The gloves will still come off
by digby
Here’s a sobering, day after Christmas statistic:
The number of police-related fatalities in the United States appears to be far higher than the federal government has previously estimated. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has been tracking the data since 2000. But a new hybrid program that combines media reports and crowdsourcing techniques with reporting by police agencies has resulted in new estimates of civilian deaths that are closer to reality. The data, released last week, include deaths related to police interactions with subjects on the street as well as deaths that take place while a suspect is in police custody.
Police reported 444 fatal shootings of civilians in 2014. New data suggests a far higher death toll.
The bureau’s researchers identified 1,348 arrest-related deaths from June 2015 through March 2016 using media reports and crowdsourced information—an average of about 135 deaths per month. For June through August 2015, they also surveyed police agencies and identified an additional 46 arrest-related deaths—or 12 percent more—than the number the bureau had tallied independently for that time period. Extrapolating the data, and correcting for the police-reporting disparity, the bureau estimated there were about 1,900 arrest-related deaths in the 12 months ending May 2016.
Unfortunately, the first time a contentious police shooting results in protests I’m afraid our new president and his Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions will send the message that the gloves are coming off. Authoritarians look for opportunities to give their authoritarian followers a little red meat.
I have little doubt this will be one area where the Trump administration has a whole lot to say. Whatever else you may say about his intelligence, Trump instinctively understands what his people want and he’s willing to give it to them.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
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