It's just a few words, "In The Line Of Duty", but it conveys so much. Two police officers were killed on the job about two weeks ago, officers, Darren Goforth of Texas and Joe Gliniewicz of Illinois. This past weekend another officer was killed, Joseph Ponder. Fox News and the NYT, plus other conservative outlets would have us believe officer deaths are on a wild rise due to unrest since Michael Brown died August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. When the truth is that officer deaths are lower than they were at this same point last year.
Fewer Police Officers have died so far in 2015 than in 2014.
I can't say fewer civilians have died at the hands of police officers in 2015. In the same time period (since August 28th) 49 people were killed by the police in America. The youngest, Nicolas Dyksma, was in his teens. The oldest, Charles Shaw, was 76. We can't compare this figure to last year because our country doesn't care enough to accurately keep records of who our government workers kill. We have to make do with a privately funded, crowd sourced data base. It's vastly superior to the data kept by the FBI, but chances are, the numbers are underreported.
The Guardian's page is currently one of the best sourced when it comes to civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement. I made this graphic last week, since then, 17 more people have been added to the data base. So far in 2015, it's troubling to see that 802 have been killed by law enforcement in the United States. 713 by gunshot wounds. 172 were unarmed. Black America is 2.5 times as likely to be killed than whites.
This "us" versus "them" mindset isn't helpful. Officer deaths is a concern, it's been a concern for years; but it's a separate issue from police brutality. If All Lives truly mattered, then Black Lives Matter wouldn't exist. If Black Lives really mattered to pro-life advocates, they would be up in arms over the number of people killed by police. If all lives mattered, no one would be offended by the phrase, Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter makes the point that the system unfairly criminalizes people based on skin color, but I've heard numerous BLM activists repeatedly state that too many white people are killed by the police, too. Of course, all lives matter, but that's not the point. The point is that we have institutionalized and mainstreamed the idea of criminalizing black people on sight. The numbers reinforce that perception. Statistics suggest that perception is true. I've read numerous diaries that talk about the "Comply or Die" attitude of law enforcement, but doing what an officer tells you to do may not be enough. Obedience is no guarantee that you won't be shot. Those who defend the policing status quo fail to realize we have numerous incidents of:
Stand still - get shot
Run away - get shot
Raise arms - get shot
Comply - get shot
Hold phone (anything, really) - get shot
Drop phone (anything, really) - get shot
Hold a gun in a gun selling store - get shot
Pull up pants - get shot
Open door - get shot
Be a bystander - get shot
Stand inside your home, alone and unarmed - get shot
Be mentally ill - get shot
From a troubleshooting, public health perspective, there is no sure fire way to avoid being shot by the police. It doesn't really matter what you do, if the officer gets an idea to shoot you; there is no known formula for success that will ensure your survival. The real problem that needs to be addressed is why this status quo is acceptable. All a police officer needs to do is declare to be in "fear for their life" and that's instant justification to unload a full clip of bullets into the perceived threat. There is an inadequate process for assessing if the threat was real or imagined. It may take a few months, but once the hearings are over, the officer who declares they were in "fear for their life" generally walks free to kill again.
We can objectively assess if an officer's "fear for their life" was rational, reasonable under the circumstances and if the subsequent actions were also valid and reasonable. Once an officer subjectively declares they were in "fear for their life", then an objective assessment needs to confirm the reasonableness of that declaration. I'm not saying an officer should never be afraid. I'm saying we should only have officers who can competently exercise control over their raging fears and preserve civilian life whenever possible. I'm saying we need to end the rubber stamp approvals when officers kill the members of the community they are there to serve and protect.
It is reasonable to ask if it was possible to de-escalate the situation. It is reasonable to ask for the metrics used to evaluate police officer to be community friendly and less arrest, summons and fine heavy. There is nothing wrong with calling for officers to be specifically trained on dealing with the mentally ill, and that training needs to approach something like 150 - 300 hours of instruction. It is reasonable to question using SWAT teams to serve warrants or raid homes and kill a man for $2 of pot (then lie about it). It is reasonable to question civil forfeiture abuses. It is reasonable to be upset when confronted with police officers obviously falsifying reports. It is reasonable to give the communities defined rules of engagement, because what communities currently deal with is an ad hoc whim system that functions fairly well for the police officer, but not so well for the occupied population community. It is reasonable to question the inherent conflicts of interest of having law enforcement investigate one of their own and the inherent problem of having a sworn prosecutor (who is dependent upon the police department for both collected evidence and testimony) to bring charges against their natural ally.
We do have a policing problem.
Worse than that, we have a statistical perception problem. Crime is decreasing in America, but people don't believe the facts. The FBI does keep good records and has done so since 1930. This table is different than what you are hearing from a lot of media sources. The table shows a dramatic drop in crime across the board to about half what it was in 1994, but the table ends in 2013, before Michael Brown died. The current hoopla is about some cities seeing an increase in crime over the last year, but even if it increases to 2010 levels, that's still way below the 1990's crime rates (and crime rates have no correlation or causation with officer deaths). The FBI will not be releasing 2014 crime data until November this year and 2015 data won't come out until 2016. Until then be prepared for Breitbart et al to spin up an imaginary crime wave.
After adding Office Ponder to the list of gunshot deaths, officer deaths overall are still down compared to the same point in time last year. Officer deaths due to gun shots are also down compared to last year. Officer fatalities due to car crashes crashes are up and I put together this graphic from the ODMP web site.
There is no crime wave. There is no wild increase in police officer deaths. Just a callous media peddling click bait. Selling the idea that if civilian deaths go down, then officer deaths must go up without a byte of data to support their fabricated fables.
This isn't a zero sum scenario. It is entirely possible to have both fewer police officer deaths AND fewer civilian deaths from police officer engagements. There is no hard evidence to suggest (other than media/pundits) that police officer deaths are increasing simply due to Black Lives Matter activities.
What is often lost in assessing law enforcement fatalities is that police officers volunteer to take this job and do it in exchange for compensation. Police officers in most states must be licensed to be law officers which is supposed to mean they meet some sort of criteria in terms of training and testing prior to being able to wear a badge and carry a firearm.
If we want to reduce the number of officer deaths we should look at the numbers and go after what is reducible such as car crash fatalities by requiring officers to use their seat belts and bullet resistant vests to prevent gun fire deaths. We could demand universal training, testing, certification standards and continued education requirements for all law enforcement officers that focus on reducing fatalities of both law enforcement and civilians. We should look at the suicide rate for police officers and create less stigma for officers getting mental health counseling. And, gee, what about that heart attack number? Surely, we could do something there. We should establish and enforce stringent criteria for high speed chases and other aspects of vehicular handling to decrease transportation related officer deaths. What we don't need to do is blame Black Lives Matter for a fabricated issue.