- Oct 18, 2009
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"Protests against the use of deadly force by police swept across the country in 2015.
"Demonstrators marched in Chicago, turned chaotic in Baltimore, and occupied the area outside a Minneapolis police station for weeks. Protesters repeatedly took to the streets of Ferguson, Mo., where a white police officer had killed a black teenager the previous year and fueled anew a national debate about the use of force and how police treat minorities.
"That year, The Washington Post began tallying how many people were shot and killed by police. By the end of 2015, officers had fatally shot nearly 1,000 people, twice as many as ever documented in one year by the federal government.
"The Post started tracking fatal shootings by on-duty police officers after a Ferguson police officer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, during an altercation after a convenience store reported a robbery in August 2014. That shooting set off demonstrations and sparked calls for reform.
"Amid the turmoil, nobody could answer a simple question: How often do police shoot and kill someone? No one knew for sure, because no government agency kept a comprehensive count.
"When The Post began tracking these shootings, it became clear that police were shooting and killing people about twice as often as numbers reported by the FBI, which collected voluntary reports from police departments. The Post’s database, which is regularly updated, relies on a collection of news media accounts, social media posts and police reports.
"After The Post demonstrated a dramatic undercount by the FBI of fatal police shootings, the bureau’s then-director, James B. Comey, called the lack of federal data “embarrassing and ridiculous.”
"An FBI policy board recommended that the agency track fatal and nonfatal shootings. The new effort was soon widened to catalogue all use-of-force incidents that result in serious bodily harm or death.
"That data collection only began in earnest in January 2019. The program also suffers from some of the same shortfalls as the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program — chiefly that participation is voluntary. So far, only 40 percent of the 18,000 police departments nationwide submit data on police use-of-force incidents, according to the FBI."
No nationwide data on use of force
"Fatal shootings by police are a limited metric for answering larger questions about how police use their powers, experts said. Whether a shooting is fatal may depend entirely on a few centimeters in the trajectory of a bullet.
"No nationwide data exists on how often police shoot and wound someone, or how often they fire and miss. And no comprehensive national data exists on how other kinds of force — like chokeholds or the use of batons or Tasers — are used."
The most significant thing about this article is the fact that the FBI statistics on fatal shootings is only from 40% of the total number of police forces in the U.S.
So the numbers of persons killed by police is woefully undercounted....seemingly on purpose, since reporting those stats are VOLUNTARY. Of course, the number of police assaulted/shot/whatever is reported to the FBI and DOJ by every police unit in the country.
"Demonstrators marched in Chicago, turned chaotic in Baltimore, and occupied the area outside a Minneapolis police station for weeks. Protesters repeatedly took to the streets of Ferguson, Mo., where a white police officer had killed a black teenager the previous year and fueled anew a national debate about the use of force and how police treat minorities.
"That year, The Washington Post began tallying how many people were shot and killed by police. By the end of 2015, officers had fatally shot nearly 1,000 people, twice as many as ever documented in one year by the federal government.
"The Post started tracking fatal shootings by on-duty police officers after a Ferguson police officer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, during an altercation after a convenience store reported a robbery in August 2014. That shooting set off demonstrations and sparked calls for reform.
"Amid the turmoil, nobody could answer a simple question: How often do police shoot and kill someone? No one knew for sure, because no government agency kept a comprehensive count.
"When The Post began tracking these shootings, it became clear that police were shooting and killing people about twice as often as numbers reported by the FBI, which collected voluntary reports from police departments. The Post’s database, which is regularly updated, relies on a collection of news media accounts, social media posts and police reports.
"After The Post demonstrated a dramatic undercount by the FBI of fatal police shootings, the bureau’s then-director, James B. Comey, called the lack of federal data “embarrassing and ridiculous.”
"An FBI policy board recommended that the agency track fatal and nonfatal shootings. The new effort was soon widened to catalogue all use-of-force incidents that result in serious bodily harm or death.
"That data collection only began in earnest in January 2019. The program also suffers from some of the same shortfalls as the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program — chiefly that participation is voluntary. So far, only 40 percent of the 18,000 police departments nationwide submit data on police use-of-force incidents, according to the FBI."
No nationwide data on use of force
"Fatal shootings by police are a limited metric for answering larger questions about how police use their powers, experts said. Whether a shooting is fatal may depend entirely on a few centimeters in the trajectory of a bullet.
"No nationwide data exists on how often police shoot and wound someone, or how often they fire and miss. And no comprehensive national data exists on how other kinds of force — like chokeholds or the use of batons or Tasers — are used."
The most significant thing about this article is the fact that the FBI statistics on fatal shootings is only from 40% of the total number of police forces in the U.S.
So the numbers of persons killed by police is woefully undercounted....seemingly on purpose, since reporting those stats are VOLUNTARY. Of course, the number of police assaulted/shot/whatever is reported to the FBI and DOJ by every police unit in the country.
