The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and the exoneration of the police officer who shot him has been much in the news. For a number of years I've read with interest the reports of police officer fatal shootings reported in our local paper. The same scenario plays out. The officer is placed on paid leave, there is an internal investigation and eventually the announcement is made that the officer is exonerated.
The question on my mind is "Isn't the officer ever in the wrong?" Yes, yes...it's a dangerous job and the officer has to make split second decisions. And, yes, officers do get killed in the line of duty but the question remains "Isn't the officer ever wrong?" I'd be of a different mind about this if, at least occasionally an officer was found to be in the wrong.
Surfing through Facebook I came on this post from Ron Letnes.
"A friend alerted me to a piece in THE ECONOMIST. It reported on deaths from police shootings in different countries (last available year stats): USA (2013) 409; Germany (2012) 3; Great Britain (2013) O; Japan (2013) O. Granted, there is a back story to all stats which can be debated. Yet, the stats are also revealing and beg questions as well as demand answers. We need to be honest about the numbers, because the numbers represent people."
It would be very interesting to know the racial composition of those 409 fatalities in America. What was the race of the officer and the race of the person killed. My hope is that out of all this turmoil change will come in race relations and police use of deadly force.
1 comment:
I agree with your point. Before society can solve a problem, it needs to understand it. I think the most important thing is for the FBI to require accurate, uniform and detailed collection of information about police shootings. My understanding is that the number you cite is the official number, but does not include many others. The race of those shot by police is not uniformly collected. Only by requiring this info can we begin to identify which police departments are problems and what policies need to be changed.
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