A huge part of a police officer’s training is to learn how to shoot a gun and when to shoot a gun. Police departments train their officers how to react in high-pressure situations. In many cases officers have very few seconds to decide if they will shoot or not. Many people know the results that occur if an officer chooses to draw his gun, but do people know the statistics behind what may happen if an officer chooses to keep his weapon holstered?
According to the Washington Post, from January to July of 2016, 67 law enforcement officers have died. About 21 of these deaths did not result in “felonious incidents” while the remaining 46 deaths occurred from encounters with criminals. This number is significantly up from 2015 where the halfway mark indicated 25 officer deaths that resulted from being fatally shot and killed. Obviously one may not know what exactly took place in those 46 cases; however, we may assume that the individuals that attacked these officers were not acting in self-defense.
Of course there are two sides to every story. Therefore, we must also take a look at the number of individuals that were shot around this time period by police officers that were on the job. It has been reported that from January to July of 2015 the number of Americans that were shot and killed by officers are as follows: 732 white Americans, 381 black Americans, and the remaining 382 were of another race. At first these statistics may shock people as they thought that more black people have been killed by cops than white people; well they are not necessarily wrong. White people make-up about 62% of the population in the U.S. while the black community makes up about 13% of the population.
One question that may arise in many people’s minds is: why do officers shoot to kill? Well CNN decided to ask Cedric Alexander, a nationally recognized policing expert who was called in to review the Ferguson case. Alexander stated “Officers are trained to “shoot to stop,” which often results in a homicide. They aim for the center mass of a person’s chest because it is the target they are most certain to hit and is most likely to take the suspect down.”
I feel that every story has two sides and that we as human beings must assess a story to the best of our abilities. I feel that many innocent Americans have been killed due to gun violence. These innocent Americans include police officers and citizens. I would ask the public to put themselves in the victims shoes. What would you do if you were an officer on the job or a citizen walking down the street that was stopped by the police?
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Sources: Images
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dallas-officers-shot-protests-1.3669873
Sources: News
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.e6d6c2b62bfa
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/us/why-police-shoot-to-kill/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/27/number-of-law-enforcement-officers-fatally-shot-this-year-up-significantly-after-ambush-attacks-report-says/?utm_term=.6f7af4572b0f