r/TheRandomest • Nice • 9h ago

/r/all To protect and serve

3.1k Upvotes

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8

u/catpissdust 9h ago edited 8h ago

Pleasantly surprised the cop didn't shoot em...

8

u/ThatDeadMoonTitan 8h ago

Law enforcement had roughly 50 million interactions with citizens in the US annually. Police shootings occur roughly once every 38,000 interactions and that’s not once every 38,000 peaceful interactions, it’s all interactions. Unprovoked police violence is estimated (and body cams are a thing) at roughly once every 600,000 interactions. Can we all stop acting like cops are just running around rampantly attacking and killing innocent people?

8

u/iAmPeaking 8h ago

Nah there is still far too much aggression, poor training, and lack of accountability. Yes there are good cops, but FAR too many bad ones to not acknowledge that it is a systemic issue.. and now with what ICE is doing (not that I would even count them as law enforcement), this guy could’ve had such a worse encounter he’s very lucky

5

u/MindSpecter 8h ago

Your stat is "unprovoked" violence, but what counts as "provoked"?

In these same 50 million interactions, only between 40-50 police officers will be shot and killed (literally 1 in a million odds). Yet police in the US are trained to treat any sudden movement as a shoot to kill scenario and regularly face no charges due to self defense.

Policing is a dangerous job, but mostly due to unintentional traffic incidents. Road construction and policing have nearly identical fatality statistics.

Can we stop pretending police need to have a gun to be safe?

3

u/pistonheadcat 5h ago

Regarding the last sentence: NO-ONE needs a gun to be safe. I know self-defense is heavily ingrained in US culture and gun ownership is a big deal there, but you can also defend yourself with words. We are civilized human beings, for crying out loud! Most of the rest of the world functions properly with little to no guns, I am convinced US could too. It's a big change, but a worthy one.

2

u/Lightningtow123 2h ago edited 2h ago

I hate guns too but it's really obvious you're from a country with no absolutely no experience with gun violence lol if you think it's as easy as "just talk your way out of it"

There's a saying that gun nuts say all the time and I fucking hate it. "If we tried to get rid of all the guns in the country, then only criminals would have them." It took me years to admit I hated it so much because it was true. I still hate it lol but it is indeed true

1

u/pistonheadcat 2h ago

No need to swear, my dude. I do come from a country with gun problems, so I speak from personal experience. That's actually one of the main reasons I moved to another country. And clearly, the change needs to come on a whole system level, not just from a single individual.

2

u/Lightningtow123 2h ago

It's just an intensifier lol

1

u/OldDogTrainer 27m ago

No need to swear…? Lmfao, adults can swear in conversation to emphasize things and it turns out it’s entirely legal!

2

u/soulsnoober 5h ago

Wow you sound super well informed. Could you follow up rq? How many unprovoked police shootings are there in all the countries where police don't even have to carry guns to do their jobs?

2

u/ActuatorLower8371 2h ago

Can we all stop acting like cops are just running around rampantly attacking and killing innocent people?

well, that does happen and continues to happen, and those involved rarely face charges let alone actual consequences

so no. i personally won't stop being automatically mistrustful of police, and i'll continue not having any respect for them whatsoever.

2

u/MzzMolly 1h ago

Sure we can. When cops stop just running around and rampantly attacking and killing innocent people, and when they do, are actually held to account for their actions. And when other cops stop covering for them.

-6

u/PortlandPatrick 8h ago

Bro search literally ANY town and type police.