...there is no nationwide record of how many people die or are injured at the hands of police officers, despite a requirement issued by Congress in 1994 for the U.S. attorney general to do just that. In the absence of government statistics, individuals are attempting to track deaths. One former FBI agent named James Fisher counted a total of 1,146 people shot by police nationwide from Jan. 1, 2011, to Jan. 1, 2012, with 607 of them dying. A journalist named D. Brian Burghart, the publisher and editor of the Reno News & Review, has started his own online searchable database called Fatal Encounters to “be able to figure out how many people are killed by law enforcement, why they were killed, and whether training and policies can be modified to decrease the number of officer-involved deaths.” Burghart’s site offers state-by-state searches, and a comparative database of incidents. Racial profiling and excessive police force are a potentially fatal mix. When I see a police car in my rearview mirror, my instant and irrational reaction is one of panic, while my white friends are probably more likely to hold the attitude of “if you haven’t done anything wrong, there’s nothing to fear.” I find myself constantly making the mental calculation of whether a police officer will judge me by my skin color or by the fact that I’m driving a Prius—an unmistakable hallmark of the middle class that could mitigate any officer bias. Black and brown Americans especially know how some police officers tend to view them through the lens of race above all. truthdig/report/item/justice_for_eric_garner_street_protests_and_prosecutions_20140807
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 17:20:00 +0000
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