Prof. Campos points out something that we don't seem to see mentioned in the public discourse. Americans are many times more likely to be killed by police than people in any comparable country. For your convenience, I'll reproduce the graph he provides, from the Prison Policy Initiative:
I mean, this is incredible. I don't know if anyone has done rigorous studies to try to explain it, but very obviously, something is wrong here. I should note that while Black people are more likely to be killed by police than white people, even taking them out, the disparity is still nearly as large.
:One fact that is also true, that may help explain it, is that police in the U.S. are far more likely to encounter civilians who are armed. But they often kill unarmed people, and just because people have a firearm doesn't necessarily mean they are a threat. Here's an NPR story that focuses on police killings of Black people, but again, everyone is at risk.
Obviously, there is a problem with the culture of policing in the U.S. Police training is essentially military training. Trainees are taught to perceive every civilian encounter as potentially threatening, and they are taught to shoot to kill if they perceive any danger. People who go into the profession because they are bullies who like to push people around and humiliate them, even people who are psychopaths, are protected by the culture of solidarity. Of great importance, the vast majority of police calls could be better handled by mental health professionals and social workers. There is no need for a man with a gun to show up at all. Many cities now have programs to dispatch such teams for appropriate situations, and they have been very successful.
Anyway, we need to take this seriously. We do have a big problem, one that other countries don't have.
Update: To be clear, the police do not have the right to shoot people only because they are fleeing. Shooting a fleeing person in the back is murder, whether or not they are a suspect and you are a police officer. It is also murder to shoot and kill somebody merely because they are armed. As most conservatives believe, fervently, citizens have a right to bear arms, and that is not a reason for the police to shoot them. Viz. Philando Castile.
3 comments:
I understand the concern. I, too, would like to have mental health professionals and social workers take some of the calls that obviously call for that kind of action.
However, I disagree that guns should never be present. These professionals should have the option to be armed and trained to protect themselves, and others. This is the same argument that is winning with concealed carry in the classrooms in many of the school districts.
Actually, I didn't say that guns should "never" be present. But cities that have established these crisis intervention teams send them without armed backup, and there have been exactly zero problems. Of course the dispatchers have to make the right judgments, and the crisis teams can call for help if they need it.
50 years ago while stationed in Germany I took a noon class in conversational German from an English major from the local university. (He benefited by learning Americanisms unknown to his profs.) He explained that he was attending the university because he wanted to be a cop, and they only accepted university graduates!
German police are almost never armed. Of course, the culture and gun laws are very different there, but we should be far, far more selective about the people who are allowed into this profession.
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