Very interesting article on Police killings in USA

[Va Lefty]

http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from-two-years-collecting-data-on-poli-1625472836/+kylenw

D. Brian Burghart, a writer for the Reno News & Review has been attempting to compile a database of all fatal Police shootings in the USA. His conclusions...


"The biggest thing I've taken away from this project is something I'll never be able to prove, but I'm convinced to my core: The lack of such a database is intentional. No government—not the federal government, and not the thousands of municipalities that give their police forces license to use deadly force—wants you to know how many people it kills and why."

"I've been lied to and delayed by state, county and local law enforcement agencies—almost every time. They've blatantly broken public records laws, and then thumbed their authoritarian noses at the temerity of a citizen asking for information that might embarrass the agency. And these are the people in charge of enforcing the law."

[truedelphi]

1. Burghart's work is extremely important.

I know Reader's Digest, hardly the sort of magazine that is noted for being liberal, had at least one article in the early 1990's criticizing police team raids.

In that article, a reporter uncovered more than 400 deaths due to SWAT teams going to the wrong address, during a six year period. That criteria is pretty steep - in other words, an African American youth could be shot, for no or little "reason," but if it didn't happen by a SWAT team in the young man's own home, he didn't add it to the data base. And the raid had to be at a wrong address.

That reporter also mentioned what a difficulty there was in compiling the research.

Local news usually spins things to the side of the police. And larger news organizations do also. Many people never thought about that until these past few weeks. Right now people are finally waking up.