> While you point out that there were 59 police killings, this number may not capture the full picture. It is worth considering that there were 1000 fatal shootings by police and an estimated 2000 non-fatal shootings.[1] That is 450 per 100,000 per year.
You raise a good point; being involved in a shooting even as the shooter is a traumatic event. It's not terribly uncommon for people to have PTSD after shooting someone, even if they didn't catch any return fire. There are also the cases where cops were seriously injured (as compared to "injured" in order to increase criminal penalties) but did not die or retire due to the injuries. Getting shot in body armor is still a pretty injuring event, especially soft body armor.
The important, and difficult question to answer is how many of these violent interactions were triggered by police, and how many were likely to happen no matter what the cops did? American police kill a lot more people than our OECD peers do; we're between Angola and Iran on the international stats, about 3.5x more than our nearest OECD peer (Canada). It's not unreasonable to assume that non-lethal violent encounters scale similarly[0]. Certainly some part of that is American culture in general, but it would be unreasonably deferential to cops to presume that they have no part in the problem, especially with so many high-profile anecdotes of cops escalating or using force unnecessarily. If using violence is traumatic, then doesn't a lot of the blame for that trauma fall onto the same people who decide to use it unnecessarily, and onto the same people that have willingly adopted a warrior mentality[1]?
0 - Perhaps higher still. American emergency rooms are very good at treating gunshot wounds; part of the reason why gun fatalities are down since the 1980s despite still high shooting rates. It's not unreasonable to assume that the ratio of shooting to fatality by American cops is higher than say, Canada, implying that it's even worse than the death statistics imply.
American police kill a lot more people than our OECD peers do, but again, it is worth noting that overall gun violence is higher is the US. US police killings are 3.5X that of Canada, and the US gun homicides are 6.5X that of Canada.
>it would be unreasonably deferential to cops to presume that they have no part in the problem, especially with so many high-profile anecdotes of cops escalating or using force unnecessarily.
I think that the cops are one cog in a poorly designed machine, and in my opinion, not the most impactful one. Changing police policy is necessary, but not sufficient change to reduce police violence. We live in a relative police state, and it is convenient to place the bulk of the blame the replaceable enforcers opposed the system of laws and policies which perpetuate violent crime and violent police. Only changes to the latter will result in lasting change. To tie in the Canada comparison, The US also has 6.5X the incarceration rate.
>it would be unreasonably deferential to cops to presume that they have no part in the problem, especially with so many high-profile anecdotes of cops escalating or using force unnecessarily. If using violence is traumatic, then doesn't a lot of the blame for that trauma fall onto the same people who decide to use it unnecessarily, and onto the same people that have willingly adopted a warrior mentality
There are some cases where there is obvious misbehavior by officers and they should be held accountable for their actions, although I think this effect is overstated by focusing on the most outrageous examples. Most often, my understanding is that police shooters are acting in accordance with police training and policy to use lethal force when they perceive lethal threat from others. In these cases, think much of the "blame" falls on the policing institutions. The question becomes if a different policy exists would result in fewer unnecessary civilian deaths, with minimal increase in officer deaths. Perhaps there are win-win solutions where both death rates are reduced by avoiding dangerous scenarios entirely (e.g. avoiding unnecessary no-knock raids).
You raise a good point; being involved in a shooting even as the shooter is a traumatic event. It's not terribly uncommon for people to have PTSD after shooting someone, even if they didn't catch any return fire. There are also the cases where cops were seriously injured (as compared to "injured" in order to increase criminal penalties) but did not die or retire due to the injuries. Getting shot in body armor is still a pretty injuring event, especially soft body armor.
The important, and difficult question to answer is how many of these violent interactions were triggered by police, and how many were likely to happen no matter what the cops did? American police kill a lot more people than our OECD peers do; we're between Angola and Iran on the international stats, about 3.5x more than our nearest OECD peer (Canada). It's not unreasonable to assume that non-lethal violent encounters scale similarly[0]. Certainly some part of that is American culture in general, but it would be unreasonably deferential to cops to presume that they have no part in the problem, especially with so many high-profile anecdotes of cops escalating or using force unnecessarily. If using violence is traumatic, then doesn't a lot of the blame for that trauma fall onto the same people who decide to use it unnecessarily, and onto the same people that have willingly adopted a warrior mentality[1]?
0 - Perhaps higher still. American emergency rooms are very good at treating gunshot wounds; part of the reason why gun fatalities are down since the 1980s despite still high shooting rates. It's not unreasonable to assume that the ratio of shooting to fatality by American cops is higher than say, Canada, implying that it's even worse than the death statistics imply.
1 - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/warrior-police-train...