Mark Wilde wrote: >He [Jordan Kushner] cites "numerous" shooting by police in the last few >years, and I would remind him, and everyone else who's >first reaction to this story is anger at the police, >that police work is dirty and dangerous.
from an article by Tim Wise posted on Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12166 "According to the Department of Labor, the on-the-job fatality rate for police is lower than that for gardeners, electricians, truck drivers, garbage collectors, construction workers, airline pilots, timber cutters, and commercial fisherman. In fact, fishermen have an occupational fatality rate that is fifteen times higher than that for cops, but rarely do we hear those who provide us with an endless supply of mahi-mahi described as heroes." Q: How many murders makes "numerous" (when other methods exist for safely subduing suspects)? A: >1 I would be interested to know how many Minneapolis police officers have died in the line of duty during the period that they have killed four mentally ill citizens. >From the same article: Nationally, "an average of 66 police officers per year were killed feloniously during the 1990s, with the number falling to only 42 in 1999." and even lower in 2000: 35 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.t03.htm A dirty and dangerous job? Perhaps. But more police officers are killed when struck by vehicles during traffic stops than by gunfire or knifeplay. And isn't gardening, with an equivalent number of job-related deaths, also dirty and dangerous? Or garbage handling? Again Mark Wilde: >If I am confronted by a man walking down the street >with a machete, I want the police to use the force >they deem necessary to protect me, and not have to >hesitate worrying about knee-jerk public reaction if >they pull the trigger. There is no disagreement among the accounts of the incident, published and otherwise, that I've read: the man was menacing/confronting no one. >From the Strib article: "Dendell Holley, who was among several people waiting for buses in the area, said the man was holding the machete down as he walked and was not threatening pedestrians." The eyewitness accounts I've read directly contradict the portrayal of the event by Chief Olson. I want the police to hesitate before they use lethal force to protect me, or themselves. I do not feel safe with other people walking the streets ready to blast away with guns. Trained or not, police are people. And people make mistakes. When the police fire in panic, fear or anger on a crowded Minneapolis street it's a miracle innocent people aren't injured. It's time the police reconsidered the shoot to kill policy. I would define "trigger happy" as murdering a person when no one has been assaulted or threatened. My opinion doesn't matter though. And I wonder whose opinion does matter to the MPD, even an independent investigative body. They haven't responded to numerous trials that have found them culpable for brutality by changing their behavior. There is no justification for the lethal force that was used on this man. Matthew Devany Powderhorn _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
