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Looking at other individual countries is not quite apples to apples. Our country is much, much larger than any one European country, each having it's own laws, rules, procedures, and accounting of statistics. Much the same as every state in the US has it's own laws, and individual police departments have their own rules and procedures, subject to state law.
At a guess, I'd say the most shootings occur because a criminal resisted or attacked an officer. I say criminal, because an innocent person has no reason to resist an officer. Criminal includes but is not limited to someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
You might want to check the Constitution re: who is considered innocent. I realize that's a pesky little document that is meaningless to trumpers (other than the 2nd Amendment).
That article is misleading, the problem is not guns or race. njpD3h9DH1FcHx5CF2eqwiP6DA=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/694628/incarceration_rate_by_country.0.png
This graph show the incarceration rate of different countries. A person in the us has 10x more chances of getting arrest than places like norway or denmark. 10x more chances that the situation get out of control and somebody shoots.
I just saw a news that a police was serving a eviction notice and suddenly was shot in the face by the guy. Some people are extremely violent, so cops don't want to take any risks.
I assume police in other countries have families that they want to return to also. So what is it about American police that they can't do what the police in the rest of the world do?
There are hundreds of thousands of police/citizen interactions in the US every year. The number of unarmed people killed by police is statistically insignificant. I'd be willing to bet that your error rate at your job is higher.
I assume police in other countries have families that they want to return to also. So what is it about American police that they can't do what the police in the rest of the world do?
go research the Mexican Police and the Pakistan Police and come back and complain about our police...then when you are done check out Chinese and Russian police to continue this conversation.
go research the Mexican Police and the Pakistan Police and come back and complain about our police...then when you are done check out Chinese and Russian police to continue this conversation.
So you're saying that because other police states are even worse than ours, nobody has the right to complain and expect more from our cops?
We also tend to put police on a patrol island in the US. Single officer patrols are unacceptable in all other developed countries, but routinely used in the US. It was not always this way, but became an acceptable and then widespread practice over the last twenty years. These does not account for all killings, but it does for many (especially the controversial ones) as when an officer is isolated they are going to always go for lethal force first before a taser or similar less lethal tactics.
(See this article from 1991 when NYPD was only the 6th department to go to single officer patrols. Police to Put Lone Officers In Patrol Cars - NYTimes.com)
Our patrol areas are also much larger in area and people covered than other countries. Our officereople ratio is relatively high, but that is mostly due to extensive rural areas that do not exist in other countries and barely comparable to what you see in the major cities of Europe like London.
It might help if you included a citation of something to support your post.
Maybe one factor - if that's true - is that despite our tendency to describe ourselves as peace-loving, American are actually pretty in love with violence.
Yes, I believe this is the root cause. There are many branches from that.
Police in the U.S. successfully detain thousands of unarmed (and armed) suspects every day. That's about 99.999987% of all apprehensions.
You only hear about the 0.000013% where something goes wrong.
Massive thread fail. Please close and delete.
I agree that *most* interactions between police and society are perfectly acceptable, the problem is, we are too willing to look the other way when they are not.
We are quick to defend the police no matter what. We are slow to hold them accountable when they do wrong. This is what I do not understand. It's a small percentage so why the reluctance?
I assume police in other countries have families that they want to return to also. So what is it about American police that they can't do what the police in the rest of the world do?
No, I don't think we are. Many officers know how to detain unarmed suspects without killing them, and many of them do just that. Unfortunately, we have people entering the police force, who shouldn't be police officers to begin with. We also have people who believe that the citizens should be better behaved than the police. We also have a nation rife with racial tensions. We have police who know how to detain without killing. However, there are still some officers that would rather kill than detain.
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eople ratio is relatively high, but that is mostly due to extensive rural areas that do not exist in other countries and barely comparable to what you see in the major cities of Europe like London. 
