One Map Shows How Many People Police Have Killed in Each State So Far This Year

[drunkenshoe]

http://mic.com/articles/122161/one-map-shows-all-the-people-police-have-killed-in-each-state-so-far-this-year

In 47 out of 50 states, American police officers have killed at least one person so far this year. In some, the number of officer-involved homicides dwarfs numbers from entire countries.

The map below, based on statistics the research collaborative Mapping Police Violence provided to Mic, shows all 605 deaths from police violence in the United States from Jan. 1 through July 10. As is evident, there's a clear correlation between population size and the number of slayings, but certain states still stand out with particularly large numbers.

Just three states (Rhode Island, South Dakota and Vermont) avoided any killings at all. Meanwhile, California reached a shocking 95 police killings, Texas clocked 64 and Florida was not far behind with 43. Arizona and Oklahoma are runners-up at 28 and 26, respectively.

Keep in mind the year is only halfway over. Even the 605 killings that Mapping Police Violence tracked through July 10 alone would make the U.S. an outlier among comparable democracies.

This doesn't happen in other developed countries: Policing in the U.S. is controlled largely at the state and local levels, meaning that training, equipment and use-of-force standards vary wildly. But compared to many other countries, American police enjoy relatively lax guidelines on when and how they can use lethal force.

According to the Washington Post, in Britain, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway, most police tend not to carry firearms at all while on duty. German police are extensively trained to understand that drawing and firing their weapons is a very serious matter of last resort.

On the other hand, an Amnesty International analysis found laws regulating when and why police are allowed to kill someone in each of the 50 U.S. states fall far short of international standards. In a statement on Amnesty's website, executive director Steven W. Hawkins said, "The fact that absolutely no U.S. state laws conform to this standard is deeply disturbing and raises serious human rights concerns. Reform is needed and it is needed immediately. Lives are at stake."

According to Vocativ, at current rates, U.S. police are on track to shoot dead more people per capita than the combined gun homicide rates of 19 out of 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group which encompasses most of the world's richest countries.

It's also pretty racist: The weight of all these killings falls disproportionately on the poor and especially racial and ethnic minorities, who experience significantly higher arrest rates.

A 2014 USA Today analysis using FBI statistics found white officers kill black suspects at the rate of about two a week â€" although the actual total is likely much higher. The New York Police Department, for example, shoots black and Hispanic suspects at many times the rate they do white ones.

Socioeconomic disparities no doubt account for part of this, but plain old institutional racism likely plays a huge role in these deaths.

In almost all of these cases, however, victims face little recourse even when the circumstances seem to show officers were out of line. University of South Carolina criminologist Geoff Alpert told USA Today 98.9% of police homicides are ultimately ruled justifiable, and even those few charges of misconduct that go to court rarely result in conviction, let alone serious punishment like jail time.

Correction: July 18, 2015
A previous version of this story included an infographic with misleading information about police killings by country and year, suggesting a jump in deaths from police force in 2011. An earlier version of that infographic, in correct context, is available here.

The Correction:

Police across the United States killed a staggering 115 people in the month of March, according to media reports compiled by KilledByPolice.net.

All told, Killed by Police reports that 2015 has seen almost 300 police killings as of April 2, a number dramatically higher than the woefully incomplete statistics from the FBI.

Just by themselves, these numbers are alarming, but let's compare them to other countries for a bit of perspective.

That 295 figure is nearly six times higher than the entire number of people killed by police in the United Kingdom since the year 1900, which Shaun King on Daily Kos tallies at just 52.

Germany, with a 2011 population of 81.8 million, saw just six deaths by police that year, which translated to roughly one shooting per every 13.36 million people. In the U.S., with a 2014 population of 318.9 million, KilledByPolice tracked 1,099 deaths, or one shooting for roughly every 290,000 people.

That means American police shoot approximately 46 times as many people as their German counterparts.

KilledByPolice's numbers put U.S. police on track to kill three or four people a day. To be fair, that's less than the wildly corrupt Brazil, where police kill about six every day. When it comes to police killings, the U.S. has some very bad neighbors.

There is also a list ftrom Vocative here:

http://www.vocativ.com/news/197620/police-shootings-in-america-top-international-homicides/

Considering Luxembourg is the size of a half city, Iceland kicks as.

United States (CDC 2013)3,216

Turkey 939

United States (Police Only 2015 Estimate)777

France 602

England / Wales 585

Germany 550

Chile  505

Canada 502

Italy 411

South Korea 370

Japan 302

Spain 298

Poland  265

Hungary  249 

New Zeland 196 

Belgium  153 

Greece  144 

Portugal  134

Israel  125

Netherlands  98

Czech Republic  93

Finland 87 

Sweden 78

Slovakia  61

Austria 58 

Switzerland  52 

Ireland  52

Estonia  46

Norway  42

Denmark  12

Slovenia  12

Luxembourg 1

Iceland  1

[dtq123]

OMFG! The ones that look like guns don't have the most! And Texas coming in second for shootings? Damn.

[Solitary]

This reminds me to stay away from the police and any minorities when I move to California----actually the whites are the minorities there. Hmmm!

[PopeyesPappy]

This reminds me to stay away from the police and any minorities when I move to California----actually the whites are the minorities there. Hmmm!

Actually on a per population basis California is middle of the road. Their 4.08 per 100,000 rate would rate them 17th least likely state to get killed by a cop. As far as likelyhood of being killed by a cop go according to this list the worst states are Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, New York and Massachusetts. This data says Connecticut cops are offing people at the rate of almost 36 per 100,000. That's almost 9 times California's rate.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

As a general rule I try to avoid police like the plague, but the rate of killing is off the charts with the "we vs them" mentality. Children used to be taught police are their friends, but I doubt anyone can ever take that foolishness seriously again with a straight face. 

[dtq123]

As a general rule I try to avoid police like the plague, but the rate of killing is off the charts with the "we vs them" mentality. Children used to be taught police are their friends, but I doubt anyone can ever take that foolishness seriously again with a straight face.

This might be a piece of entertainment for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

[Munch]

There was a report recently in the Guardian here on percentage between uk and wales, compared to US in shootings.

Basically, police in the US have killed more people in the US in the last 24 days of when the report was made, compared to england and wales, which has a lesser number over the course of 24 years.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries



Thats bloody remarkable.. I mean its true, america is a country with easy access to guns, its a country built around that. But maybe there is comes the problem that because guns exist and are part of the american police forces blood, they are just that much more gun happy.
In the uk you won't have people walking around with guns, sure, but anything else can be used as a deadly weapon here, and guns are filtered though the system by one means or another underground.

I just think its a cultural thing, in the same way its an accepted cultural thing in middle eastern countries for underage sex and forced marriage. I just dunno how american can deal with its police force being this way without a complete breakdown of the system.

[Baruch]

Very sad indeed.  America has always been violent I think, it is a illusion that things have gotten worse since I was a boy ... because pessimism is the natural progression as you age, and I adjust for that.  Notice that it has a lot to do with higher ambient temperature.  GB is quite a bit colder, as is Canada ... and the violence in Mexico is off the dial!  I avoid police notice as much as I can ... and never travel will much cash, and if I need a lot of money, I use a cashier's check and travel short distance.  If I had to, I could bite the fee and pay for electronic transfer.  Most of the victims of civil forfeiture have been small businesses dealing in cash.  If I were them I would move to debit card pronto.

[drunkenshoe]

"America is violent, it has a belligerent culture...blah blah". Sorry, I am not buying this any more. Because I also see this in my own country and no people are not belligerent enough to get killed in most cases. Most people do not even have guns here. It's difficult to get it. It's not in the general culture.

This has more got to do with how the police is trained, conditioned and how they see their job. Pretty much like what APA said. "Us against them".More than that, most of these people do not see themselves as providing some service, solve a conflict or people who needs to provide solutions.

They see themselves entitled to 'judge' and 'punish' people right there where they face certain situations and they reflect the collective bullshit understanding of their society as in seeing nonwhite people  are immediate threat when they face them. That is the problem.

They need to train these people diffeerently. Obviously this is not working.

[drunkenshoe]

I don't think the below comparison is valid though. Not just people, but the common police do not carry fire arms in UK as far as I know. That is the crucial point.

Also, one is a little island while the other is a fucking continent with vast regions of wilderness. You need to visit the US to see what this really means. There are lakes in that country at sizes of inner seas and forests size of countries in Europe, without a car you are dead there and you need to be able to travel long distances when you need. You can go 100s of miles and see nothing but just space in the US. That's very alien to us. Also crime rate is high and has a very different profile than most countries. The scale of all things are fundamentally diferent than the rest of the world. No, Russia and China being huge too is not the same thing in respect of their general culture(s).

I am against guns you know that and agree that US should do something serious asap to regulate that much better, but America's gun issue and police violence issue do not fall in to the exact same place as I see it.

I agree that it is a 'cultural' thing and more like how that a collective understanding of a certain culture is reflected in the police behaviour. This can be prevented by the correct policies transforming their training and the way they see their job at one side and better regulating of guns to support it at the other in my opinion.

But then is it profitable or beneficial enough? In every aspect I mean. Does police violence -also its racist quality- have some benefits coming back in the big picture we don't see? Could be anything. I don't mean beneficial to people of course.

What would happen if all these problems got solved? If there was no police violence, esp. a racist one, what would change in the US?

There was a report recently in the Guardian here on percentage between uk and wales, compared to US in shootings.

Basically, police in the US have killed more people in the US in the last 24 days of when the report was made, compared to england and wales, which has a lesser number over the course of 24 years.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries



Thats bloody remarkable.. I mean its true, america is a country with easy access to guns, its a country built around that. But maybe there is comes the problem that because guns exist and are part of the american police forces blood, they are just that much more gun happy.
In the uk you won't have people walking around with guns, sure, but anything else can be used as a deadly weapon here, and guns are filtered though the system by one means or another underground.

I just think its a cultural thing, in the same way its an accepted cultural thing in middle eastern countries for underage sex and forced marriage. I just dunno how american can deal with its police force being this way without a complete breakdown of the system.

[Baruch]

drunkenshoe ... good point about police training.  Also the apples and oranges.  On the other hand, to what extent is the profile of the typical policeman changing because politics is changing?  And if so, isn't it pissing up wind if the politics doesn't change?  That is the tie in with the racist aspect.  One of my nephews is a policeman ... and I can only hope his head is screwed on right.  Because we know so much more about what is going on, it is like every crime that happens in 1000 miles radius, happened next door.

[Sal1981]

AFAIK, we've never had a police officer fatally shooting someone, but then again, we're only 49k people.

[Munch]

An interesting look at the difference between america and australia in its gun control policy, that in recent years its made stronger gun control laws, and had a dramatic drop in gun violence in Australia as a result.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/14/america-mass-murder-australia-gun-control-saves-lives

The mass murder in Newtown Connecticut a year ago caused shock and sorrow all around the world. In Australia it also revived memories of our own horror on a similar scale, when dozens of people innocently going about their day were gunned down by a disturbed young man.

Our tragedy occurred in 1996 at the Port Arthur historic site in Tasmania, one of Australia's most popular tourist destinations. The dead numbered 35, with more than 20 others injured. The victims ranged in age from 3 to 72. They included children, teens, adults and seniors; tourists and local workers; several couples, a pair of brothers, a mother and her two little daughters, and members of a retirees' club on an outing.

This was not the first shooting massacre we had suffered, but it was the largest in living memory. The tragedy ignited an explosion of public outrage, soul-searching and demands for better regulation of guns. We changed our laws. As a result, gun deaths in Australia have dropped by two-thirds, and we have never had another mass shooting.

Every country is unique, but Australia is more similar to the US than is, say, Japan or England. We have a frontier history and a strong gun culture. Each state and territory has its own gun laws, and in 1996 these varied widely between the jurisdictions. At that time Australia's firearm mortality rate per population was 2.6/100,000 â€" about one-quarter the US rate (pdf), according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the US Center for Disease Control. Today the rate is under 1/100,000 â€" less than one-tenth the US rate (pdf). Those figures refer to all gun deaths â€" homicide, suicide and unintentional. If we focus on gun homicide rates, the US outstrips Australia 30-fold.

The 1996 reforms made gun laws stronger and uniform across Australia. Semi-automatic rifles were prohibited (with narrow exceptions), and the world's biggest buyback saw nearly 700,000 guns removed from circulation and destroyed. The licensing and registration systems of all states and territories were harmonised and linked, so that a person barred from owning guns in one state can no longer acquire them in another. All gun sales are subject to screening (universal background checks), which means you cannot buy a gun over the internet or at a garage sale.

Gun ownership requires a license, and every sale is subject to a 28-day waiting period. The licensing process considers not only the applicant's age and criminal convictions, but also a range of other factors relevant to possession of a product that is (a) designed for killing and (b) highly coveted by people who should not have it. Relevant factors include the applicant's living circumstances, mental and physical health, restraining orders or other encounters with the law, type of gun desired and for what purpose, safety training, storage arrangements, and the public interest.

Police make whatever inquiries they think necessary to inform the decision on whether (or under what conditions) the license should be granted. This can include checking with neighbourhood police, the family doctor and especially spouses or partners. There are many red flags that do not appear in an automated computer record of criminal convictions: substance abuse, mental instability, conflict at home or at work, to name a few. Another risk factor is whether granting the license might make guns accessible to another household member whose own circumstances would disqualify them from a license â€" for example, a depressed teenager or a person with criminal convictions.

The screening process serves to block dangerous or irresponsible candidates, but also underscores for applicants and their families that bringing home a gun is a serious decision which affects the entire household, and indeed the entire community. Many applicants abandon their request during the waiting period â€" dissuaded by family members, or simply because the momentary enthusiasm for gun ownership passes.

Australia also requires a justifiable reason for the type of weapon the applicant wants to own. If you say you plan to hunt rabbits, your license doesn't allow you to a high-powered rifle. And if you already have a couple of guns suitable for hunting rabbits, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify acquiring more. This is a measure against the accumulation of private arsenals. A significant legal and cultural difference between our two countries: Australia doesn't accept anticipation of killing another person (self-defence) as a reason for owning a gun. To qualify for a handgun license, you must belong to and regularly attend a target shooting club.

An important feature of a licence is that it must be renewed every few years, and it can be cancelled or suspended if the bearer no longer meets the standard required â€" for example, due to domestic violence or a dangerous mental condition.

Australia didn't ban guns. Hunting and shooting are still thriving. But by adopting laws that give priority to public safety, we have saved thousands of lives.

I think that its a knock on effect. By there being such ease of access to guns in america, more violence comes into play as a result. And because of how easy it is to get guns and carry them around in the US, police in the US are trained to adopt that 'shot now ask questions later' attitude because of belief that anyone could pull a gun on them. And so when the police are the ones pulling guns out and shooting, the public sees this and they themselves are more inclined to carry a weapon for there own safety, feeling even the police aren't on their side.

Australia has the right idea of treating gun ownership more seriously, and perhaps because the police have more control of who is allowed to own a gun, they themselves don't have the trigger happy attitude that comes from american police.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Do we have a break down as to how many of those deaths were caused by police acting inappropriately?

[Munch]

Do we have a break down as to how many of those deaths were caused by police acting inappropriately?

Well there is this.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/half-shot-police-mentally-ill

Close to half the people shot dead by police over the past 22 years had some form of mental illness, latest figures show.

According to a new report from the Australian Institute of Criminology, there were 105 fatal police shootings between 1989-90 and 2010-11 and 44 of those people had a mental illness, with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia being the most common.

Drugs and alcohol are also overrepresented, with postmortem toxicology results showing in 51% of fatal shootings the victim was intoxicated.

The report comes as the mother of a boy shot by police in 2008 filed a landmark action with the United Nations designed to overhaul Australia's procedure of investigating the police.

A separate study in 2010 by researchers at Monash University looked at fatal shootings by Victorian police between 1982 and 2007, and concluded mentally ill people were "significantly overrepresented" in fatal shootings with psychosis and schizophrenia in particular 11.3- and 17.3-fold higher than estimated rates in the general population.

Professor James Ogloff, one of the authors of the Monash study said that following their research findings the Victorian police instituted new training to help officers deal with irrational people.

"They now have action-based training scenarios that involve interacting with people with mental illness," he said.

"When people are typically in a crisis what happens is they're not terribly rational and the normal way police deal with people may not be effective."

NSW has had the most recent police shootings out of all states, with a total of seven deaths between 2008 and 2011 according to Australian Institute of Criminology figures.

Frank Quinlan, chief executive of the Mental Health Council of Australia told Guardian Australia that the statistics represented broader flaws in the provision of mental health services throughout Australia.

"I don't believe the messages of these events are straightforward or simple, because while they involve police officers and a distressed individual, they're just the pointy end of a whole system of attitudes, services and processes that has failed," he said.

"Understanding and appropriate training for police officers who are the first responders in many of these instances is clearly an important part of the picture, and if people are receiving inadequate training or if they're not receiving training often enough, then I think that is an important issue for us to look at. But we also need to ask in that context why is it that for this disease, mental illness, we are asking police to be the first responders so often.

"International evidence is starting to suggest that the involvement of accredited peer workers with first responders, people who have experienced mental illness themselves, can also be an effective way of de escalating and avoiding the ultimate use of lethal force."

There have been a number of high-profile police shootings of people with mental illness in recent years. In November 2009 Adam Salter was shot at his home in Lakemba, Sydney after police had responded to a call saying Salter was trying to stab himself. Salter had a history of mental health illnesses and had recently been held as an involuntary patient at the Concord Centre for Mental Health, before being discharged back into the community.

http://theconversation.com/shoot-to-kill-the-use-of-lethal-force-by-police-in-australia-34578

In 2013, the Australian Institute of Criminology released a report detailing fatal police shootings between 1989 and 2011. In that period, police fatally shot 105 people. The victims were almost entirely male and 60% were between 20 and 39 years of age.

Of those persons shot by police, 42% were suffering a mental illness at the time of the shooting. Schizophrenia was the most common illness (59% of those with a mental illness) suffered. In at least one of the recent Queensland shootings, the person shot was allegedly a sufferer of mental illness.

Not sure how I feel about this, since you would think people suffering from psychosis and schizophrenia would be cause to detain them and treat them in clinical wards. But perhaps they were classified as such while having done something endangering someone, or having killed already, because they were psychotic and schizophrenic?