Study: 50,000 treated at ER for police-inflicted injuries every year

Johnboy60

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yeshuaslavejeff

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"While it is impossible to classify how many of these injuries are avoidable, these data can serve as a baseline to evaluate the outcomes of national and regional efforts to reduce law enforcement-related injury," researchers wrote in a recent study.

Study: 50,000 treated at ER for police-inflicted injuries every year
This might be true, the statistics, or even under-reported.

It is also known that doctors do more damage to people and result in more deaths than almost any other cause every year too.
(proven and reported by the AMA and FDA over the last 50 years)
(not counting the millions slaughtered in the womb).

The potential to avoid the police injuries increases when people understand that the nation is not working correctly, but only as good as it can - police and doctors and preachers all....
in the world system....

i.e. to avoid being injured by the police, do what is right - know that they are fallible, and prone to 'err on the side of their training' than not -
avoiding injury is not their prime motive, not is it for doctors or for preachers either. see? we live in a pernicious society (death dealing)..... awkward at best.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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Given that there's roughly 1,200,000 violent crimes reported every year in the U.S., I don't find those numbers to be all that surprising. There's always going to be a percentage of criminals who won't go "quietly".
Any idea how many violent actions are reported, even murders,
but not as crimes? (i.e. somehow "legal" or ? )
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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Not sure what you're talking about...

Do you mean as "self defense"?
Wide open -
AFTER I asked, the biggest crime of murder not reported as a crime , physically, is abortion.
Spiritually, < shrugs > harder to specify .. but was not in my thoughts...

Other murders not called crimes might be in hospitals , by doctors, etc .... or not murders, but hurting people willingly or unwittingly ...
 
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Ana the Ist

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Wide open -
AFTER I asked, the biggest crime of murder not reported as a crime , physically, is abortion.
Spiritually, < shrugs > harder to specify .. but was not in my thoughts...

Murder is a legal term...as abortion isn't illegal, it isn't murder. It also doesn't appear to have anything to do with the topic.

Now, I understand that you want to get up on a soapbox and preach...but keep in mind that when you choose to invent your own meanings/usages for everyday words, I'll have no idea what you're talking about.

If you want to have a conversation, you'll have to join the rest of us who accept commonly known definitions of words.

Other murders not called crimes might be in hospitals , by doctors, etc .... or not murders, but hurting people willingly or unwittingly ...

If a doctor, or healthcare provider of any kind, has been found to have committed murder...they'll end up tried and convicted for it.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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Police and terrorists and government and criminal and gang and
other violence leading to death, fear, harm, and so on
is very common today.

Or the news of it is, every day.

The "news and current events" includes a lot more than
can
be discussed here in much if any detail,
let
alone accurately appraised.
 
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bhsmte

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"While it is impossible to classify how many of these injuries are avoidable, these data can serve as a baseline to evaluate the outcomes of national and regional efforts to reduce law enforcement-related injury," researchers wrote in a recent study.

Study: 50,000 treated at ER for police-inflicted injuries every year

Raw number like this, don't really tell us a lot, without the detail behind each situation. There is no question the police use excessive force at times. The question is; what is the percentage of excessive force vs when the situation called for using excessive force.
 
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dgiharris

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Raw number like this, don't really tell us a lot, without the detail behind each situation. There is no question the police use excessive force at times. The question is; what is the percentage of excessive force vs when the situation called for using excessive force.

More or less agree.

I see several big problems when it comes to police use of force, several logical fallacies that work together to enable abuse by police. In no particular order they are:
#1) A pervasive belief in law enforcement that citizens must do what they are told regardless if police officers are right or not or even if police officers blatantly violate your Constitutional rights. Police believe that you should do what you are told and then "later" let the courts decide if they were right or not.

#2) The belief that a police officer's word is law, disobey and you "deserve" whatever you get regardless of circumstance

#3) No sense of proportionality in regards to use of force. Whether you commit a trivial misdemeanor or a extreme felony, doesn't matter, once you "break" the law then police can use ANY force they feel necessary in order to compel compliance or enforce the law

#4) The belief that if you scrutinize police use of force then you open the flood gates for future scrutiny making it harder for police to do their jobs

#5) The belief that the only thing holding together our society from lawlessness is the iron clad hand of law enforcement, that police are the only reason we are a civil society and thus their draconian measures are necessary

#6) The fact that there is virtually NO PENALTY for police officers caught lying or perjuring themselves. As a society we accept excuses and "lies" from police that we wouldn't even tolerate from grade school kids.

The solution is so simple that it makes me want to scream and tear my hair out from frustration. All we have to do is turn on our brains and hold police to account with EXISTING LAW.

Good police should be rewarded and encouraged, bad police and lazy police should be expelled and fired as soon as possible.

If a police officer ever violates your Constitutional rights, they should be fired
If a police officer ever abuses their position or authority, they should be fired
If a police officer ever breaks the law, they should be fired

We should hold police to the same standards that any good company holds their employees.

But but but... if you do the above you wont' have any police, they are human beings and aren't perfect right?

That is such crap. In no other "serious" profession is that excuse tolerated. And besides, I've worked with police and have seen tons of great police officers so they exist. The problem is simply that the current system not only enables dead beats and ego maniacs and sadists.... it is much worse. The current system PROTECTS dead beats, ego maniacs, and sadist officers.
 
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bhsmte

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More or less agree.

I see several big problems when it comes to police use of force, several logical fallacies that work together to enable abuse by police. In no particular order they are:
#1) A pervasive belief in law enforcement that citizens must do what they are told regardless if police officers are right or not or even if police officers blatantly violate your Constitutional rights. Police believe that you should do what you are told and then "later" let the courts decide if they were right or not.

#2) The belief that a police officer's word is law, disobey and you "deserve" whatever you get regardless of circumstance

#3) No sense of proportionality in regards to use of force. Whether you commit a trivial misdemeanor or a extreme felony, doesn't matter, once you "break" the law then police can use ANY force they feel necessary in order to compel compliance or enforce the law

#4) The belief that if you scrutinize police use of force then you open the flood gates for future scrutiny making it harder for police to do their jobs

#5) The belief that the only thing holding together our society from lawlessness is the iron clad hand of law enforcement, that police are the only reason we are a civil society and thus their draconian measures are necessary

#6) The fact that there is virtually NO PENALTY for police officers caught lying or perjuring themselves. As a society we accept excuses and "lies" from police that we wouldn't even tolerate from grade school kids.

The solution is so simple that it makes me want to scream and tear my hair out from frustration. All we have to do is turn on our brains and hold police to account with EXISTING LAW.

Good police should be rewarded and encouraged, bad police and lazy police should be expelled and fired as soon as possible.

If a police officer ever violates your Constitutional rights, they should be fired
If a police officer ever abuses their position or authority, they should be fired
If a police officer ever breaks the law, they should be fired

We should hold police to the same standards that any good company holds their employees.

But but but... if you do the above you wont' have any police, they are human beings and aren't perfect right?

That is such crap. In no other "serious" profession is that excuse tolerated. And besides, I've worked with police and have seen tons of great police officers so they exist. The problem is simply that the current system not only enables dead beats and ego maniacs and sadists.... it is much worse. The current system PROTECTS dead beats, ego maniacs, and sadist officers.

There is no question there are some cops, who have power complexes and abuse their authority. They are human beings, just as we have people in other professions that impact people, who abuse their authority.

When you get into questioning a policeman's authority to get you to comply, I think you get into dicey territory, at least at that very moment. It is similar to a judge making a ruling in court. An appeal may find the ruling improper, but the person the ruling impacts, is not allowed to disregard the ruling, because it is their opinion, the ruling is improper. This has to play out in the appeal process.

With cops, they should be held to a very high standard in regards to following and understanding law and they should be given a very short leash, if they display they can not follow this important guideline.
 
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dgiharris

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Raw number like this, don't really tell us a lot, without the detail behind each situation. There is no question the police use excessive force at times. The question is; what is the percentage of excessive force vs when the situation called for using excessive force.

What would be really useful are statistics mapping out the following:

#1) The probable cause for which an officer initially approached the citizen
#2) The actual offense the officer arrested the citizen for
#3) Classification of the probable cause and classification of the actual offense (i.e. violent felony, trivial non-violent misdemeanor, etc)
#4) Extent of injuries.

Here is an example I saw on youtube.
A 76 year old man was pulled over because his license plate lacked registration tags.
The 76 year old man told the officer that he was a car dealer and was exempt from registration tags.
The officer directed the man out of the car, the man got out of the car and went to the back of the car and pointed at the dealer tags and again explained to the officer that he was exempt
Officer directed the man to put his hands behind his back while simultaneously grabbing the man's arm
76 year old man pulled his arm back and said, "What are you doing? I told you I'm exempt"
Officer then body slammed the 76 year old man on the asphalt for "resisting arrest"
Veteran officers arrive on the scene and explain to the officer that the man was in fact correct, he was exempt
76 year old man "initially" charge with resisting arrest
Case dropped once media got ahold of the footage...


Now, in the above case, for the sake of argument, lets say the officer was 100% correct. In this case, all that should have happened was a ticket should have been written. That's it. Trivial misdemeanor, no big deal. However, the officer got "annoyed" and felt he was being "disrespected" so he elected to escalate the situation to physical violence and you end up with the ubiquitous charge of "resisting arrest".

I submit:

When the officer approaches a citizen with probable cause for XYZ and then the officer arrests the citizen for XYZ then vast majority of the time, officer will be in the right.

However, when an officer approaches a citizen with probable cause for XYZ and the citizen disproves the probable cause for XYZ but then the officer subsequently arrests the citizen for "obstruction of justice, trespassing, disturbing the peace, or resisting arrest" then I submit a majority of those situations will just be a butt hurt bruised ego cop escalating a situation just so he can arrest you on trumped-up charges.
 
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bhsmte

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What would be really useful are statistics mapping out the following:

#1) The probable cause for which an officer initially approached the citizen
#2) The actual offense the officer arrested the citizen for
#3) Classification of the probable cause and classification of the actual offense (i.e. violent felony, trivial non-violent misdemeanor, etc)
#4) Extent of injuries.

Here is an example I saw on youtube.
A 76 year old man was pulled over because his license plate lacked registration tags.
The 76 year old man told the officer that he was a car dealer and was exempt from registration tags.
The officer directed the man out of the car, the man got out of the car and went to the back of the car and pointed at the dealer tags and again explained to the officer that he was exempt
Officer directed the man to put his hands behind his back while simultaneously grabbing the man's arm
76 year old man pulled his arm back and said, "What are you doing? I told you I'm exempt"
Officer then body slammed the 76 year old man on the asphalt for "resisting arrest"
Veteran officers arrive on the scene and explain to the officer that the man was in fact correct, he was exempt
76 year old man "initially" charge with resisting arrest
Case dropped once media got ahold of the footage...


Now, in the above case, for the sake of argument, lets say the officer was 100% correct. In this case, all that should have happened was a ticket should have been written. That's it. Trivial misdemeanor, no big deal. However, the officer got "annoyed" and felt he was being "disrespected" so he elected to escalate the situation to physical violence and you end up with the ubiquitous charge of "resisting arrest".

I submit:

When the officer approaches a citizen with probable cause for XYZ and then the officer arrests the citizen for XYZ then vast majority of the time, officer will be in the right.

However, when an officer approaches a citizen with probable cause for XYZ and the citizen disproves the probable cause for XYZ but then the officer subsequently arrests the citizen for "obstruction of justice, trespassing, disturbing the peace, or resisting arrest" then I submit a majority of those situations will just be a butt hurt bruised ego cop escalating a situation just so he can arrest you on trumped-up charges.

Here is the bottom line; cops are the initial foray into enforcing law and they have the ability to use force if justified. So, they should have knowledge of the law, to a very high degree, since any screw ups can have dire consequences.

I don't think cops in general, get enough education and training on the law and if there are people who are cops that can't grasp the law, they shouldn't be cops. Pay them more to have more knowledge and give them that knowledge. Raise my taxes to do it, it would be well worth it.
 
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dgiharris

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...When you get into questioning a policeman's authority to get you to comply, I think you get into dicey territory, at least at that very moment.

Initially I was writing up this anecdotal response... But it is useless to fling anecdotes around on this issue because you could very easily counter with an anecdote. What I will say is that we need a better sense of proportionality and better adherence to the Constitution by Law Enforcement.

I submit, if you ever commit a non-violent misdemeanor, and police have a ready means to identify who you are and you have no violent criminal record, then a police officer should NEVER put his hands on you PERIOD. The situation should never escalate to violence.

That won't solve all the problems... but my point is we need a fundamental shift in our mindset regarding law enforcement in America.

Right now, basically our mindset is, "If you break the law, no matter how trivial, you deserve what you get especially if you aren't a nice person and you manage to anger the officer...."

and that is just the wrong mindset.

Similarly, our mindset regarding officer excuses and lies is "Well, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt, nevermind that if ANYONE else ever gave me this excuse I'd laugh in their face but because it came from an officer I'm going to shut my brain off and think of the 1-in-a-million situation in which this could have happened and I'm going to side with the officer despite all rules of logic and commonsense..."

We could solve 90% of our problems with a simple realignment and simply turning our brains on and simply demanding a certain level of professionalism that we demand in other fields.
 
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bhsmte

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Initially I was writing up this anecdotal response... But it is useless to fling anecdotes around on this issue because you could very easily counter with an anecdote. What I will say is that we need a better sense of proportionality and better adherence to the Constitution by Law Enforcement.

I submit, if you ever commit a non-violent misdemeanor, and police have a ready means to identify who you are and you have no violent criminal record, then a police officer should NEVER put his hands on you PERIOD. The situation should never escalate to violence.

That won't solve all the problems... but my point is we need a fundamental shift in our mindset regarding law enforcement in America.

Right now, basically our mindset is, "If you break the law, no matter how trivial, you deserve what you get especially if you aren't a nice person and you manage to anger the officer...."

and that is just the wrong mindset.

Similarly, our mindset regarding officer excuses and lies is "Well, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt, nevermind that if ANYONE else ever gave me this excuse I'd laugh in their face but because it came from an officer I'm going to shut my brain off and think of the 1-in-a-million situation in which this could have happened and I'm going to side with the officer despite all rules of logic and commonsense..."

We could solve 90% of our problems with a simple realignment and simply turning our brains on and simply demanding a certain level of professionalism that we demand in other fields.

Agree. This is why I believe; better selection of who can be a police officer, how they are educated and trained, are crucial. I don't believe we have put an emphasis on the above and it allows some into the system, that just cant deliver the behavior you would want from a police officer.

This will cost money, but it would be money well spent. I went to a few European countries several months ago and when you see police officers in these places, they display a professionalism and composure, I don't see as often in the US. Likely, because the selection and education process they go through, is of a higher standard.
 
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dgiharris

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...I don't think cops in general, get enough education and training on the law and if there are people who are cops that can't grasp the law, they shouldn't be cops. Pay them more to have more knowledge and give them that knowledge. Raise my taxes to do it, it would be well worth it.

I think the problem is more with the institution vs the people.

Have you ever seen EMT's and paramedics? These people have a ridiculous amount of knowledge and professionalism and yet they are paid in peanuts vs the magnitude of what they do. And yet, as a profession they have a fair amount of pride and dedication. They work in the same "dangerous" environments that cops work in and yet they do so without guns.

My point?

IN this age of google there is no excuse for not being more knowledgeable. Truth is, cops have no need to be knowledgeable. What is their incentive? THey can do what they want without consequence and if they make a mistake their departments will bend over backwards to protect them. Thus you have a system that actually ENCOURAGES incompetence, indifference, laziness, and ego-run-amuck.

This isn't some impossible problem to fix. IN fact, there are plenty of good police departments out there in which they have the right culture and the right environments and they reward professionalism and fire incompetence... The challenge though is they are too few and far between...

In general Police departments are horrible at sharing data or even keeping and tracking data on officer performance and associated metrics.

*sigh*

Then there are other police agencies around the world we can learn from, but we have this mindset in America that the laws of physics are different in our country and that we can't learn from other countries because our citizens are apparently lawless brutes that only respond to Jack-booted tactics and force...
 
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dgiharris

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...This will cost money, but it would be money well spent. I went to a few European countries several months ago and when you see police officers in these places, they display a professionalism and composure, I don't see as often in the US. Likely, because the selection and education process they go through, is of a higher standard.

I'm amazed at how departments seem to rather pay in lawsuits than invest in education and training. I'm also amazed at how many police officers don't invest in themselves.

It blows my mind that most police officers don't practice martial arts on their own time or that so many police officers are in horrifically bad physical shape.
 
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bhsmte

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I'm amazed at how departments seem to rather pay in lawsuits than invest in education and training. I'm also amazed at how many police officers don't invest in themselves.

It blows my mind that most police officers don't practice martial arts on their own time or that so many police officers are in horrifically bad physical shape.

In general, I think police officers are in much better physical condition today, than they were decades ago. My main concern is; the level of intellect and emotional control they have, not their pure physical condition.
 
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Ana the Ist

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What would be really useful are statistics mapping out the following:

#1) The probable cause for which an officer initially approached the citizen
#2) The actual offense the officer arrested the citizen for
#3) Classification of the probable cause and classification of the actual offense (i.e. violent felony, trivial non-violent misdemeanor, etc)
#4) Extent of injuries.

Here is an example I saw on youtube.
A 76 year old man was pulled over because his license plate lacked registration tags.
The 76 year old man told the officer that he was a car dealer and was exempt from registration tags.
The officer directed the man out of the car, the man got out of the car and went to the back of the car and pointed at the dealer tags and again explained to the officer that he was exempt
Officer directed the man to put his hands behind his back while simultaneously grabbing the man's arm
76 year old man pulled his arm back and said, "What are you doing? I told you I'm exempt"
Officer then body slammed the 76 year old man on the asphalt for "resisting arrest"
Veteran officers arrive on the scene and explain to the officer that the man was in fact correct, he was exempt
76 year old man "initially" charge with resisting arrest
Case dropped once media got ahold of the footage...


Now, in the above case, for the sake of argument, lets say the officer was 100% correct. In this case, all that should have happened was a ticket should have been written. That's it. Trivial misdemeanor, no big deal. However, the officer got "annoyed" and felt he was being "disrespected" so he elected to escalate the situation to physical violence and you end up with the ubiquitous charge of "resisting arrest".

I submit:

When the officer approaches a citizen with probable cause for XYZ and then the officer arrests the citizen for XYZ then vast majority of the time, officer will be in the right.

However, when an officer approaches a citizen with probable cause for XYZ and the citizen disproves the probable cause for XYZ but then the officer subsequently arrests the citizen for "obstruction of justice, trespassing, disturbing the peace, or resisting arrest" then I submit a majority of those situations will just be a butt hurt bruised ego cop escalating a situation just so he can arrest you on trumped-up charges.

I would submit that any law enforcement system which allows the citizenry to decide when they have or haven't broken the law will fail immediately, for obvious reasons.

The time to fight your charges is in court...not on the street.
 
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dgiharris

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I would submit that any law enforcement system which allows the citizenry to decide when they have or haven't broken the law will fail immediately, for obvious reasons.

The time to fight your charges is in court...not on the street.
This philosophy is anathema to liberty and freedom.

If a police officer comes up to you and says, "Give me all your money right now" is it your contention that we give that officer all of our money and then later fight it in court?

The problem we have today in regards to citizens vs the law vs law enforcement is that the "law" is purposefully complicated to the point that everything is illegal. This enables the State to negate the liberty and freedom of the citizenry by giving State officials so-called "legal means" to oppress the citizenry.

Your claim about the system failing is not true. Australia, Britain, South Korea, and a lot of other Western and European countries have no problem with citizens asserting their rights. It is only in America where law enforcement feels that draconian measures are 100% appropriate for ANY infraction regardless of the severity of said infraction.

Look. I'm not advocating that police officials be powerless in enforcing the law. no. What I am advocating is a sense of proportionality and that basic human rights be respected at all times unless the citizenry puts law enforcement in harms way.

I'm tired of watching citizens being deprived of life and liberty over minor misdemeanor non-violent infractions. And the attitude that "Well, those draconian measures are necessary to have a safe society" is just flat out not true.

I'm also tired of Law Enforcement feeling no need to respect the Constitution and the whole attitude "Well, sort it out later in court" is an attitude that is anathema to freedom and liberty.

Another solution is that we basically just accept that we are not living in a free society and instead are living in a police state. That is what you advocate. If your rights and liberties "only" apply in court, then you do not live in a free society. You live in a society in which you need money to have liberty because court is prohibitively expensive for the average citizen.
 
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