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Comment by dec0dedab0de | Hacker News Reader

Lately it seems that risk has grown.

I have no evidence, but I feel that it only seems the risk has grown because technology has made it harder to cover up. I think as it gets more attention, the risk is going down.

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Modern training techniques focus heavily, almost pathologically, on maintaining Officer safety and controlling the situation. Training techniques, like the Tueller Drill reinforce the notion that everyone is a threat and should be treating accordingly.

There is very little training on de-escalation as it's incompatible with Officer safety and often requires an Officer to relinquish control of a situation. And unfortunately when dealing with people who have mental health issues, you're often not in control of the situation and neither are they.

I see training as the most important thing to change to address the shootings that many of us, outside of law enforcement, see as preventable.

I have two brothers that are CHP. They have never discharged their weapons at an individual, but talking to them, this attitude of their personal safety being the most important part of how they handle a situation, makes it very difficult for them to understand how police actions can actually create the danger they are claiming to want to prevent.

And it's not necessarily that the techniques being taught are wrong, just the context of how they're presented. There's a distinction to be made between Officer Safety and personal safety.

There's also the unfortunate reality that practical techniques like securing your sidearm or anticipating a threat can be misconstrued as threatening or intimating and can often escalate a situation.

There could also be some benefit to providing some training the public on what to expect and how to behave in the presence of a Police Officer. I was pulled over when I was a teenager and I immediately started digging in my glove box for my insurance card and registration. When I pulled them out and turned to my window I was greeted by the Officer's gun in my face.

There's also a lot to be said for training Officers on how to deal with the public and de-escalate situations. I was the victim of a public assault and while I was waiting to be interviewed by the Officer conducting the investigation, another Officer casually approached me. She acknowledged that I was upset, fidgety, and gesticulated when I spoke. She provided some consultation and advised me to keep my hands at my side and speak slowly while being interviewed by the other Officer.

Take the guns off the officers, watch their skills at de-escallation improve instantly.

Really? I feel the risk has grown. Based on numerous cases, cops have realized that getting filmed killing an unarmed person pleading for their life barely impacts their career, much less their freedom.

This is why we need facts and numbers, because media stories only give us a glimpse of it, without putting it into context.

Yes, the problem is bad and it exists. But we need more facts to see: Is it getting better? What's working to prevent it?

To this point, I've looked for (and failed to find) year-over-year statistics for murders by police. I agree with the parent that technology is revealing existing problems in greater light. Whether or not the problem itself is getting better or worse is a separate issue.

The reason I feel it has grown is in my almost 5 decades of life I have seen police go from peace officers to law enforcement. I have witnessed the changes.

It used to be when a kid did something wrong there was tolerance for his youthful ignorance and he was allowed to learn from his mistakes without having a criminal record. Now zero tolerance has stopped the pouring out of beer with a stern warning next time parents / legal matters would be involved.

Law enforcement is the mission. It is not a good mission because it is actually disrupting a peaceful society.

I wish we could bring back the peace officers and the mission of keeping the peace using laws instead of enforcing the laws at the cost of social peace.

It's true that local police have become much more militarized over the past decade or two. Trickle-down military-industrial complex, so to speak.

Radley Balko is a writer who's covered the issue thoroughly: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...

I just think it's pretty clear by now that the primary driving factor for police criminality becoming a political issue is that very many members of the socio-economic underclass now have internet-connected video cameras on them at all times.

The police (or authorities) don’t seem to be keen on counting.

https://govtrackinsider.com/there-is-no-federal-database-of-...

But others are

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_deadly_force_i...

And this is really the problem. If we don't capture the statistics we won't know and we won't be able to change things or try to change things. I don't know why they won't institute a reporting program. Even the CDC doesn't collect statistics (which would come from hospitals or the coroners)..

This seems like a common refrain for most bad things these days, but I doubt it's true in the case of police killings. At the very least, it seems inarguable that related trends like police militarization have drastically increased.

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