Police in the US use force on at least 300,000 people each year, injuring an estimated 100,000 of them, according to a groundbreaking data analysis on law enforcement encounters.

Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that tracks killings by US police, launched a new database on Wednesday cataloging non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes.

The database features incidents from 2017 through 2022, compiled from public records requests in every state. The findings, the group says, suggest that despite widespread protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, overall use of force has remained steady since then – and in many jurisdictions, has increased.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
    2647·
    2 months ago

    Imma unpopular opinion

    1. How many uses of force are justified? Just the fact that they used force to arrest somebody doesn’t mean an atrocity. It could have been 300,000 armed rapists trying to carjack a mother of 3 to get away, or it could have been 300,000 peaceful Palestinian protestors. The relevant number to track is how many unjustified uses of force there were.
    2. Is it possible they’re tracking things better now? When the police document that force was used is HIGHLY dependent on their policies about what has to be documented, which I would suspect is highly correlated with time going by since 2020.
    3. “Use of force” and “injuring” are super broad. If they tackle somebody on the grass to arrest them, that’s a use of force. If they taze somebody causing cardiac arrest, that’s an “injury.”

    They do dive a little bit into the details, but I think a lot of the details either undercut the headline narrative or are misleadingly presented. E.g.:

    despite widespread protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, overall use of force has remained steady since then – and in many jurisdictions, has increased.

    Half of the agencies reported increases in overall force in the two-year period following Floyd’s murder, the report said.

    So, basically, it hasn’t changed. And it went up in half and down in half. I mean it is fine if you want to present that result as an indictment of the claims of reform, but the way they wrote the “everything’s getting worse” headline out of that data is weird.

    The most common use of force was stun guns, which are considered “less-lethal” but can also have deadly consequences; the organization tracked more than 20,000 stun gun deployments.

    In 2022, the group also cataloged more than 8,000 incidents of chemicals being sprayed; more than 4,700 cases of people hit by weapons like batons and beanbags; and more than 2,100 cases of contacts with K9 dogs.

    Sounds like, if those are the numbers out of 300,000, then by far the most common use of force (the remaining 264,200) was tackling / wrestling with a suspect. And then they decided to lead with the descriptions of more lurid uses of force that make up 1%-7% of the times that things happened. No?

    Then at the very end the whole tone changes:

    of the 757 agencies that disclosed types of force used over time, there were 973 neck restraint uses in 2019. By 2021, there were 112 of those cases, a nearly 90% drop.

    Jurisdictions with DoJ reform agreements reported a 22% reduction in overall reported use of force, Mapping Police Violence found. And 13 out of 18 agencies that adopted state or federal reforms reported reductions in use of force.

    Policies that reduce overall police encounters can be most effective at reducing injuries and killings by police, such as alternative responder programs dispatching mental health professionals to people in crisis, Sinyangwe said. He said he hoped his database would help officials, including a potential Kamala Harris administration, identify agencies in need of urgent intervention. And he hoped to see an expansion of initiatives shown to work.

    See this sounds great. It’s like, some reforms are working and some are not (or just aren’t even being attempted in some places), let’s strategize how we can fix the existing and continuing problems. Let’s get a clear eye on what is happening and try to make things better.

    If they had led with this, I would have no griping, but the whole headline and 2/3ds of the article is just feeding into the “OH MA GAWD THE POLICE ARE KILLING EVERYONE WON’T SOMEBODY STOP THEM”.

    Bring on the downvotes 😃

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
        53·
        2 months ago

        Aw c’mon, what is the point of being all ACAB people together if you don’t have a “yay police” person to all gather around and yell at

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          31·
          2 months ago

          I didn’t actually read what you wrote because it started stupid and I’d rather see how people here want to change things.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
      275·
      2 months ago

      How many uses of force are justified

      Almost none.

      It could have been 300,000 armed rapists trying to carjack a mother of 3 to get away

      It could also have been Thanos robbing the mayor of Gotham 🙄

      Is it possible they’re tracking things better now

      Possible, but extremely unlikely. Several jurisdictions have cracked down on reporting police violence and expanded police immunity.

      The few progressive prosecutors that got elected promising to do something about police brutality have almost all been run out by cops, Republicans, and conservative Democrats colluding to oust them.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
          226·
          2 months ago

          Simple: force is very rarely justified in general and cops are trained specifically to react violently to most situations.

    • barkingspiders@infosec.pubEnglish
      1316·
      2 months ago

      I think this is what the kids call “critical reading abilities”

      Thanks for providing a strong counterpoint to the click bait narrative, here’s a prize 🏆

    • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      173·
      2 months ago

      They kill over 1000 people per year. That number has been rising. That number should be the same each year and it should be zero.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
        413·
        2 months ago

        Okay, so if the cops walk up on someone’s porch, or in a parking lot or etc, to talk to them and that person pulls out a gun and points it at the cops, what should happen?

        • Wytch@lemmy.zipEnglish
          194·
          2 months ago

          De-escalation.

          The first way to achieve this is to stay off someone’s porch.

          • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
            810·
            2 months ago

            I’ve interacted with the cops several times in my life. Off the top of my head, I think the most recent time was a friend of mine’s roommate who was threatening her with physical harm. They came, talked to the guy, and took him away. When the judge was a little bit dismissive about granting her a protective order, the next day, the cop was the one who got outraged and got her a new hearing at which she got her protective order so the guy wouldn’t hurt her.

            So… what? The cops in that situation should have just stayed away from her house, and let him maybe beat the fuck out of her? Explain it to me what you think should happen; have cops pursue non violence in all situations? Like never kill anyone no matter what the person does? Never use physical force? What should happen, in my friend’s situation? What if the guy beats the fuck out of her, and then they see him on the porch of a house some time later – should they stay off the porch?

            • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              61·
              2 months ago

              I’m not saying they shouldn’t use physical force when necessary. I’m saying they should not be killing anyone.

              To be fair, america has a mental health crisis that also needs to be addressed. Police in other countries don’t have to deal with mentally ill people who have turned to drugs to cope with living in hell. I see that as the far bigger problem. Solve that and the rest will sort itself out.

              • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
                25·
                2 months ago

                Okay, so what if they walk up on the porch to talk to that guy and he pulls a gun and points it at them? What then? Deescalation?

                  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
                    55·
                    2 months ago

                    Okay, so dude can beat the fuck out of my friend, and you’re going to imply the cops need to die if they try to prevent him and he gets violent with them as a result.

                    Good to know. Thanks for your insight.

                    Obviously police brutality does happen – my point was that it is relevant to know whether it is happening 1% of the time, or 50% of the time, or 99% of the time. You need to know when the police are using force justifiably, or not. Clinging to a comforting and poppycock illusion that they should use lethal force 0% of the time is just as silly as someone else who might cling to the comforting and poppycock illusion that them using lethal force is justified 100% of the time. The truth is in the middle, and it’s important to find out where in the middle, instead of just insisting that whatever prejudices you came in with are obviously the reality.

              • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
                2·
                2 months ago

                Police in other countries don’t have to deal with mentally ill people who have turned to drugs

                lol

            • Wytch@lemmy.zipEnglish
              165·
              2 months ago

              What I really find disappointing about this exchange is how disingenuous this scenario is that you paint. You set up a very vague and overbroad situation and then follow it up with a very specific to the point of anecdotal example as if that refutes my rebuttal.

              Like, do you really think I should get bogged down in a response to this new scenario like it’s worth considering? Do you genuinely think a random person on the internet is incapable of imagining a scenario such as the one you described and would be floored by it? C’mon dude.

              But ok. Sure, let’s do this like you have a good point. Here’s what should happen. Domestic violence experts who are trained in psychology and deescalation techniques could intervene and create a safe exit for victims of abuse and violence. But you know what? I don’t know what exactly that task force would look like or how it would operate. What I do know is, it shouldn’t look like those guys in blue who shoot black people in their own homes while existing and chuck flashbangs into cribs.

              • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
                51·
                2 months ago

                Sure, let’s talk. I’m not tryin to be hostile about it.

                You set up a very vague and overbroad situation and then follow it up with a very specific to the point of anecdotal example as if that refutes my rebuttal.

                I responded to someone who said the number of people the police kill per year should be 0. I brought up two specific drawn from real life examples where the cops are justified in killing someone, as a way of rebutting it. Does that make sense? Or no?

                The conversation I would like to have is, how many of these 1,000 times that the police have killed someone, did the police do something wrong? If you’re going to tell me that number is 0, I think you are 1,000% wrong, and I’m happy to explain why. If you’re going to tell me it’s a complicated question and we need to delve into quite a lot of real world details in order to answer it, then fuckin-A let’s talk about it.

                I think I’m being a little bit needlessly combative about it, but I don’t get what you are saying that I am being bad faith about the way I’m bringing up examples. They’re not disingenuous or vague in any way. It’s just reality that doesn’t match the simplistic frameworks that it seems like I’m hearing. Does that make sense? Or no? What details of these 100% real examples would you need to hear for them not to be vague?

                Sure, let’s do this like you have a good point. Here’s what should happen. Domestic violence experts who are trained in psychology and deescalation techniques could intervene and create a safe exit for victims of abuse and violence. But you know what? I don’t know what exactly that task force would look like or how it would operate. What I do know is, it shouldn’t look like those guys in blue who shoot black people in their own homes while existing and chuck flashbangs into cribs.

                If someone points a gun at the cops when they roll up to the porch to arrest them on a warrant? What if that person shoots the police while they’re contacting the domestic violence expert?

                (This referring to the example of someone who pulls a gun when the cops roll up to their porch. There’s a separate conversation to be had about my friend’s experience – actually, as it happens, the person involved who called the cops was black, the guy who got arrested was white, and the cops showed up and talked to everyone and still managed to take the white guy away and avoid shooting the black guy or throwing any flashbangs into cribs or anywhere else – i.e. they accomplished a success for the mission. Isn’t that relevant?)

          • spacesatan@lazysoci.alEnglish
            12·
            2 months ago

            That’s insane, if someone points a gun at you you are completely justified in shooting in self defense. Nobody is pointing a gun at the police without the intention of shooting because obviously the police aren’t going to wait to see if they’re just doing it as a joke.

            Or what, you can just get away with any crime if you’re willing to shoot a cop over it?