FEAR FOR YOUR LIFE
Is not a defense

Our police kill 21 civilians each week. Most of them are Black. That's 25x more homicides by police than occur in Mexico and 47x more than in Canada. Our police kill twice as many people every week as the German police force amass in an entire year.1 Americans are, on average, more likely to be killed by our own police than those in Iraq, Iran, Colombia or the Congo, and our police account for more killings annually than all our gangs and organized crime combined.

These numbers are far too large to be explained away by a 'fear for your life' defense, since – as we've seen – taking an elevator is far more deadly than encforcing a drug crime, and simply hiring an office shrink could save 40 times as many police lives as carrying a gun. Yet we’ve allowed their false narrative of fearfulness to funnel billions of federal dollars to arm the most deadly and, apparently, most frightened gang in America, and allow them to kill without reprocussions.

Today, the Los Angeles PD could murder every resident of America's second largest city 7 times and still have ammunition left over. That type of stockpile seems excessive for officers who are, on average, called to investigate only one violent crime every two years. Therefore, hoarding this weaponry can only be attributed to making these officers feel powerful, not more 'safe'.

Until we reform our law enforcement to practice the non-voilent policing of every other civilized country, scrap qualified immunity for those who don't, and we quit spending good money meant to protect our citizens on weaponary and training used to kill them, we will perpetuate the proven path of the racism, arrogant violence, and a disrespect for human life that have been infused into our current police departments.

If a police officer truly does 'fear for their life' this often while policing safely and respectfully, that officer needs to step down from the high-stakes lifestyle writing traffic tickets. And stay away from farming.

Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine without you. Perhaps, safer, even.


GET INVOLVED
Against Police Brutality

1. The argument will be made here that 'american police killings are only so low because they have guns to shoot voilent criminals'. This is untrue. The germans have an average of just 3.9 death annually over the last 30 years. England has similar numbers per capita – where most police do not even carry guns – and I won't even get into the nordic countries that have zeros across the board. These police departments are simply trained better in peaceful interactions, deescalation tactics and are instilled with a greater respect for human life.

Process: The figures shown on this site are not overly scientific and often rounded. However, they are damn close. for context, odds comparisons are made based on a number of incidents per 100,000 people. Police statistics are based on the FBI report of law enforcement deaths in 2019. Most comparisons are based on an assumption of 850,000 police officers, although that mark moves up and down. Similarly, traffic violations fluxuate, but are based on an average of 20 million stops per year. Unlike when called to investigate a crime in their jurisdiction (which account for just 2 officer deaths annually/850,000 officers nationally), traffic stops are proactive policing encounters with civilians, therefore an officer's odds for a rational 'fear for life' is based on each individual they choose to engage instead of number of officers (6 deaths/20 million stops, or 1/3.33 million, or nearing lottery territory). Comparative icicle and elevator stats to showcase the ridiculousness of legitimizing use of force to protect police lives were found all over the web. Are some of these phrases tweaked for comedic effect (ie. does death by pig include data from feral hogs)? Sure. But does the sentiment of police creating an unsubstantiated aura of fear to justify murder still remain? Absoutely.