ringo writes:
I said nothing about the number of suspects killed. I said that for every officer who does shoot a suspect there are many who should have. And your statistics don't mention the number of officers who survived being attacked.
My mistake, then. You are correct, I am not sure if I can find information about the number of in the line of duty injuries sustained by police officers, but I will do what I can and see if the FBI has stats on that as well.
As for the other data I posted, I think it is exactly what we should have expected to see. Removing the justified use of deadly force, it leaves the officers killing 3 suspects for every one officer killed. This makes sense when you consider that the officers are also expected to be more prepared and better trained than the individuals they are attempting to apprehend. Now, if you include the justified use of deadly force, then we come to about 12.5 suspects killed for every officer killed. Now, in 2011, there were 794,300 Police Officers in the United States, and 12,408,899 arrests were made in that year. This makes the criminal to officer ratio 15.62 to 1. So, these stats also fit with showing that the better Trained individuals are able to lessen their casualties.
Now, onto the point you were actually trying to make, and I believe that you were correct. So, in 2012 we had 47 officers killed in the line of duty. However, according the same FBI link from my previous message, this same year there were 54,774 officers assaulted in the line of duty. Only 26.6 percent of these officers sustained injury. So, injured in the line of duty would be about 14,570 officers injured while attempting to do their job. So, ringo, you were wrong, but only because you erred on the cautionary side and gave your opponent a huge benefit of the doubt. The actual ratio is, for every officer killed in the line of duty, there are 310 officers that are injured during their attempts to protect and serve.
To bring this onto the topic, I would then not consider the general nice attitude and good treatment of the individuals at the home as excessive. They asked to search, the owner knew he had nothing to hide and allowed it. The department could have done a little more research into the complaint before going. I would think that this means that to arrive on a terrorism tip with 6 officers, considering the possible dangers, seems to be the correct decision on the part of the department to protect the safety of its officers. I can see both sides of the issue. If they had researched the individuals who lived at the house more, they could have probably avoided going there altogether. But, think about it, this was right after the Boston bombing, imagine if the story had come out differently after this event; The police had received a warning and done nothing, which you know some news outlets would spin the story as. There would have been the opposite outrage about not trying to protect the citizens, instead of the current one we have of taking away rights, none of which were taken away.
D'oh - Added by edit - Ringo, I still misinterpreted you. The ratio you were looking for is officers using deadly force versus officers injured, the ratio there would be: 24.82 to 1. So for every criminal that a police officer is put in the situation where he or she uses deadly force, 24.82 other officers are injured in the line of duty. This could have some overlap, such as a situation where the officer was injured and still managed to use deadly force. So I say you are quite less wrong than I thought, it was only a twice the guess you had made, which is pretty good on your part.
Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.
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