25 Shocking Facts About the Epidemic of Police Brutality in America

[zizozain]

The recent unveiling of the Counted, a tracking system designed by the Guardian to count the number of civilians killed by police, has brought more attention to the seeming epidemic of police brutality in the U.S.

The tool comes at an important time. It seems every week new names of victims of police violence appear in the media. Twitter users often create hashtags to remember the fallen, many of whom are unarmed black victims, but activists can only recount so many heartrending stories of people killed by police.

Recent news coverage of high-profile shootings in places like Baltimore and Cleveland have arguably raised public awareness of the fact that police abuse is a problem, but without data, it is hard to make a strong case regarding what to do about the perpetuation of overpolicing and police abuse throughout the country.

Facts don't lie. The more the public is armed with facts, the better advocates can make the case for systemic overhauls. To that end, here are 25 actual facts about police brutality in America.

1. The number of people killed by police in 2014: 1,149, according to Mapping Police Violence, a research collaborative collecting data on police killings nationwide.

2. The number of people killed by police so far in 2015: 470, according to the Guardian.

3. The percentage of those people who were women: 4.6%, or 22 people, according to the Guardian.

4. Of those women, the percentage who were women of color: roughly 41%, or 9 people, according to the Guardian.

5. The number of people killed by police so far in June: four.

6. The state where two of the four shootings took place this month: Texas.

7. The likelihood that a black person killed by police, like 22-year-old Rekia Boyd (killed in Chicago), will be unarmed: Twice as likely as a white person killed by police, according to the Guardian.

8. The group as likely as black Americans to be killed by police, according to 1999-2013 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Native Americans

[ISHGoat]

Let's be honest, with the exception of outlier cases like a 7yr old girl being shot dead in her home, most incidents involve an idiot not listening to the cop. If you just listen to the fuking guy with a gun instead of trying to argue and escalate maybe you'd still be alive.

[ISHGoat]

Percentage of police brutality victims that are university educated with a full time job: probably less than 0.1%

[zizozain]

Let's be honest, with the exception of outlier cases like a 7yr old girl being shot dead in her home, most incidents involve an idiot not listening to the cop. If you just listen to the fuking guy with a gun instead of trying to argue and escalate maybe you'd still be alive.
in Arizona only

2011: Phoenix police officer Patrick Larrison was suspended without pay for body slamming a 15-year-old girl into a brick wall, who then fell to the cement ground. The incident was caught on video and has received international publicity.

November 5, 2011: Danny Rodriguez, 28, was fatally shot by Officer Richard Chrisman in Phoenix during a domestic disturbance with him inside the home they shared. After Rodriguez picked up a bicycle from the living room, Chrisman shot him twice and his pit bull once. Chrisman was convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault, then sentenced to seven years in prison.

[navy]

Percentage of police brutality victims that are university educated with a full time job: probably less than 0.1%
People will say anything to make excuses for pigs. :coleman:

[zizozain]

List of cases of police brutality in the United States



California
July 17, 1934: the California National Guard blocked both ends of Jackson Street from Drumm to Front with machine gun mounted trucks to assist vigilante raids, protected by the San Francisco Police Department, on the headquarters of the Marine Workers' Industrial Union and the International Longshoremen's Association soup kitchen at 84 Embarcadero. Moving on, the Workers' Ex-Servicemen's League's headquarters on Howard between Third and Fourth was raided, leading to 150 arrests and the complete destruction of the facilities. The employer's group, the Industrial Association, had agents riding with the police. Further raids were carried out at the Workers' Open Forum at 1223 Fillmore Street and the Western Worker building opposite City Hall that contained a bookstore and the main offices of the Communist Party, which was thoroughly destroyed. Attacks were also perpetrated on the Workers' School at 121 Haight Street and the Mission Workers' Neighborhood House at 741 Valencia Street.[6] This brought to an end the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike.
December 25, 1951: Roughly 50 Los Angeles Police Department officers participated in the beating of seven Latino men at a police station. This so-called Bloody Christmas event was depicted in James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential.
1986: Michael Zinzun became involved in a scuffle with police when attending the scene of an arrest, and was permanently blinded in one eye. He won a $1.2 million settlement as a result.[7]
October 6, 1989: In response to a small, peaceful protest by the AIDS activist group ACT UP San Francisco, more than 200 SFPD officers descend on the Castro District, the city's main gay neighborhood, on a busy Friday evening. Declaring the entire commercial district an unlawful-assembly zone, officers sweep all pedestrians from the streets and sidewalks over a seven-block area and prevent patrons from exiting businesses and residents from leaving their homes for an hour or more. More than 50 individuals are arrested, and a number of protesters and passersby are clubbed and injured by police officers. Following the event, the Office of Citizen Complaints, the city's independent police review board, determines that the crackdown had been ordered by Deputy Chief Frank Reed and that half of all officers on duty had taken part. The San Francisco Police Commission ultimately disciplines several officers, and the city pays $250,000 to settle two civil suits brought by victims of the police misconduct. The police action comes to be known as the Castro Sweep Police Riot.
March 3, 1991: Rodney King's arrest and beating by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department was videotaped by a bystander. Four law enforcement officers