If there is one perceived truism that is discussed often here and elsewhere, it's the perception that LEO and their agencies are becoming increasingly more "militarized" vs. officer friendly, that force to include deadly force is overused etc. Radley Balko has done some good writing on this subject.
But I notice the criticisms RARELY are supported with statistics. It's almost always anecdotal... e.g. mention incident X and say how #4((# up it is, and how it is an example of overuse of swat, occupying army mentality, etc.
Now of course stuff varies agency to agency, but check out this article.
Recently in 2010 over the course of entire year, NYPD officers (an agency of 35000 officers give or take few) had 33 instances where they shot at suspects.
33
Think about the thousands of felony arrests, arrests of armed dangerous felons, hot calls involving substantial violence, etc. and it's a major testament to restraint (and recognize that sometimes deciding NOT to shoot is a very BAD decision and can put the public and others in danger because you didnt take the perp out of commission, however these stats are being used to show the "increased militarization" meme is true in SOME respects and in some agencies, but clearly there are tons of examples such as I mention here, where police have gotten far more restrained in the use of force, etc.
In 2010 they shot and killed 8 people and shot and wounded 16
1/10th of 1 percent of NYPD Officers fired their handgun in the LOD in that year
1/10 of 1 percent
In the same year, they responded to almost 207,000 calls involving reports of weapons involved.
These stats are profound, and for the cop haters and those who claim cops are OUT OF CONTROL, it offers realistic sobering statistics that one's assumptions may run counter to the real world if all one does is read reports of alleged "bad shoots" and excessive force, etc. without putting it in perspective, as this article does.
Note also that the use of SWAT, decried by many (NYPD calls it the ESU iirc), is a substantial factor in many cases where the situation gets resolved without shots fired. Whether it's distraction device , use of robots, use of advanced tactics with weapons, etc. etc. SWAT can often get a peaceful resolution where patrol would have ended up with shots fired because they don't have the tools to deal with many encounters in an optimal manner. SWAT has absolutely been OVERUSED in the war oon drugs especially, and one can certainly point out examples of SWAT raids that were a tactical nightmare. Again, one can concentrate on the bad, but acknowledge that in the REAL world, it's not as bad as you think by a long shot
And I guarantee these stats would be a surprise to the cop haters. I recall , in a thread about a (perceived as bad) shooting, the post after post decrying the NYPD specifically as blood thirsty and trigger happy thugs
lol
in an agency where they responded to 207 000 calls involving weapons, where there were thousands of felony arrests of violent felonious crimes, thousands of cases of disarming suspects through tactics and negotiation without firing a shot, and in an agency where sad to say a substantial # of calls involve EDP's and where good training and a good heart are necessary and help to avoid violent results, in that agency we see stats that certainly give pause to the "cops are becoming increasingly militarized and thuggish" people
1971 was the first year in which NYPD began recording statistics of this nature. In that same year, cops shot and killed 93 people and shot and wounded 221 more.
Compare and contrast. SURE, the streets are far less violent now than in 1971. But the decrease in shootings FAR FAR FAR outstrips the %age drop in violent crime. The stats show roughly 10% as many cop shootings in 2010 vs. 1971 and violent crime has NOT DROPPED ANYWHERE NEAR 10% of 1971 levels.
It's through better trainijng, officer safety tactics, better recruiting, better use of psych etc tests on recruits, better accountability and review for police shooting, etc etc that this reality could come about.
I'm sad to say my agency has a MUCH higher shooting/officer ratio and from what stats I've seen we also have a much greater %age of officers injured every year, attacked every year etc. New York is definitely a shining beacon, a large metropolis with a restrained professional police force and a diminished crime rate by a large margin.
In my agency, we just did a debrief on an incident involving a homicidal man with multiple guns that happened a few weeks ago. In brief, we criticized ourselves for NOT shooting him at a point when he CLEARLY should have been shot in order to protect the lives of others. As a firearms instructor, etc. I am certainly aware that on the whole we exercise great restraint (to include our SWAT) and like in this case, sometimes much too much restraint.
fortunately, in this incident the man did NOT succeed in harming anybody else after that critical point when patrol should have shot. THis is at least partially due to the heroic actions of my sgt and a couple of officers who placed themselves in the line of fire in order to run into the house he had just taken over and extract the hostages without any bloodshed. A story that will of course NEVER make the news, but it's quite common,
So the next time some histrionic ninny criticizes the NYPD as a bunch of trigger happy violent thugs, throw some stats at them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/n...e-shooting-report-shows-record-lows.html?_r=0
p.s. one additional factor that imnsho helped decrease the shooting rate is... the Taser. Where in 1971 the only rational response to many armed threats was the handgun (in 1971 it was the revolver on the part of the cops), NOW when there are multiple officers on scene (and nYPD uses a lot of two man cars I might add) an officer can go "less lethal" with his taser while being protected a partner who is deploying lethal force (drawijng his handgun). Tasers definitely help improve resolutions of many violent encounters
But I notice the criticisms RARELY are supported with statistics. It's almost always anecdotal... e.g. mention incident X and say how #4((# up it is, and how it is an example of overuse of swat, occupying army mentality, etc.
Now of course stuff varies agency to agency, but check out this article.
Recently in 2010 over the course of entire year, NYPD officers (an agency of 35000 officers give or take few) had 33 instances where they shot at suspects.
33
Think about the thousands of felony arrests, arrests of armed dangerous felons, hot calls involving substantial violence, etc. and it's a major testament to restraint (and recognize that sometimes deciding NOT to shoot is a very BAD decision and can put the public and others in danger because you didnt take the perp out of commission, however these stats are being used to show the "increased militarization" meme is true in SOME respects and in some agencies, but clearly there are tons of examples such as I mention here, where police have gotten far more restrained in the use of force, etc.
In 2010 they shot and killed 8 people and shot and wounded 16
1/10th of 1 percent of NYPD Officers fired their handgun in the LOD in that year
1/10 of 1 percent
In the same year, they responded to almost 207,000 calls involving reports of weapons involved.
These stats are profound, and for the cop haters and those who claim cops are OUT OF CONTROL, it offers realistic sobering statistics that one's assumptions may run counter to the real world if all one does is read reports of alleged "bad shoots" and excessive force, etc. without putting it in perspective, as this article does.
Note also that the use of SWAT, decried by many (NYPD calls it the ESU iirc), is a substantial factor in many cases where the situation gets resolved without shots fired. Whether it's distraction device , use of robots, use of advanced tactics with weapons, etc. etc. SWAT can often get a peaceful resolution where patrol would have ended up with shots fired because they don't have the tools to deal with many encounters in an optimal manner. SWAT has absolutely been OVERUSED in the war oon drugs especially, and one can certainly point out examples of SWAT raids that were a tactical nightmare. Again, one can concentrate on the bad, but acknowledge that in the REAL world, it's not as bad as you think by a long shot
And I guarantee these stats would be a surprise to the cop haters. I recall , in a thread about a (perceived as bad) shooting, the post after post decrying the NYPD specifically as blood thirsty and trigger happy thugs
lol
in an agency where they responded to 207 000 calls involving weapons, where there were thousands of felony arrests of violent felonious crimes, thousands of cases of disarming suspects through tactics and negotiation without firing a shot, and in an agency where sad to say a substantial # of calls involve EDP's and where good training and a good heart are necessary and help to avoid violent results, in that agency we see stats that certainly give pause to the "cops are becoming increasingly militarized and thuggish" people
1971 was the first year in which NYPD began recording statistics of this nature. In that same year, cops shot and killed 93 people and shot and wounded 221 more.
Compare and contrast. SURE, the streets are far less violent now than in 1971. But the decrease in shootings FAR FAR FAR outstrips the %age drop in violent crime. The stats show roughly 10% as many cop shootings in 2010 vs. 1971 and violent crime has NOT DROPPED ANYWHERE NEAR 10% of 1971 levels.
It's through better trainijng, officer safety tactics, better recruiting, better use of psych etc tests on recruits, better accountability and review for police shooting, etc etc that this reality could come about.
I'm sad to say my agency has a MUCH higher shooting/officer ratio and from what stats I've seen we also have a much greater %age of officers injured every year, attacked every year etc. New York is definitely a shining beacon, a large metropolis with a restrained professional police force and a diminished crime rate by a large margin.
In my agency, we just did a debrief on an incident involving a homicidal man with multiple guns that happened a few weeks ago. In brief, we criticized ourselves for NOT shooting him at a point when he CLEARLY should have been shot in order to protect the lives of others. As a firearms instructor, etc. I am certainly aware that on the whole we exercise great restraint (to include our SWAT) and like in this case, sometimes much too much restraint.
fortunately, in this incident the man did NOT succeed in harming anybody else after that critical point when patrol should have shot. THis is at least partially due to the heroic actions of my sgt and a couple of officers who placed themselves in the line of fire in order to run into the house he had just taken over and extract the hostages without any bloodshed. A story that will of course NEVER make the news, but it's quite common,
So the next time some histrionic ninny criticizes the NYPD as a bunch of trigger happy violent thugs, throw some stats at them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/n...e-shooting-report-shows-record-lows.html?_r=0
p.s. one additional factor that imnsho helped decrease the shooting rate is... the Taser. Where in 1971 the only rational response to many armed threats was the handgun (in 1971 it was the revolver on the part of the cops), NOW when there are multiple officers on scene (and nYPD uses a lot of two man cars I might add) an officer can go "less lethal" with his taser while being protected a partner who is deploying lethal force (drawijng his handgun). Tasers definitely help improve resolutions of many violent encounters
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