I'm probably making a big mistake in entering this arena because rational, reasoned, debate on this topic is next to impossible. What I find surreal is that America has the highest level of 'religiosity' of any developed nation, (love thy neighbour, do as you would be done by, etc), yet per capita it has the highest level of violent crime including homicides.
Guns and the culture that underpins them can't be ignored, but other countries which have high levels of gun ownership such as Canada and Finland - where civilian gun ownership is the highest of any European Country, at 32 per 100 people, yet per capita have far lower levels of violent crime, and far fewer homicides or of police officers shooting civilians.
It's an enigma to me who so many Americans seemingly hate each other so much? Canadians just over the border seem to rub along well enough together with violent crime and homicides at a level on a par with Britain and Oz. (Why so many multiple homicides too - often in schools in the US. What's that all about?). The total number of homicides in the US reported in 2020 was 21,570, which was almost 5,000 more than the previous year. That death toll equates to seven 9/11s in just one year.
As to US Police Officers who die in service, there's a website entitled 'Officer Down Memorial Page', which gives the cause of death. In all, 479 officers are listed on the Memorial page who sadly died in service in 2021. Most officers weren't killed - they died. (Two thirds died from Covid19, 18 from heart attacks). 59 died from gunfire.
I wouldn't wish to disrespect, dishonour or devalue a single one of those, but to put things into perspective, in 2019 there were 906,037 full-time law enforcement employees and 94,275 part-time employees. State and local police employment, a total of 1,000,312 officers.
So 479 fatalities = 0.048% of Officers who died in service. Covid19 and heart attacks accounted for seven in ten of all deaths in service. Here's the Roll of Honour:
Total Line of Duty Deaths 2021: 479
Source:
Law Enforcement Line of Duty Deaths in 2021 (odmp.org)
Sadly, the trend of fatal shootings BY Police Officers in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 830 civilians having been shot, 241 of whom were Black, as of November 2021. In 2020, there were 1,021 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 there were 999 fatal shootings. Additionally, the
rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 37 fatal shootings per million of the population as of November 2021.
Source:
People shot to death by U.S. police, by race 2021 | Statista
About 1,000 people a year are killed by police officers in the US,
according to an independent project that tracks police violence. Most are shot dead. The majority of the world's police forces carry firearms, but no developed nation uses them against their citizens as often as officers in the US -
and disproportionately against African-Americans, compared with the percentage of the population they represent.
Part of this is to do with gun culture - the US is home to
around half of the world's civilian-held firearms. In 2020, fewer than 10% of people killed by police were
recorded as unarmed.
Rashawn Ray, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, says: "In most states people can carry guns either on their body or in their vehicles, so that escalates things for police - they instantly perceive that anyone can be a threat." (Why would they not do?).
So it's rather more complicated than to simplistically claim that the police are 'trigger-happy'.
There are around 18,000 police agencies in the US, but with no national standards on training, procedures and timescales vary across the country. On average, US officers spend
around 21 weeks training before they are qualified to go on patrol. That is far less than in most other developed countries, according to
a report by the Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform (ICJTR).
The report looked at police training requirements in more than 100 countries and found that the US had among the lowest, in terms of average hours required. Also, many other countries require officers to have a university degree - or equivalent - before joining the police, but in the US most forces just require the equivalent of a high-school diploma.
In England and Wales, it has recently become
mandatory for officers to have a University degree.
US police academies spend far more time on firearms training than on de-escalating a situation - 71 hours against 21, on average. Yes, just three working days of tuition on de-escalation - less than a third of the time spent in firearms training, then off out on patrol with a car, a badge and a gun, to put their own lives and everyone else's on the line. Heck, guys who mend washing machines get more training than that.
Maria Haberfeld, professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says: "Some police forces in Europe have police university, where training lasts for three years - for me the standouts are Norway and Finland." Finland has one the highest gun-ownership rates in Europe,
with around 32 civilian firearms per 100 people - but incidents of police shooting civilians are extremely rare.
I'm not taking sides, not denigrating the US, which I've only visited as a tourist for two weeks 28 years ago, and I'm not proffering solutions - just making observations. I don't think anything will change any time soon.
David.
