Saturday, June 1st, 2019
Correction – Police Shootings
Author: Stephan A. Schwartz
Source: Schwartzreport
Publication Date: 1 June 2019
Link: Correction – Police Shootings
Source: Schwartzreport
Publication Date: 1 June 2019
Link: Correction – Police Shootings
Stephan:
Yesterday, in my commentary to a piece about police shooting I overstated. It is neither fair nor appropriate to call all police shootings "murder," as I did. I was wrong, factually, and in my choice of words.
That said I am still appalled by the level of shooting deaths brought on by actions of the police. There is no other developed Western nation in the world, that has data like that of the U.S. For instance, in 2017 the entire police force in Norway, including those who interacted with the flood of immigrants, only fired four rounds, and killed no one. In Germany, with its even worse immigrant issues. between the years 1952 to 2014, 62 years, the total number shot and killed by the police was 491. In the U.S. in 2017 alone, 987 people were shot and killed by police.
-- Stephan
I believe no one should have lethal weapons, especially police. The police seem to give themselves a mental thought process that requires them to stop someone no matter how they do it; a thought process that makes it OK in their minds to shoot and kill a person even for such a simple thing as not stopping when someone is running away, or not doing anything they (police) want the person to do. They all have an over-inflated ego which comes with the job. Some of them cannot even help it because they feel superior to all other people because they have a badge. What I propose is that they have a “knock-out” weapon like the stun gun or some other contraption to stop a person who may or may not have committed a crime. We read too many stories about innocent people being killed (I would call it murdered) for no good reason at all. The punishment for any crime should be processed through the judge and jury system we have in place which is there to determine the guilt or innocence of a crime, and to exact any punishment. It is not up to the police to be judges and juries, just the capturers of potential criminals. In the United Kingdom, the police used to never carry a gun, only a stick up until just a few years ago. Police are not infallible and cannot be entrusted to carry these lethal weapons, except in extraordinary circumstances. I know many police officers and detectives who agree with this philosophy I have just presented.
I believe there is a systems failure with regard to police killings in the US. The statistics are hard come by, but the Guardian kept tabs for a few years as did the website’ killed by police’, after they quit. Over a thousand a year, killed. My deduction is that US police kill in a day what British police kill in a year. The TomDispatch has pointed out that one is 2000 times more likely to be killed by one’w own hand than by a terrorist, and 9 times more likely to be killed by police than a terrorist. Elsewere, I believe in the Atlantic, I saw where a young black man is 21 times more likely to be killed by police than is a young white man.
I do not infer that to be a policeman anywhere is easy. Yet just last month I spoke with a retired Scottish bobby who had never shot, much less killed anyone after a lifetime of police work. Like boiling frogs we are getting familiarized to a context where mass shootings are commonplace. Stephan, I forgive your slip of the tongue. The facts remain that shooting in the back is shooting in the back.
Ask yourself what psychological armor you put on when you strap on a bullet proof vest.
What is your expectation? What is your communication? Yet these men and women are ordered to do so by us, if this is a democracy; Just like our immigration officers are ordered to kidnap.