By Jennifer Baker at theantimedia.org
The Guardian’s effort to track fatal shootings by American police, known as ‘The Counted,’ reached the 1000 mark this week. With an average of more than three Americans shot and killed by police per day, this shocking statistic should be a wake-up call to the gun-toting vigilante justice that’s being trained into United States police forces.
In a country where its citizens are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the nation’s police force operates as the judge, jury, and executioner at least three times a day by taking the lives of citizens without significant accountability for their actions.
The United States government and U.S. citizens have never before had a comprehensive record of the number of people killed by law enforcement. Former U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder described the absence of a National data collection system to track fatal police shootings as “unacceptable.”
Until journalists began tracking fatal police shootings this year, the only way that information was collected was by a ‘voluntary’ program run by the FBI through which law enforcement agencies may or may not choose to submit their annual count of “justifiable homicides,” which it defines as “the killing of a felon in the line of duty.”
Between 2005 and 2012 just 1,100 of America’s 18,000 police agencies chose to voluntarily report a “justifiable homicide” to the FBI.
For comparison, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 35 Police Officers have died on the job in firearm-related incidents in 2015.
Saudi Arabia, known worldwide for its public beheadings, executed only 90 people in the entire year of 2014 according to reports by Amnesty International, when an average of over 90 people are killed by American police forces every 30 days.
To further put the scale of this crisis into perspective, as the world rushes to war over the tragic deaths of 129 people killed earlier this week in Paris, United States police forces kill that many American citizens about every 40 days.
The crisis is clear. The United States trains its police officers to act as public executioners with a laundry list of worn out excuses and aggressive police unions at the ready to battle any public backlash and assist Officers with avoiding accountability for their actions.
A complete dismantling and total reconstruction of current policing systems seem the only available answer.
This article (American Police Kill 3 People per Day, over 1000 so Far in 2015) originally appeared on Revolution-News.com and was used with permission. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos:[email protected].
The Problem with Police not only in America but across the world is that they are looking for average Joes to be cops. They want the average type ,someone to be on level with the public.. Sounds nice right? No. Its not.. think about it.. the average person is just that average. average outlook , average morals ,average everything..
I believe if you are going to police people which is what cops do you should be way above average.. Your moral compass must not waiver. You should be tested and tested and retested to see what your state of mind is under real pressure. Intense psychological analysis would be a plus ..
I guess my point is that how can we expect the police to be and act as responsible members of society if we are putting average guys out there as police. They can be tempted as easily as anyone else.
Just a a thought
Pretty pathetic write up. Sad sad sad
Why? Police officers are far more stressed than you or me-even If everyone of us has his burdons to carry.
I know a policeman who had suffered mental illnes caused by his job and had to be taken le applying care of. You can’t imagine the psycollogigal stress he had been through. He is well again. Playing in a jazz band helped him besides psycollogical treatment. He wasn’t the only one, that’s for shure…
There’s one essential starting point that can’t be avoided.
The drug war pours half a trillion dollars a year into the criminal economy.
The drug war armed the drug industry and militarized the police.
There cannot be any end to the violence as long as this last great injustice remains in place. End the drug war.
Then those 3 American’s shouldn’t have broken the law in the first place. It’s not as if the cops wake up one morning and say I feel like killing someone for no reason, just because I feel like it. And I doubt their police chief picks a cop out of the morning safety briefing and says go kill a Nigger today so we can be on the news.
Todd you are idiot, breaking the law does not mean a death sentence?
So many cowards posting here who think everyone who is brutalized and killed by the police somehow deserved it.
Imagine what could possibly make anyone think this way? How many videos do we need to watch of people with their hands up, or on-the-ground, walking away, has a bad tail light, or is having a medical emergency being shot dead FOR NO REASON!
Anyone who thinks this is fine is the weakest most cowardly type of American that ever walked our soil.
Crime happens. We can’t stop that. However it seems like all crimes & lapses in judgment are punishable by death nowadays. THAT is the issue. Some of these police aren’t equipped to handle criminals without killing them! The propaganda agenda has worked to desensitize you & make you feel like ppl deserve to die if they commit a crime…
I beg to differ.
Where I live, the police kills less than one human in two years. Think I´m pretty fortunate when I compare to how many ppl American police kills a day. But ofc our country has less than 6 millions residents.
When someone pulls a gun and opens fire on police, there is no time for a trial. It isn’t about due process; it is about self defense and survival. Not saying there aren’t some bad or questionable shoots going on. But think about why we here in the national media about only a few of the hundreds; because those few bad ones are the news, the exception to the norm, and questionable. No one wants to report on a clearly justifiable shoot, which is why we only here about a few here and there.
In Saudi Arabia there are no organisations like the Crips,Bloods,Latin Kings,MS13 and so on.Dont tell me that the cop is the bad guy if that person fucking touches his gun threating to take his gun, and he shoots him lol.