BLM/Antifa narrative. Mine is a more centrist point of view – I condemn criminals, whether they wear the blue, or they are BLM/Antifa activists, or if they are White Supremacists, or just common criminals.

    “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” rings just as true for cops, as for anyone else.

    I want police unions to stop protecting bad cops. I want cops to identify and expose their bad colleagues. I want the courts to end that asinine qualified immunity in most cases. I want bad cops to answer for their crimes.

    1000 times each year (or more? WAPO says 1100) cops commit serious crimes. Let’s put those SOBs in prison.

    Yeah, back the blue – but ask questions. Trust, but verify. Require body cameras, require dash cams, and encourage people to make video evidence when they meet the police. Get the evidence, and convict all the bad cops.

    It is not just one, or two, or three bad cops in this nation. It’s more like 1000 – every year. It’s likely that you have met one of them at some point in your life. I’m quite certain that I’ve met one or two. And, that doesn’t even include all the cops who routinely write bogus tickets to help their village/city/town generate revenue. Bogus tickets are (mostly) minor irritations (for a white man, at least).

    • “White Supremacists”

      Please explain to us how black lives are threatened by white supremacists. Now do same race violence.

      • Dylann Roof ring any bells? Your choice of nicknames is telling. Or, did you really want Dylann Roof set free? Maybe you want to give him a medal?

        • Oh, ‘plaintard’?

          Atlanta had a Black serial killer a few decades back by the name of Wayne Williams…

        • You found a white supremacist! No one said they don’t exist. No one said you shouldn’t arrest criminals. You didn’t answer my question because you can’t. You can also find crazy serial killers. There isn’t a national movement pretending that crazy serial killers are the biggest threat to this country because it would be absurd, just like your white supremacist threat fantasy.

          The nickname was used to call out someone pretending to be a centrist.

        • Cool, you found one of the few murders of blacks by Whites. Now do the number of Whites murdered by blacks.

      • cops are here to defend the white power structure…nothing new about that…”keeping them in line” has always been the top priority…

    • The guy aimed a fake gun at them.
      He was shot. That’s how it works.
      Good cop, bad cop, it’s suicide to aim anything that looks like a gun at them.
      Way less then 1% of shootings are done by cops, 99% + are criminals.
      Chicago running total: 2571 Shootings – 467 Homicides.
      Chicago PD shootings: 12 – 4 Killed.
      Chicago cops shot: 9.
      There’s a big difference between bogus tickets and shootings.
      There are 800,000 cops in the USA not including feds.
      Using your math that makes for 1 out of 800 “bad cops”.
      Lets throw the 799,000 “good cops” under the bus.

      • Holy crap – you make it all so simple. 1 out of 800 cops are bad, but 799 out of 800 are presumed good. So – let’s not worry about bad cops?

        With your math, if there are a million preachers/priests in America, and one is caught diddling little boys, we should just turn a blind eye to the kiddy diddler because preachers are good.

        I insist that bad preachers and bad cops are all thrown under the bus.

        • “bad preachers”

          Please explain to us why you guys ignore the problem with school teachers abusing children, but you love constantly talking about the bad preachers. It’s almost like there’s an agenda, and it isn’t about protecting children.

          “[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?” she said. “The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”

          https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/

        • @ Libtard Alert

          No, it’s more like you are illiterate, and failed to grasp the message. To clarify – I want to see ALL CRIMINALS brought to justice. If you have a special hard-on for teachers, that’s fine – find them, charge them, convict them, and I’ll be happy to see them go to prison.

          Meanwhile, find a teacher who can help with your literacy problems.

        • “I want to see ALL CRIMINALS brought to justice.”

          LOL! You’re pretending to be a centrist. I’m calling you out. It’s funny that you think you’re too smart for people to notice who you really are.

        • Well, you’ve called no one out – you’re just proving that you’re illiterate. Have a rotten day arsehole.

        • “Holy crap – you make it all so simple. 1 out of 800 cops are bad, but 799 out of 800 are presumed good.”

          It is that simple, 1 out 800, FAR less then the general population.
          I’m beginning to think you are the guy who is the neighborhood drunk or nuisance. Did a “bad cop” arrest you for your 3rd DUI?
          Aim a gun at a cop and see if you live, my bet is you don’t.
          Take a Xanax, you are wound up about something.

          If you “insist” on “bad preachers” start with Michael Pfleger.
          He diddled 3 little boys and was let off scot-free.

          Go march right into your local police station or church and “insist” that the bad ones quit. Get back to us on how that works out.

        • I’m calling you out Paul. That’s your real name, right? The libtard talking points are so firmly established within your brain, that you can’t help but spew them out even when you’re pretending to be a centrist.

    • @Paul

      Yeah…since you are keeping a body count…I want the American Medical Association to stop protecting bad Doctors…the estimates run from 200,000 to 450,000 deaths a year from drunk, stoned, incompetent or whatever Doctors who get away with, at the least, Manslaughter at the worst 2nd / 3rd degree Murder.

      • Or medical interns being forced to work 80-100 hours straight because of “tradition” or incompetent scheduling.

  6. “The vast majority of those fatal shootings are lawful, righteous shootings.”
    The cops are supposed to ask what is the serial number of the “fake gun” before shooting?

    From KTLA: The man was assaulting people, likely with the replica handgun.
    Someone called the LAPD and said there was a man with a gun that threatened them.
    The call goes out and the LAPD shows up and the guy points the gun at the cops.
    This sounds more like suicide by cop.

      • They say that suicide is a mental illness in the DSM-5.
        Regardless, it’s Hollywood, the guy should have just walked out into traffic.
        It wouldn’t even be news.

  7. I read that whole pile of meaningless drivel, cant believe cherry-picking stats to prove your positions can be called journalism. It started with the knives aren’t lethal nonsense from the knife slasher’s father and only went downhill from there. They attempt at making use of the FBI’s UCR data for police shootings while ignoring table 43 and the implications that people of all races are being shot in proportion to their percentage of violent crime, which by the way, Hispanics are lumped in with white people further skewing statistics.

  8. “It’s really putting the Leftist panties in a bunch that there’s a sizable and increasing population that speaks Spanish as a native language that’s not buying the Leftist…”

    Interesting development.

    • Sam, google this article by Kevin Drum, a hard-core Leftist. He lays out the sea change in Spanish-speaking voters :

      if-you-hate-the-culture-wars-blame-liberals

      Drum wrote for ‘Mother Jones’ not long back.

      And bookmark it, while you’re at it… 🙂

    • much like other minorities, they get here, buy into the system and try to make a go of it…only one group remains firmly entrenched at the bottom….

  9. @Dude
    “Also, I find it ironic that the LG in LGBTQ is gender based, when the T plus is all about eradicating gender.”

    There is a certain logic to the illogical.

  10. HAVE GRANDSON IN LAW , POLICE OFFICER , AND A GOOD ONE .
    HEAR HIM STATE , ” I WISH PEOPLE THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN AN POLICE OFFICER COULD BE IN MY SHOE’S , AND FIND OUT WHAT IT’S REALLY AT TIMES ”
    YES THERE ARE BAD COPS , BUT THE GOOD ONE’S OUT WEIGHT THE BAD .
    SO SHUT THE HELL UP , OR GO TO THE POLICE ACADEMY , AND GRADUATE , DO SOME PATROLING OF AND ON THE STREET . BET MOST OF Y’ALL MOUTHING OFF NEVER BEEN OR SERVED IN THE MILITARY .

  11. I’ve not had any bad experiences with police since I sold my car and quit driving, turned in my gunms, sold my fishing gear,get meals on wheels, pay bills with direct withdrawals, and never go outside unless it’s to check my mail box.
    I know what the cops want and I comply.
    I might also add it would help a lot for the working people if the ones who worked at X factory had a big complex where everyone who worked at X factory lived and was picked up by a big grey bus and took to the job, then straight home and you order your stuff online. Theres no need for citizens to be out and about anymore.
    This would help stop crime alot.

    • if the ones who worked at X factory had a big complex where everyone who worked at X factory lived and was picked up by a big grey bus and took to the job,

      Oh, you mean like they do in China…

    • “Theres no need for citizens to be out and about anymore.”

      Where did you get an advanced copy of the DHS unpublished proposed model legislation?

  12. What he says defeats his argument, for example:

    “The narrative of the last year has been that ‘Oh my God, police are wildly out of control,’ ” Oates said. “That’s not true. If you tracked that [fatal shooting] data from 30, 40 years ago, I’m sure the numbers would be much, much, much, much higher. There’s been a reform movement around the use of force in American policing.”

    His point is that reform lowers the rate of shootings. Therefore the conclusion to be drawn is more reform equals less shootings. The implication being that police must be constantly scrutinized and the public be vigilante against police abuse to lower incidents.

    So without reform the cops would act more wildly but with reform they are more civilized. Then BLM are right for pushing for reform because it has a proven track record of curbing abuse. These comments do not offend the left but rather support them. I think he made a fool of himself and validated people who are anti police.

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