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Author Topic:   Police Shootings
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 5 of 670 (830507)
03-31-2018 10:27 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Percy
03-31-2018 4:29 PM


Regarding the Sacramento shooting - with the cell phone...
quote:
Yeah, maybe that's best. I'd definitely be confused. I would not recall this discussion and think, "Oh, he thinks my cellphone is a gun, I'll put it down." I would think, "Someone's got a gun? Who? Where? Do I need to take cover?
What, he's talking to me? What gun? Etc..."
Presumably you wouldn't be committing a home invasion at 4 in the morning and subsequently being chased by the police.
I've watched the footage of that and it's a difficult one. On the one hand there were only two officers on the scene, but on the other hand one has to wonder if there aren't better ways of handling a suspected gun wielder than hiding behind a wall and peeking out and shooting the person who might have a gun.
The helicopter may have been used to keep tabs on him, although that isn't foolproof and it would be a problem if he broke into another house in order to escape/find a more defensible spot. Although it makes police lives more difficult, I think a little time trying to communicate with the suspect would have increased the probability of everyone living. "Hey dude, we think you have a gun and we don't want to shoot you. Put down whatever you have, put your hands up and let us know when that's done. Please tell us now that you understand or we will have to shoot you in the next few seconds" or something.
American police are always yelling - the idea is supposed to coerce cooperation, but sometimes it just escalates things. In any event, there really should be a cool off period in these cases I think - take the time to assess the situation before acting.
Ultimately, I feel the problem is that the police have a reasonable concern about the probability a criminal will have guns. They say that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. But then, fewer of them will have guns and police will have less to worry about.
Here is someone with a different opinion than me, a former police officer I believe, who runs through the situation from a cop's perspective. It's interesting (it's a recording of a livestream in case you are initially confused about some of his comments).
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Percy, posted 03-31-2018 4:29 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by NoNukes, posted 04-01-2018 9:28 AM Modulous has seen this message but not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 22 of 670 (831901)
04-26-2018 8:38 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Rrhain
04-26-2018 8:02 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
The very reason you provide for why the cop didn't shoot is exactly what causes them to shoot at black people.
I'm not aware that Canadian law enforcement has a shooting black people problem.
It seems to me that there is more a culture of 'shoot only when it is needed' rather than 'shoot just in case' in Canada compared with the US. Thus, even if officers are equally racist, less shootings of black people occur. That is to say - even if Canadian police officers think, subconsicously or otherwise, that black people are more dangerous - their threshold to shoot is considerably higher.
In the US it seems the journey from non-lethal to lethal force is much shorter, and thus the racial prejudice variables has a bigger impact.
It's precious how you think this is an example of "taking things to extremes." It is hardly "provocative" to note that once again, we see white people being treated better than black people.
I mean - do we have a sufficient amount of cases in Canada to draw the conclusion that white people have significantly more leeway than black people when it comes to interactions with law enforcement?
Note, this is not a condemnation of the officer for managing to handle the situation without shooting someone. It does mean that since we know it can be done, we need to start wondering why such things can't be done more often. We need to start holding all of our police interactions up to this standard.
Yep. In the UK the police managed to shoot only a small number of people to death in 2017:
Yassar Yaqub (a handgun was found and he had run ins with the law for violent crime in the past, but the incident is still being investigated)
Khalid Masood (drove a vehicle into pedestrians and then started stabbing people)
Spencer Ashworth (after reports of threatening people with a handgun he was shot, he was in possession of a handgun - the inquest is ongoing)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Rrhain, posted 04-26-2018 8:02 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by Rrhain, posted 04-27-2018 6:37 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 30 of 670 (831994)
04-28-2018 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Rrhain
04-27-2018 6:37 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
How many times do you need to be burned for not reading the thread before posting before you learn the lesson?
I'm not aware of any cases where that's happened.
Toronto is currently under investigation regarding the treatment of black people by the police. I mentioned this in my first comment on this topic. It is only three posts before the one you responded to.
Yes, you did. I read that. I was keeping it in mind when I read the post. Oh damn, I need the burn unit, I got so burned brah.
You didn't really think Canada solved racism, did you?
Obviously not - which is why I didn't say they had. Which is why my post was focussed on reasons there doesn't seem to be as big of a 'shooting black people problem.' that might not be related to racism. Did you read my post? I explicitly state 'even if officers are equally racist, less shootings of black people occur.' and that police training/protocol may be in the US 'the racial prejudice variables has a bigger impact.'
For someone so keen on berating someone for not reading the thread, you should try to read the posts you are replying to more carefully.
The city of Toronto, the very city that this incident happened in, is currently under investigation by the Ontario Human Rights Commission for just this thing.
What do you think?
I think there's a difference between investigating whether or not there is racial profiling/discrimination and shooting enough black people to draw a conclusion that Canadian law enforcement has a shooting black people problem.
Officers shot at Andrew Loku in 'fear of black man with a hammer,' family's lawyer says (Note, no charges were laid against the officer despite the fact that the coroner's inquest determined the death to be a homicide and that systemic racism was involved. Sound familiar?)
As the sub-heading says:
quote:
Jonathan Shime among a chorus of lawyers calling for race-based data on incidents involving use of force
Which is something I learned during my homework before posting. Thus my questioning whether we have the data to draw the conclusion you were drawing. Further in the article it says:
quote:
if only they had let good sense and training guide them instead of panic, if only they had followed a multitude of recommendations made by previous inquests, then Andrew would be alive today
Which supports my previous statement regarding the difference in protocol between the US and Canada which may have an impact. In the US, officers are rarely prosecuted on the grounds they are behaving as they are trained.
quote:
Const. Andrew Doyle said he fired twice when Loku started walking towards him and his partner with the hammer raised.
Ontario's police watchdog previously found that the officer who shot Loku did not exceed the range of justifiable force.
So the question is - how many white people approach police with a hand to hand weapon primed for attack get shot vs how many black people.
In deadly encounters with Toronto police, more than a third of victims are black
quote:
New data shows 18 black men and one black boy were among the 52 people killed in encounters with Toronto police officers between 2000-2017.
So about 3 people a year. According to the article 2/3 where shot. So about 2 people per year are shot. Less than 1 per million people. If Toronto where in the US it would have the lowest police death by shooting rates in the country....by far.
quote:
In Toronto, the 19 black people killed in encounters with Toronto police account for 36.5 per cent of the fatalities, despite the fact that black people make up just 8.3 per cent of the city's population during this time, according to the data.
The question is - how much of this is a reflection of the social conditions black people are in that is not caused by police? That is - what happens if we correct for income/education etc?
Although the proportions are a problem and we should try to fix them - I'm not sure 0.6 black people being shot per year in Toronto constitute the level of problem that should cause us to speculate that when a white person doesn't get shot that race was the principle factor rather than protocols and training.
quote:
Reports show 14 of the victims were unarmed.
So 14 / 52. So how does that breakdown by race? That might be interesting.
If they are proportional to the overall figures we'd expect about 5 unarmed black people being shot. Over 17 years. Would Duane Christian be one of them? Since he wasn't armed - but he was driving a vehicle at the police.
Police shootings of unarmed black men are a Canadian problem too, says author
"Some guy says so" is not convincing, and that article doesn't give any data to work with.
James Forcillo Sentence: Toronto Police Officer Receives 6-Year Term For Shooting Sammy Yatim
Of course, this raises the question as to why Yatim was shot...maybe because he wasn't white?
The court that examined the evidence said that he was shot because he recovered his weapon. Either way, we certainly can't draw the conclusion of a systemic racially motivated police shooting problem based on a single case.
Did you do any homework regarding this before jumping in?
Yes. Which is why I pointed out that the number of cases to examine is probably too small to draw the conclusion that the reason any given individual doesn't get shot is primarily due to race and that the low number of shootings generally suggests that the reason a person didn't get shot is more likely due to a training/protocol issue than race.
Granted - if someone where to get shot, there would be a disproportionate likelihood they were non-white - but not getting shot is much more common in Canada than the US.
We aren't likely to eradicate racial prejudice - but the US can reduce the number of dead black people by adjusting its training and protocol to match Canadas more closely. That having restraint being the norm, rather than an exceptional state we should celebrate, will save more black people's lives than doing nothing and just waiting for racism to disappear.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Rrhain, posted 04-27-2018 6:37 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Rrhain, posted 04-30-2018 11:01 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 35 of 670 (832247)
05-01-2018 2:47 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Rrhain
04-30-2018 11:01 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
(*chuckle*)
You really want to go down that road?
How about the time you banned me for a post I hadn't made. You remember...the time when the entire board blew up because you (and Percy, for that matter) couldn't bother to read the threads they were moderating.
a) I didn't ban you, Percy did. My moderator actions were limited to explaining why I personally didn't suspend one person, and suspending another person for a measly 72 hours for calling me a retarded monkey while I was in Admin mode in an Admin thread after a warning it would lead to his suspension.
b) It was 11 years ago. Why are you still holding on to it? Let it go.
c) Eight years ago I made a whole thread to discuss this issue: Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?. I analysed the mistakes I made and apologized for them. You made a single post there and stopped responding.
d) It was 11 years ago, hardly something that merits a 'how many times...' comment.
e) Are you going to ever apologize for your periodically dredging this old thing up and stoking disharmony on this board?
And then there's this one. The Toronto police are currently under investigation for their treatment of black people. You know...like I originally said...which you would have been aware of if you had read the post before responding rather than acting like Canada doesn't have a problem with race and the police.
And as I said I had read that very thing, and had taken it into account with what I was saying. Apparently you aren't reading what I'm saying, which is hardly surprising.
This idea you have that Canada "doesn't seem to (have) as big of a 'shooting black people problem {as the US}'" is trivially shown to be false.
Except I showed that this was the case, using the data you brought to the thread. Perhaps you should take a look at that part of what I said? As you yourself say in the post I am replying to:
quote:
Yeah, fewer people are shot by the police in Canada than in the US.
That's a major part of my point.
In the US, officers are rarely prosecuted on the grounds they are behaving as they are trained.
Showing you didn't actually do your homework. They *were* acting as they were trained.
Hey it was your 'witness' who said they weren't doing as they were trained - don't blame me!
quote:
Officers shot at Andrew Loku in 'fear of black man with a hammer,' family's lawyer says
That was evidence you brought into the discussion. That source can be seen here. Here is what your source says:
quote:
"If only they had let compassion guide them instead of fear, if only they had let good sense and training guide them instead of panic, if only they had followed a multitude of recommendations made by previous inquests, then Andrew would be alive today." - Jonathan Shime, referred to in the headline
Other lawyers are paraphrased in the article as saying
quote:
Some lawyers suggested officers may simply not be retaining the training they currently receive.
So the question is - how many white people approach police with a hand to hand weapon primed for attack get shot vs how many black people
More black people than white people.
You would have known that if you had done your homework. But you didn't. You had me do it for you and even now, you still can't bother yourself to pay attention.
Unfortunately even the unofficial data you brought forward as evidence doesn't support your contention. I can believe it to be true, but without numbers there's not much we can say is there?
So about 3 people a year. According to the article 2/3 where shot. So about 2 people per year are shot. Less than 1 per million people. If Toronto where in the US it would have the lowest police death by shooting rates in the country....by far.
As if the raw numbers have anything to do with it.
I actually, as you can see - calculated a rate, not just the raw number. The raw number was to support my position that the number is very low. The rate was to show how it is significantly lower than the US.
Yeah, fewer people are shot by the police in Canada than in the US. What does that have to do with racial bias? Are you seriously saying that if all the people shot by the police in Canada were black, it wouldn't be a problem if they only shot 3 a year?
Well here's my point again, since you didn't read it the first two times.
It seems to me that there is more a culture of 'shoot only when it is needed' rather than 'shoot just in case' in Canada compared with the US. Thus, even if officers are equally racist, less shootings of black people occur. That is to say - even if Canadian police officers think, subconsicously or otherwise, that black people are more dangerous - their threshold to shoot is considerably higher.
In the US it seems the journey from non-lethal to lethal force is much shorter, and thus the racial prejudice variables has a bigger impact.
My point being that it isn't so much about the amount of racism, but the culture, protocols and training which result in lower deaths of black people.
You ask 'Are you seriously saying that if all the people shot by the police in Canada were black, it wouldn't be a problem if they only shot 3 a year?' but that was answered just a few sentences later, I'm not sure how you failed to read it:
quote:
Although the proportions are a problem and we should try to fix them - I'm not sure 0.6 black people being shot per year in Toronto constitute the level of problem that should cause us to speculate that when a white person doesn't get shot that race was the principle factor rather than protocols and training.
And did you do your homework about the author? Clearly not since you're reduced to "some guy."
Robyn Maynard is her name.
And you clearly didn't read the article if you are going to say, "at article doesn't give any data to work with," because it does. You did read it, didn't you? Or did you forget about the reports from Toronto (there's that city again), Halifax, and Edmonton.
Yes I read the article, several times. I still don't see the data you allude to. The article breaks down thusly:
  • Author says issue exists in Canada too
  • A singular example is given: Pierre Coriolan
  • Author says racism exists, and black people are more likely to be stopped than white people
  • President of the Canadian Police Association says there is a large culture difference between US and Canadian policing - notably the gun culture
  • Author responds improvements have happened, but there is still plenty more to go.
So where's the data? I notice you didn't tell me what the data in the article you posted is.
And did you look up that information? Did you do your homework? Or did you just knee-jerk your response because it's me who has the temerity to contradict you?
You were the one that brought up an eleven year old incident and generally acting hostile towards me. Perhaps you might consider that you are the one who cares about the 'who' behind the argument rather than myself.
The court that examined the evidence said that he was shot because he recovered his weapon.
Except that wasn't the reason the cop who shot him gave and it isn't what happened in the video.
I'm not sure what your point is in raising the reason the cop gave. That doesn't make the point that he did it for racial reasons.
quote:
Forcillo did not mistakenly believe that Yatim was getting up after being struck with a first volley of bullets, as the officer testified in court, Then found. Instead, he based his decision to fire again entirely on the fact that Yatim had managed to recover his knife, he said.
Under police training, that alone would not justify shooting a suspect, the judge said. The second volley of shots was "not only contrary to (Forcillo's) training, but unreasonable, unnecessary and excessive."
So two points: The court found his decision was entirely based on the recovery of the weapon. You can argue with them if you like, but you need to present evidence that his reasoning was racially motivated if you want to persuade me that was the case.
I should point out that once again, as I mentioned "In the US, officers are rarely prosecuted on the grounds they are behaving as they are trained." - whereas in this case it was the very fact that his actions betrayed his training that got him into trouble.
Either way, we certainly can't draw the conclusion of a systemic racially motivated police shooting problem based on a single case.
Which is why I didn't base it upon a single case.
Indeed - but Sammy Yatim is a single case. You can't draw the conclusion of racial prejudice from it. You need to look at the overall numbers to highlight that. That is all I was saying with this comment.
Wait...you're about to say that because the number of shootings is small, that means we can't make any determination, right?
The smaller the sample size, the harder it is to determine the truth. But the way it seems to me - my conclusion - there are likely many interactions between black people and the police every year in Toronto. One is shot to death every 2 years or so. Thus if a white person does not get shot in a police interaction, it doesn't quite make sense to argue that race was a significant factor in this outcome. It might have played some role, but clearly the lower rate of lethal shootings across the board suggest something else is a bigger player in this equation. Thus when asking why didn't this man get shot? The answer 'better training/culture/etc' is more reasonable than 'suspect is white'.
Bingo.
So after all that you agree with my thesis? Erm. OK then. So why on earth did you argue with me and say I hadn't done my homework?
You are the problem, Modulous. No wonder you never learn your lesson.
Try not to make it personal. It can cause problems when you do that. If you can't get over that a member from a decade ago was suspended by me for 3 days, and want to curse my name for the actions somebody else took - you might want to just cease interacting with me. A wise man, eleven years ago said this to me:
"You need to STOP."
And I pass this pearl of wisdom on to you now. I hope it serves you well.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Rrhain, posted 04-30-2018 11:01 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by Rrhain, posted 05-01-2018 8:42 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 38 of 670 (832280)
05-01-2018 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Rrhain
05-01-2018 8:42 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
Your response seems to be that because it doesn't happen numerically as often, that somehow means it doesn't have an effect.
Nope. Want to try again?
That if Canada only shot black suspects, that if white suspects were never shot, it wouldn't show an issue of systemic racism if only a handful of people are shot.
Nope. I explicitly said the opposite. Give it another go.
As if getting shot were the only way people interact with the cops. Instead, Canada has the same racial bias as the US
But they shoot less people. Hrm, I think I've gone over this ground before. Let me think...what was it? Ah yes:
quote:
Thus, even if officers are equally racist, less shootings of black people occur. That is to say - even if Canadian police officers think, subconsicously or otherwise, that black people are more dangerous - their threshold to shoot is considerably higher.
In the US it seems the journey from non-lethal to lethal force is much shorter, and thus the racial prejudice variables has a bigger impact.
So the idea that the fact that this suspect was white might have something to do with why he wasn't shot is hardly far-fetched. If you had done your homework, you would have known this. Instead, upon being introduced to this idea, you decided to be incredulous.
Something to do with it? Sure, that may be true. If the incident happened in the US I would expect the person to be shot (regardless of race, given the degree of provocation...I expect on average a black person would have been shot sooner). In Canada I expect they won't be shot. Not that they won't be shot, its just much less likely. And not because Canada has solved racism. But because their training etc etc results in making the prejudices that are undoubtedly out there less likely to become lethal.
In fact, you even discount the actual evidence. More than one-third of all people shot by the cops in Toronto since 2000 have been black despite the black population of Toronto being less than 10%. And you claim that this somehow "doesn't support the contention" that black people are more likely to be shot.
Well no - it obviously supports that contention. The contention I was talking about however was regarding the racial split in the shootings in the scenario where the suspect was 'approaching police with a hand to hand weapon primed for attack'
I'm not saying there won't be prejudice here, just that the numbers discussed in this thread so far don't allow us to be sure on that.
Incorrect. In fact, the rate in Toronto is *higher* than the US (as a whole).
You do understand that 36.5% (the rate for Toronto) is *larger* than 31% (the rate for the US), yes?
The proportions are worse, sure.
But the rate is lower. 1 per million people vs somewhere closer to 3-4 per million people in the US, according to one dataset I looked in any case.
I'd say shooting four times fewer people adjusting for population is significantly lower.
Incidentally - it is silly to give percentages to 1 decimal place when we are talking about a data set with only 50 or so people in it spread out over 10 years...
Although the proportions are a problem and we should try to fix them - I'm not sure 0.6 black people being shot per year in Toronto constitute the level of problem that should cause us to speculate that when a white person doesn't get shot that race was the principle factor rather than protocols and training.
What a racist thing to say. See, just because black people are being killed at a rate more than three times their representation in the population, that doesn't mean that there might be some bias on the part of the people doing the killing.
Of course there is a bias. I even said it. Twice. I included the part where I said it, in the very sentence before the part where your quote of me began. Race may well be a factor. But the principal factor in someone not getting shot seems to be training rather than race.
Yeah, I know...I'm putting words in your mouth. But that's what you're saying when you deny a clear pattern of racial bias against black people as evidence of bias.
But I am not denying that. It is bias. I was saying how police training is probably the reason that that those biases result in less deaths by shooting.
Did you look into the book that was mentioned in the article? Do you truly not understand what "doing your homework" means?
If you want to present data from a book, please be my guest. My contention was that the article you linked to didn't have any data in it to discuss. It seems you agree with this.
You did not just say that, did you? A cop who shoots someone who isn't a threat gives one reason, the courts say it's something else, and the video shows that neither of those reasons are valid and you "aren't sure what my point is"?
I didn't see anything in the video which contradicts the courts claim. Maybe I'm looking at a different video than you?
As I say below, as soon as you show contrition, Modulous: Acknowledge your error, apologize for it, and show actions that indicate you are working to solve the problem
Go back to Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?. You made one post there, that included this request. I replied with a link and a quote of me doing this. You can read my other posts, particularly with crashfrog. If you really want to dredge this crap up, take it to that thread.
What part of "never acknowledged let alone apologized for" are you having trouble with? If you don't recognize the problems you had, you will have an exceedingly difficult time correcting them.
quote:
{My actions resulted in } A decline {in the general quality of debate and participants}
But even-keeled or not I was not without fault during the Reichstag fire thread...Crashfrog did raise some valid points about my incessant unnecessary posting...My particular favourite "Fuck Mod, why did you do that?" was Message 125. Confrontational, snarky, passive aggressive - it has basically no redeeming features.
{my actions contributed to} a complete failure of confidence in the moderation of the board
I concede I played a role in it.
I agree the perception of {Admins closing ranks} occurring was detrimental to the community.
I spent too much time needlessly repeating my explanation
I learned my lessons and moved on.
I was a contributing factor.
We might not completely agree on everything - but I think we can be adults shake hands (or curtly nod) and move on.
I have conceded the points where I think Rrhain was right. I have conceded the points where I think you were right. I have expressed sorrow - but please also accept my apologies.
Those were the relevant highlights to this point that I had in my discussion with crashfrog. Although we could not get agreement on a number of issues, we did have a frank and interesting exchange of ideas as adults. If you want to do likewise please do it in that thread.
(For the record I didn't read the rest of your comments, I assume from a quick scan they are all related to this issue and are wildly off topic here. Copy them to that thread if you want a response.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Rrhain, posted 05-01-2018 8:42 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by Rrhain, posted 05-02-2018 12:19 AM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 42 of 670 (832322)
05-02-2018 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Rrhain
05-02-2018 12:19 AM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
Did you or did you not say:
I'm not sure 0.6 black people being shot per year in Toronto constitute the level of problem that should cause us to speculate that when a white person doesn't get shot that race was the principle factor rather than protocols and training.
Yes, but apparently you interpreted in a grotesquely different way than I intended. In fact most of the time I was reading through your reply to me that was all I could think I was kind of astonished. It peaked at around this moment:
If the incident happened in the US I would expect the person to be shot (regardless of race, given the degree of provocation...I expect on average a black person would have been shot sooner).
And thus, you show your racism.
Your ability to take things and come to completely backwards conclusions would be a talent if it had a use. I hope you are trying for a job in the world of politics, polemics or guy on tv who talks about occult stuff because those seem like ideal places.
I made a comment that makes two points:
1) American police shoot people more readily than Canadian ones
2) Police shoot black people with less provocation than they shoot white people.
You have already agreed with point 1) and point 2) seems to be a significant portion of your entire point in this thread.
But somehow this shows that I am racist. At first I was speechless -- really, it deserves a Picard.
But then I realized the reason:
Of course there is a bias. I even said it. Twice.
Yeah, but you don't mean it.
You aren't actually arguing in good faith at all! Regardless of what I say you'll discount anything explicit and misinterpret whatever is left. Well, there's no point in actually debating someone who is doing that, so that draws us to a conclusion. So here is mine.

Conclusion

Canadian police shoot less people than American police. In any given encounter, your are many times less likely to be shot - regardless of race - in Canada than the US. NOT getting shot is the expected outcome of a police encounter with Canadian police - even in Toronto.
New York City is an interesting US case. In 2017 the number of fatal police shootings was somewhere around 9. The number has been dropping for about a decade. Their population is about 3 times that of Toronto so as of 2017 they've reached an annual fatal shooting rate that is comparable to Toronto's ten year average. Going back to 1996 we find that incidents where a gun was discharged by an officer was over sixfold what it was in 2017.
Those on the ground attribute this to improved training methods.
So if you were to find yourself in a confrontation with the police in a scenario where lethal force could be used, but you are not shot and killed - the principle reason in Toronto and New York City for example, can be attributed to improved training.
It is generally agreed upon by participants in this thread that if the person in this particular issue was black, the probability he would have been shot is markedly increased. But since the probability in general of getting shot in a police confrontation in Toronto is so low multiplying that out still results in a low probability. Thus, NOT getting shot remains the expected outcome. The training doesn't erase the racism, but it seems to help inhibit that racism from resulting in lethal consequences.
There are several confounding factors which I have previously alluded to. For instance, the number of comparable incidents to this particular case is very low - so detailed analysis of how race would play into it is bound to result in large error margins. It is believable that the magnitude of tension in this kind of case, magnifies the racial bias.

Go back to Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?.
I did. Read every single post you made in that thread.
Interesting, you somehow failed to post your comments in that thread, despite that being the thread where this nonsense is on topic and instead continued on your quest to derail this thread with the off topic stuff.
Fear not - I'll take go over there now and respond. I'll post a link here when I am done.
abe: Message 405 in Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Rrhain, posted 05-02-2018 12:19 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by Rrhain, posted 05-04-2018 6:42 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 45 of 670 (832667)
05-07-2018 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Rrhain
05-04-2018 6:42 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
Did you or did you not JAQ-off with this:
The question is - how much of this is a reflection of the social conditions black people are in that is not caused by police? That is - what happens if we correct for income/education etc?
So yeah, when you say that somehow the number of black people being shot per year is low means we can't figure out if race is part of the problem, you come off as racist.
Until you have shown me evidence you are reading what I am writing rather than presuming what I'm saying - that is until this discussion is in good faith - we can't go anywhere.
First I'm racist for pointing out police shoot black people more readily.
And now I'm racist for pointing that the police aren't the only ones who discriminate against black people.
Here, I'll give you a hand though:
And yet New York City is infamous for their "stop and frisk" policy whereby more young, black men were stopped in the city than there were young, black men in the city to be stopped and frisked.
The fact that they don't manage to shoot you doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Once again, we're at the question you didn't answer:
It isn't racism if you don't die? It only counts when blood is shed?
Clearly we agree that the reason less black people are being shot in New York is not because racism has been eradicated. This is not a thread about racism, its about police shootings. The number of shootings in New York has dropped over the last couple of decades. The people there say this can be attributed to improved training/protocols.
As training improves, as protocol improves and as accountability improves - we expect to see less people getting shot. To the point where we no longer comment how extraordinary it is that a suspect didn't get shot. Granted - black people may well be getting shot disproportionally more frequently - but with better training/etc the reason any given person didn't get shot increasingly can be attributed to said training/etc.
quote:
It seems to me that there is more a culture of 'shoot only when it is needed' rather than 'shoot just in case' in Canada compared with the US. Thus, even if officers are equally racist, less shootings of black people occur. That is to say - even if Canadian police officers think, subconsicously or otherwise, that black people are more dangerous - their threshold to shoot is considerably higher.
In the US it seems the journey from non-lethal to lethal force is much shorter, and thus the racial prejudice variables has a bigger impact.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Rrhain, posted 05-04-2018 6:42 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by Rrhain, posted 05-10-2018 10:16 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 51 of 670 (832804)
05-10-2018 10:59 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Rrhain
05-10-2018 10:16 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
You are racist for trying to find any possible justification for the racial disparity between the way whites and blacks are treated other than race.
But I'm not doing that. The reason for the racial disparity in police shootings is due to race.
What racial bias you are willing to admit are secondary effects: Racism leads blacks to poverty, which is racist, but the actions are carried out because of the poverty of the victims.
I am explicitly telling you that the police are racist and that other institutional racism serves as confounding factors in our estimating the degree of the problem with the police. I'm saying there's more racism afoot than even you brought to the discussion. Hardly a racist position of someone trying to say race is irrelevant to the racial disparity.
Because when we do the very thing you say, account for the income/education/etc., blacks are still treated worse than whites.
Yes, that's so blindingly obvious I didn't think it needed spelling out. The question is, in Canada - in Toronto - how much of a factor is it in police shootings? I expect it's still there, but what are the numbers? Do we have enough to make the determination with reasonable error margins?
All the while ignoring that most interactions with the police don't wind up with someone getting shot. For the past three years, only about 950 - 1000 people have been killed by the cops per year in the US.
Out of how many millions of interactions with the cops? We're talking a truly tiny fraction of the total.
Yep. So why didn't those millions of interactions result in people getting shot? Is it more because they were white? Or more because cops are trained not to shoot people as standard? I'm merely saying that less people get shot in Canada because of the police training and that this training means that the racial prejudice that exists results in less deaths by shooting.
That doesn't mean we don't have a problem with cops being a bit too willing to use force.
And it certainly doesn't mitigate any racism involved in the process.
Correct. Exactly. These aren't arguments against anything I've said - I agree with it.
Thus, we're back to my original question:
And what part of "the guy was white" played into your analysis?
Given your protestations, it would seem the answer is: None.
It wasn't my analysis so the answer is n/a.
My point was that its not so amazing that he didn't get shot. Regardless of his race, he was less likely to get shot than people who live in the US may be used to - since the Toronto police are less inclined to shoot people. And this isn't because they aren't racist, its that their training results in them shooting less people. All of which has been confirmed by the data that we subsequently discussed.
So despite the high tension of this particular situation, which in the US may lead to the expectation of a police shooting by any given US observer, it was actually not that amazing the Canadian police officer didn't shoot. The cop wasn't exceptional for not shooting, he was acting as trained as many other Canadian cops do in their many interactions.
His being white may have improved his chances, but the training improved it more.
Is any of this sinking in or am I being ignored in favour of your narrative?


It seems to me that there is more a culture of 'shoot only when it is needed' rather than 'shoot just in case' in Canada compared with the US. Thus, even if officers are equally racist, less shootings of black people occur. That is to say - even if Canadian police officers think, subconsicously or otherwise, that black people are more dangerous - their threshold to shoot is considerably higher.
In the US it seems the journey from non-lethal to lethal force is much shorter, and thus the racial prejudice variables has a bigger impact.

Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Rrhain, posted 05-10-2018 10:16 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by Rrhain, posted 05-11-2018 12:40 AM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 55 of 670 (832814)
05-11-2018 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by Rrhain
05-11-2018 12:40 AM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
Then why did you ask about income/education/etc.? If it is "so blindingly obvious you didn't think it needed spelling out," why did you ask about it as if you needed it spelled out?
Well, if the data exists, it would be useful to determine to what extent are the cops being racist when the lethally shoot someone. The cops shooting someone to death is the end of a chain of events. If all black people are forced into criminality by unjust laws, devastating social conditions etc then even the least racist police force it is possible to have would still be disproportionally shooting black people.
I figure, if we're going to analyse the situation, there's no use being simple-minded about it - we may as well see how much detail there is, or discover that there is a lack of available data whichever is true.
So why didn't those millions of interactions result in people getting shot? Is it more because they were white?
Privilege is not a magic wand. We've been through this before. Privilege doesn't stop you from getting shot. It's the recognition that when things go bad, they're likely not to go as bad when you have privilege than when you don't.
Naturally, I agree.
But by cutting my question in twain you managed to make it sound absurd. So I'll rephrase the question in a manner less conducive to you mining it for objectionable content.
So why didn't those millions of interactions result in people getting shot? Is it more because they were white or because police are trained not to shoot everyone they come into contact with?
It's a rhetorical question, I hope. I think we both agree that police are trained to not shoot people as a first response.
Turning back to the point at hand - do we have numbers for incidents that have some reasonable comparison to to the incident in question? A suspect engaged in lethal activities who is unarmed but issuing verbal threats to the police? That's why I said 'If {The Toronto Van Rampage} happened in the US I would expect the person to be shot'. I may be wrong in my expectations, but I think it's not unreasonable and retorting that police interactions generally, including routine traffic stops etc don't tend to result in shooting is kind of missing the point I was making by a country mile.
1000 deaths / (325 million people * 22%) = 0.000013
From what I can tell, about 5 million Canadians have an interaction with the cops. At least 65 ended in death in 2017:
65 deaths / 5 million interactions = 0.000013
I think your maths is faulty. As a quick sanity check, look at the orders of magnitude.
1000 / 10 million
vs
10 / 1 million
There are two orders of magnitude more police shootings in the numerator in the US but only 1 order of magnitude more in the denominator.
Another significant problem seems to be that the number of deaths by shooting in the US is 1,000 but you seem to use all police deaths for Canada, not just shooting. There were only 29 deaths by police shooting in Canada.
So using slightly more accurate numbers, and not making an error in the calculation it would look like this:
1000 deaths / 31 million = 1 in 31,000 or 0.00003
29 deaths / 5 million = 1 in 170,000 or 0.000006
So that does put about an order of magnitude difference into the equation. The rates do look quite significantly different. In fact, to have the same rates, Canadian police would need to shoot and kill 150 people a year - 5 times as many.
So we're back to my question: What part of "the guy was white" played into your analysis.
As you say: None.
Is it really so hard to just say, "It surely didn't hurt"? Instead of trying to find any other reason except race why this might have happened, can we just recognize that the guy's race didn't hurt?
Well naturally it didn't hurt.
But the evidence so far does seem to suggest that interacting with the Canadian police force rather than a US police force was a big advantage. Since we agree the racial prejudice numbers are about the same, but 5 times less likely to be shot because he was in Canada.
So to use crude numbers for a moment due to lack of accurate figures, if the chance of him getting shot was 50% in the US (given the reason for the stop, and his belligerent stance etc) it was only 10% in Canada. If being black means there was an 80% chance he'd be shot in the US, it would be only a 16% chance of being shot in Canada.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Rrhain, posted 05-11-2018 12:40 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by Rrhain, posted 05-11-2018 4:08 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 58 of 670 (832823)
05-11-2018 5:14 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Rrhain
05-11-2018 4:08 PM


Re: A Thought on the Toronto Van Rampage
Well, if the data exists, it would be useful to determine to what extent are the cops being racist when the lethally shoot someone. The cops shooting someone to death is the end of a chain of events. If all black people are forced into criminality by unjust laws, devastating social conditions etc then even the least racist police force it is possible to have would still be disproportionally shooting black people.
I figure, if we're going to analyse the situation, there's no use being simple-minded about it - we may as well see how much detail there is, or discover that there is a lack of available data whichever is true.
Yep...just like I said. You only want to acknowledge the secondary racial aspect. Yeah, societal racism forcing black people into lives where criminal activity is more likely is racist...but the cop responding to it? Nah....
Clearly you are wrong. Racist cops are part of the problem as I've explicitly acknowledged several times, including in the comment above.
So why didn't those millions of interactions result in people getting shot?
Logical error: Reversal. This isn't about the people who don't get shot. This is about the people who do.
We're discussing the fact that the Alek Minassian did not get shot.
Why didn't they get shot? Because the gun wasn't pulled on them. But black people are more likely to have a gun pulled on them. And when a gun gets pulled on a suspect, black people are more likely to get shot.
Good, we agree.
Nope. I gave the numbers. The math checks out.
1000 people were killed by the cops in the US (that's a bit of an over-estimate and makes things worse for the US, but let's go with it.)
About 22% of the population has a face-to-face encounter with the cops (that's a bit of an under-estimate and makes things worse for the US, but let's go with it.)
The population of the US is about 325 million (again, a bit of an under-estimate and makes things worse for the US, but let's go with it.)
Thus, 22% of 325M = 71.5M interactions with the cops.
Thus, 1000 / 71.5M = 1.4e-5
Yes, although 71.5 million is about twice the correct number as can be seen here. I'm pretty sure the 5,000,000 for Canada does not include interactions such as a reporting crimes or asking for other assistance, motor accidents and volunteer work but let me know if I'm wrong.
So the correct equation is more like
1000 / 36M = 2.8e-5
There are 65 confirmed deaths at the hands of the cops for 2017 (not merely shootings...deaths) in Canada (that's a guaranteed under-estimate and makes things better for Canada, but let's go with it.)
There were about 5 million face-to-face encounters with the cops.
Thus, 65 / 5M = 1.3e-5
Well we're focussed on shootings here, it is the topic title and we are talking about the fact that the Toronto Van Rampage suspect was not shot during his standoff. The 1,000 is approximately right for shootings in the US. It's 29 in Canada and that results in the 5.8e-6 I mentioned.
You need to check your math. When your sanity check doesn't match the actual calculation, reconsider what your sanity check is. Orders of magnitude are fine, but they don't do well for numbers near the magnitude, which is what we have here
Yep, it's a fair cop (pun intended). Still - I don't think the numbers you provided for Canada and the US were exactly comparable.
California has about the same population as all of Canada and it averages around 100 people killed by police each year
California has a rate of around 5 police killings per million, overwhelmingly shooting incidents. So let's be 'generous 'and say 4 deaths by shooting per million.
Canada is closer to 1 fatal police shooting per million population.
There were only 29 deaths by police shooting in Canada.
Nope. 65 confirmed deaths. You really need to do your homework.
Jeff Shantz: At least 65 people died through interactions with police in Canada in 2017
quote:
There were 29 people shot and killed by police in Canada. Next were in-custody deaths (for many of which specific causes were not given), a perhaps surprising number of 18. These only include police-custody deaths, not those under supervision of correctional officers. Five people died in police vehicle chases. Three were identified as self-inflicted (and some of these are, of course, contested by family and community members). One person died of a heart attack during a police encounter, and one was said by police to have died of sudden death. One young victim was killed in a hit-and-run by an officer suspected of DUI.
It says '29 people shot and killed by police in Canada', exactly as I said.
As the article points out, it's very difficult to get good numbers regarding the number of deaths at the hands of the police in Canada because they simply don't track that information.
Yep.
You want to avoid getting shot by the cops, you want to go to the UK or Australia. But then again, the gun laws are very different there, so it's not a very good comparison.
Indeed - although I believe New York achieved its reduction in fatal police shootings in part by partnering with UK police to develop de-escalation training techniques.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Rrhain, posted 05-11-2018 4:08 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
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