Police Fatal Shootings: More Common or More Accessible?
It seems to me that we hear about fatal police shootings way more often these days.
Why do you think this is? Do you think these shootings are more common? If so, why? Or could it be that we hear about them more due to the inter-connectivity of social media? As in, do you think that social media is simply broadcasting an occurrence that has always happened, but we simply didn’t hear about it as often?
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7 Answers
I doubt if the frequency is up. More likely than not, folks just pay more attention to such things these days. An awful lot has changed regarding behavior previously considered routine.
I say there are a lot more fatal police shootings than what we hear of. Plus cops have higher capacity weapons today which means that they can send more hot lead at perps increasing the likelihood of a fatal encounter.
I don’t know the statistics, so I can’t say for certain, but I always assume that bad news is amplified by the media/social media.
What do almost the shootings have in common? They are caught on camera by random people that hear action and record it. This wasn’t a thing ten years ago.
@Cruiser the sidearms cops carry have not really changed in 30 or so years except for some of the “less than lethal” options they have available now.
The frequency in all likelyhood is down but it is payed more attention and there is an army of cameras following cops around.
I think it’s partly the increase in social media and cameras in every pocket, and partly something of a change police mentality on the whole. It seems like police these days take an “us vs them” attitude, rather than one of serving the community, and seemingly are trained to force compliance rather than deescalate conflict.
If the trend here in Chicago continues there will be a great reduction in fatal Police shootings as the Cops are refusing to patrol parts of the city they are so out of control now. Plus one female cop last summer got beat to within an inch of her life because she second guessed her need to fire at the gang bangers attacking her.
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