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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmericans Killed By Cops Outnumber Those Who Died In Iraq War II:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/americans-killed-cops-outnumber-americans-killed-iraq-war/From the article:
The police presence in this country is being turned into a military with a clearly defined enemy, anyone who questions the establishment.
If we look at the most recent numbers of non-military US citizens killed by terrorism worldwide, that number is 17. You have a better chance of being killed by a bee sting, or a home repair accident than you do a terrorist. And you are 29 times more likely to be murdered by a cop than a terrorist!
A hard hitting mini film by film maker Charles Shaw, properly titled RELEASE US, highlights the riveting and horrid reality of Americas thin blue line.
From the film:
500 innocent Americans are murdered by police every year (USDOJ). 5,000 since 9/11, equal to the number of US soldiers lost in Iraq.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/americans-killed-cops-outnumber-americans-killed-iraq-war/#fSRSl7ZxQFk51xy5.99
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My comment Is this: Way back in the early Nineteen Nineties, Readers' Digest, hardly a vehicle for left wing attitudes, published an article in which the author decried the fact that in a five year period, over 400 Americans had died due to SWAT teams arriving at the WRONG address!
One of the comments after the article and the video:
Shane Peterson
I just can't understand what is wrong with you Americans. Your country is going broke at a rapid rate, your society is immoral and full of commercial theft supported by your need for useless things. Your police forces have come to believe that they are completely above the law they supposedly serve, and shoot people willy nilly. Your government supports multinational companies that rape the earth at the expense of the rest of us. Now, what the hell is the problem....it's your disgusting society: enjoy it while it rapes the world and corrupts children from all nations.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Fullerton jury had the chance to prove them wrong but blew it (Kelly thomas case)
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)JJChambers
(1,115 posts)What are the sources for these numbers? Specifically the number of citizens murdered by police? I've looked numerous times for such numbers and from what I have found, total police killings for some years doesn't even reach 500 -- of those, I'm sure only a small percentage could accurately be classified as murder. Although any percentage is, of course, outrageous an unacceptable, it does the progressive movement a disservice to grossly exaggerate and misrepresent facts.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)I don't find it hard at all to believe that there are five hundred deaths a year in a nation of 310 million people where police carry guns, issue orders that their training tells them must be obeyed immediately or you "will be dropped."
First of all, you have to collate the number from a wide variety of local newspapers. News media doesn't like to portray the police in anything but a nice light. We had a young 26 year old Latina woman, who was on her way to work last autumn, and a police car driven by a cowboy-mentality cop was doing his fastest to get to a police chase half the county away. His cop car veered over the center divide, and his car struck hers and killed her. Our news media spun the story on its head, so that you came away from reading their reports believing she perhaps was at fault. Only by talking to people who had been on the road that day would you find out the truth. It was a news black out in terms of the media mentioning it.
Here in California, just last summer,there were three people a week being killed by cops in Southern California. And that is from those reported deaths that get media attention.
Let's talk about the idea that the police were in danger: often there is no danger at all.
Perfect example of what I mean: Summer 2013
A 911 call apparently was made after a neighbor mistakenly interpreted a man sitting on a porch as a drunk with a gun. Officers arrived, ready for battle, and the man was killed . . . while watering his neighbors lawn
KTLA Long Beach Cops, or Police Murder 35 year old Long Beach man for watering lawn in Long Beach upscale neighborhood Belmont Shore.
A neighbor called the LBPD about a man with a gun that was sitting
in a lawn chair on a friends front lawn with what appeared to be a firearm.
Police admit not following procedure. The 35 year old subject was not ordered to drop
his firearm (garden hose) before LBPD shot and killed him.
He had been killed with a total of six blasts from shot gun that the police were carrying!
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The above happened in a quiet tree lined neighborhood of "respectable citizenry. So if it is that bad in a suburban setting, what is it like if the neighborhood is a bit shoddier? Or if the person is not respectable?
About a decade back, a guy in Novato, Calif., (Another suburban enclave) called the police because at three o'clock in the morning, a mentally ill neighbor of his was standing on the roof of his car and twirling a broom. Within a moment or two of arrival, the cops shot the mentally ill man dead.
The guy who had called the cops told a reporter: "I own a gun. If I wanted my neighbor dead, I could have killed him myself and saved the cops the trip."
Response to truedelphi (Original post)
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