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The question isn't "do American cops shoot more people than their European counterparts", it's "how many countries and how many years do you need to combine for the European death count to match America's from LAST YEAR."
We hear that all the deaths in America by cop are due to cops justifiably protecting themselves from imminent death, that the only way that cops have to deal with these unruly punchers, runners, and mentally ill folks is to shoot them.
So this begs the question - why are American cops so much better at staying alive than their European counterparts? With all the non-killing that those Euro cops do, they must be dying by the truckload.
I've seen Europeans -- they have arms and hands to attack with, they have legs to run with, they have mentals that can be illed, yet they aren't dying at anywhere near the rate of American civilians.
So what's the reason the America has so many more cop shootings than other comparable countries?
"that the only way that cops have to deal with these unruly punchers, runners, and mentally ill folks is to shoot them.
Excerpt from the documentary series "The Norden". Police captain Peter Whittingham from LAPD visits Finland, Sweden and Norway. How are suspects treated? What equipment do Nordic police officers carry, and how are they allowed to use it? What role does the police have in the Nordics?
"How many shootings do you have?" "about 5 a year"
Some European countries "punish" a LOT harder then we do.
Our local radio did a short spot a driver in Finland, or Sweden, I'm not sure, who was fined $60,000 for exceeding the speed limit by 16 mph.
The fines there are based on your annual income.
Finland:
"There were two types of prisons--closed prisons and open institutions. The latter were classified as either permanently located open prisons or as labor colonies established for a limited period of time for the performance of certain work. Sentences for the nonpayment of fines as well as sentences of up to two years were served in open institutions, if the prisoner was physically able to perform the work and if the danger of escaping was minimal.
The criminal justice system applied only to offenders over the age of fifteen. Those under that age were placed under the custody of child welfare authorities. Juveniles between fifteen and eighteen years of age were customarily accorded a reduced sentence, and offenders between fifteen and twenty-one were more likely than adults to receive conditional sentences. Those in this age group who were sentenced to an unconditional term of six months to four years might be sent to a special juvenile prison. Such institutions were meant to have a training and education function, but in practice they did not differ greatly from ordinary prisons."
Being you want to compare us to Europe, are you willing to adopt the "penal" punishments?
I'm very disappointed that the diehard cop apologists don't have a story to spin about why the European police forces are so non-lethal when dealing with their citizens.
Why don't YOU find out how many European "criminals" are on drugs and how many resist arrest when approached by the cops and let us know.
As they say, 'The devil is in the details" not some off the cuff remark.
Instead of blinding yourself to moral repudiation for offensive perspectives you prefer, why not try something new? Try reconsidering your support for regressive and antisocial attitudes.
Instead of blinding yourself to moral repudiation for offensive perspectives you prefer, why not try something new? Try reconsidering your support for regressive and antisocial attitudes.
How do criminals have morals?
Why is it the non-criminal must have morals, but you care less what the criminal does/has.......
OK. Let's start with unarmed deaths. I have to believe that there's no difference in the strength or "threat" of someone who's unarmed in America vs Europe. What leads to American cops using lethal force more than European ones?
Ok, you are making some assumptions up front that need to be questioned.
1. Do the officers know the person is unarmed?
2. In cases where they do not know this what is the likelihood that the typical euro has a gun in their jacket as opposed to an american? Assume bad gang-infested neighborhood for instance.
That is a terrible article that appears to have been written by a non-journalist.
Look at this sentence:
"The same year, German police, who do carry guns, reportedly killed six people. Germany, another racist, capitalist country with large numbers of oppressed minorities, has a population about one-quarter that of the U.S. So on a per capita basis, U.S. police were 40 times as likely to kill as German cops."
C'mon! I looked at the top of the article on the webpage. It wasn't originally written for that Global Research website. It was written for something called Liberation News.
Liberation News: "Newspaper of the Party for Socialism and Liberation"
This is them according to their own website:
"The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote the movement for revolutionary change. Capitalism—the system in which all wealth and power is held by a tiny group of billionaires and their state—is the source of the main problems confronting humanity today: imperialist war, poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, environmental destruction, mass imprisonment, unionbusting and more. We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it—the workers—and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples."
Left wingers tend to have brains screwed on top. I take it you must think German police should be spending more time killing hundreds of German (Ossies for example) citizens and immigrants each year rather than getting fat drinking (good) Beer, and eating those lovely cream filled pastries. nice juicy bratworsts or deep fat fried perogies while on duty!
Europeans tend to be smarter than most rocks, bags of hammers or tree stumps. Can you say that of Americans?
To some extent these things are cultural. Murder in general is about 5 times more common in the US than in most European nations. Among European criminal classes (regular thugs and gangbangers; not terrorists), the notion of shooting a cop is way out-of-range. It's simply not done. It's not part of the culture. The US is different; lethal violence is more common, and people resort to lethal violence a lot more quickly. Why would we expect police officers to be radically different from the populations they police?
If you won't at least give me some explanation or commentary beyond that, I'm not going to start clicking you-tube links to who knows what.
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