New Yorker: "Your Son is Deceased" (Albuquerque PD's high kill rate of civilians)
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At meetings with the police chief and his deputies, Tate said he pleaded to reject applicants who seemed erratic. He said that a “common phrase was ‘Well, we got seats open, so let’s give them a try.’ ” The department began accepting candidates whose “backgrounds were so bad it was just, like, wow,” he said. There were cadets who had admitted to crimes and had been repeatedly disciplined in previous jobs. Of the sixty-three officers who joined the Albuquerque police force in 2007, ten eventually shot people.
Brown had already been rejected by the Albuquerque Police Department, in 1995, because he had bad credit, which was seen as a sign of recklessness. He ended up in the Roswell Police Department, three hours south of Albuquerque. While he was there, a city councillor brought a civil-rights lawsuit against him—she alleged that he had arrested her for exercising her right to free speech—and five citizens filed complaints. He was accused of injuring a man by throwing him to the ground; of humiliating a mother when arresting her for speeding; and of pointing his gun at someone who got out of his car too slowly. Later, he estimated that he had drawn his gun during a traffic stop on at least ten occasions. In 2005, he applied to work for the police department in Rio Rancho, just north of Albuquerque, but he was rejected for having a bad attitude.
Since the last time he applied to the Albuquerque Police Department, Brown had been in two car accidents and filed for bankruptcy—events that the department typically considered indications of instability—but his second application was accepted, and he was given a signing bonus of five thousand dollars. He didn’t take a psychological exam. His training lasted six weeks.
The day that Christopher was killed, Brown arrived at the Torreses’ house wearing bluejeans, black sunglasses, and a shirt that said “Buell Motorcycles.” He said that he found it easier to approach people when he wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was joined by another officer, Richard Hilger, who wore jeans, an untucked T-shirt, and hiking boots. They rang the doorbell, but no one answered. They could see the living room through the slats of the window blinds; no one appeared to be home. They were about to return to their car when Hilger heard a noise in the back yard. According to statements made later by both officers, they walked toward the fence and Hilger called out Christopher’s name.
“Yeah,” Christopher said, approaching the fence from the other side. He wore plaid pajama pants, a white undershirt, and flip-flops.
“I just want to talk to you real quick,” Hilger said.
“You’re talking to me,” Christopher responded.
“Well, can I talk to you face to face?”
“We’re face to face right now.”
“You have a felony arrest warrant,” Brown said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You have a felony warrant for your arrest.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Christopher said. “This is my back yard.”
According to Brown, Christopher said that the officers would have to fight if they wanted to arrest him. When Christopher took a step backward, Brown jumped the four-foot fence, breaking part of it, and tackled Christopher. “He went to hit me, I punched him, and then the fight was on,” Brown said. Hilger followed his partner into the back yard by removing a panel of the fence. “I basically bum-rushed them all,” he said.
A twenty-four-year-old neighbor, Christie Apodaca, who lived behind the Torreses, heard someone shouting, “I live here. What are you doing? I live here.” She ran to her fence and looked through a coin-size hole in one of the wooden panels. Christopher had gone to her high school, but she’d only spoken to him once or twice. She saw him on his hands and knees, about twelve feet away from her. One man pressed his weight onto Christopher’s lower body and another punched his right side and his face.
Apodaca ran inside her house to call 911. She told the dispatch operator, “I think the other guys are trying to rob the place.”
“Ma’am, are you on—is this on Sunrose?” the operator asked, naming the street where Christopher lived.
“Huh?”
“Is this on Sunrose?”
“Yes.”
“O.K. Those are officers that are on that scene.”
Outside, Brown and Hilger tried to handcuff Christopher, but he tucked his hands underneath him, and flailed his head and legs. On Hilger’s police radio, which was on for just a few seconds, Christopher can be heard yelling, in a high-pitched voice, “I’m a good guy! This is my house!”
The officers tried to pin Christopher to the ground, but they said that he was somehow able to rip his right arm free and grab Hilger’s gun. They said that he wouldn’t let go, even as they punched him. Brown unholstered his pistol, a nine-millimetre handgun that he’d owned since he was sixteen. He pressed the muzzle against Christopher’s back and pulled the trigger. He didn’t hear any noise, and wondered if the gun had malfunctioned. He squeezed the trigger again. This time Christopher said, “Ow.” Christopher was still trying to get up, so Brown shot him in the back a third time.
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http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/son-deceased
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tblue37
(65,292 posts)
Ilsa
(61,694 posts)their shooting statistics along with NYC's, etc?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8005168
We won't have good data until PDs of all sizes are required to report data to the govt or CDC.
Igel
(35,296 posts)That's what happens with data vs anecdotes. That's why you (1) look at the data, (2) understand the data, (3) look at more than just median and mean, but look at all sorts of measures of variation.
Take something at best marginally related to the issue of police violence. There are simplistic palliatives like "let's ban guns" to reduce the murder rate. Treat symptoms, not the problem. But to treat the problem you need to understand what's going on, right? Did you know that nearly half of murders in the US happen in the South? Does that matter for understanding why Americans kill each other? Did you know that half of murder victims, give or take a few percent, are black--whether African-American or Latino? Does *that* matter for understanding why Americans kill each other? So what's the problem? Guns, with higher rates in the West than the South, but higher murder rates in the South? Gunhumping NRA culture, which given how people talk is apparently disproportionately a "black thing"? I don't know. But if you don't understand, you're not going to get to the right answer.
You can have a handful of truly bad incidents that clearly shows a pattern, but you mix them in with 800 other incidents and suddenly the pattern you see turns out to not be there.
But it gets ... just more of the same. Because the researchers point out that precincts matter. There may be an average with greater use of non-lethal force for minorities stopped but no greater use of lethal force that they found, however the results varied by precinct. If you look at one precinct, you may think everything's wonderful. If you look at another precinct, a few violent officers can make it look like hell. But since the national conversation is pretty much about national percentages, individual cases don't matter.
But as soon as there's "bad evidence" for the conversation we've been having, then all that matters is anecdotes. The goalposts move, they move because it's convenient for those making certain claims, but it's hard to address claims that are founded on moveable goalposts and shifting standards of data. All you get is claim after claim after claim, and as you investigate the claim to figure out what, exactly, needs fixing at what level, bam! That's not really the claim, at 5:26 Rocky Mountain Standard Time on July 13, 2016, that it was before.
So from the research--with a small data set, but one that's not obviously flawed for all that--the problem isn't racism when it comes to shooting. The problem is non-lethal violence, but their data versus surveys gives some strange results. Their police data, strictly speaking, strikes me as more valid than the survey data. The survey shows a lot more police violence for some groups, and much less for other groups, than the police report. But those surveys are after the fact, often months after the fact, and can be viewed through a kind of perceptual filter. So blacks report far higher rates of violence than the police did--but whites report nearly none, while the police said they used higher levels of force about 15% of stops.
The real problem seems to be the disproportionate number of police contacts with minority groups than with non-minority groups. If you stop 40% of your stops are black and 20% Latino and 40% white, if there's no bias in the use of lethal force you're going to get 40% of your shootings involving blacks and 20% involving Latinos and 40% involving whites. That may be where the problem is, but rather than simply saying, "They have to equalize encounters or stops" there may be reasons for increased numbers of stops that need to be understood. Certain kinds of crimes have disproportionate numbers of blacks or Latinos or whites reported as suspects, for instance--and saying that you've maxed out your "Latino quota" for the month so you can't investigate a half-dozen crimes is just wrong.
Ilsa
(61,694 posts)Dallas and NYC are large cities with big budgets, and probably more sophistication in training and policy development and execution compared to most smaller cities. Money can make a big difference. I can't help but wonder if the sample is truly representative. Your last paragraph makes me wonder about policy implementation.
Please keep in mind that I'm not declaring the study invalid, but I'm not yet convinced that we have an accurate picture. And this is also voluntary data. Until all PDs are required to report data, it seems like the researcher is looking more at data offered because it speaks well of that dept.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)both the cops and crims are out of control... My ex-GF had an opportunity to take a better-paying job there and she said no way.
