“Police
in the United States have killed 385 people over the past five
months, according to a report published Saturday by the Washington
Post. The report was based on police records, news reports, internet
sources and the paper's own original reporting. Most of victims –
80 percent – were carrying weapons or objects considered a lethal
hazard, however this did not necessarily translate into the victims
posing a real threat to the lives of police officers.”
“Furthermore,
nearly a quarter of those killed were identified by police or family
members as mentally ill, and about half of the shootings happened
whilst attending domestic disturbances or complex social situations
(eg.: a homeless person behaving erratically or a son threatening to
commit suicide).”
“The
average number of police victims stood at 2.6 per day, and at the
current rate the report predicts that police will kill almost 1,000
people this year. The Post's report showed a higher number than that
recorded by federal agencies, which claim an average of 400 police
shootings per year in the past decade. The recent cases of unarmed
people, especially African Americans fatally shot by police officers
has also put a spotlight into the issue of racial discrimination
within policing. Out of all lethal encounters with police, almost 20
percent of the killings were people unarmed or holding a toy gun and
two thirds of the victims were black. The Post's investigation also
found that only in 3 of the 385 police killings were police officers
charged with murder.”
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