In Wisconsin, a Decade-Old Police Shooting Leads to New Law

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/13/370592433/in-wisconsin-a-decade-old-police-shooting-leads-to-new-law?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2040

by philip1209 • 12 years ago

76 51 12 years ago

npr.org

brohoolio• 12 years ago

This should be standard in every state.

It's unfortunate that many laws have corporate origin and can get picked up by tons of states due to lobbying but ones like this that make a difference don't get that same sort of attention or promotion.

_delirium• 12 years ago

Bit of an aside, but the "horizontal" propagation of laws from state to state has some structural reasons that it favors certain kinds of laws more than others. Mostly the large role of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), which draws up model laws and organizes campaigns for them to be passed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Law_Commission. It has no formal power, but it has a well-established set of supporters, working relationships with legislators, staff to do the actual drafting work who are familiar with the law of all 50 states, etc.

The ULC in principle is interested in a lot of areas of harmonization of what they consider well-written laws. But its biggest political support is from multi-state companies that want a uniform commercial operating environment, so it has been mostly successful there, via the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), a set of model regulations for commerce. Businesses can get some of what they want in this respect more directly, by lobbying the federal government to directly pass uniform national laws, enforced via federal preemption. But it's possible to achieve a more comprehensive degree of uniformity, avoiding constitutional issues with federalism, by going the UCC route. It formally preserves federalism (each state voluntarily enacts the UCC), while still producing the desired outcome due to the heavy pressure states feel to conform to the UCC, lest they be perceived as "bad for business" (every state has passed it, though in a few cases with modifications).

The other area they've been somewhat successful in is family law, due to widespread concern over problems that arise in cross-state divorce and child-custody proceedings if the states have very different family-law regimes. So many states are willing, absent some strong lobby in another direction, to sign on to a "national best practice" in that area.

tehwalrus2• 12 years ago

A Federal law along these lines would do so much more, but this is an excellent first step. It is also an example of how a realistic solution can be built, with the consent of officers, for the crisis of police accountability currently happening in the US.

gambiting2• 12 years ago

And in UK police officers don't even carry guns anymore. It's impossible to shoot anyone by accident(or deliberately) if you don't have a gun in the first place. If there is a situation which requires using guns, backup force with them can arrive within minutes. There is simply no need for a policeman who does routine patrols to be carrying a lethal weapon on him.

Is there a statistic clearly showing that more deaths are prevented than caused by police officers having a weapon on them at all times in the US?

viraptor• 12 years ago

Airport police/security in the UK still does carry guns. And not small pistols at the belt. Big guns carried in both hands - it looks almost as if they really wanted them on display.

You can't miss them due to the contrast of what normal police on the street looks like.

tehwalrus2• 12 years ago

The armed police at airports, and those at Parliament, are the only armed UK police I've ever seen. (I'm a UK person, lived here all my life).

pmorici2• 12 years ago

There was a info graphic in a recent Economist that said that the police in America shoot and kill 400+ American citizens every year. By comparison in many European countries that same statistic is less than 10 per year.

In the US something like 70 police officers are killed on the job every year a fraction of those are from being shot by citizens and the majority are from car accidents.

The notion that being a police office is somehow this extraordinarily dangerous job where you might be shot and killed at any moment is I think largely a myth not substantiated by facts. Police officer doesn't even make the top 10 list of most dangerous jobs in American.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-30/fbi-report-accident...

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2013/leoka-home

GFischer2• 12 years ago

The Economist article you mention was even harsher, in most European countries the statistic is ZERO.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21636033-united-states...

"American law enforcement is unusually lethal: even the partial numbers show that the police shot and killed at least 458 people last year. By comparison, those in England and Wales shot and killed no one."

I'm a HUGE proponent of nonlethal alternatives, I don't understand why there isn't massive funding for better tasers.

rayiner• 12 years ago

As far as I can tell, the number given in the Economist article, 40-something, is deaths just from shootings. A police officer hasn't been shot to death in the UK in years.

jmccree3• 12 years ago

There's two things that seems to be missing here with regards to routine patrol officers being armed in the US. First, Great Britain is smaller than many US states. The population density of ~780/sqmi is higher than all but 3 of US states. The majority of US states are under ~200 persons/sqmi. Outside of major cities and suburbs the nearest backup officer can routinely be 15 or more minutes away. As well, many areas have dangerous wild animals to deal with. Bears, coyotes, wolfs, etc. that Britain has mostly eliminated.

Secondly, in the US, we have the right to keep and bear arms, which means every one the routine patrol officer encounters should be assumed to be legally armed as well. It would put officers at a severe disadvantage to be unarmed when regularly dealing with armed suspects. In many states 5-10% of the population has a concealed carry permit, and in the majority (40+) of states open carry of a rifle is legal without any permit. Whether you agree with this or not, it's a fact of life in most of the US that a large percent of the population is legally armed, so there seems no reason to arbitrarily limit police from also being armed as any individual citizen could be.

bluedino2• 12 years ago

> As well, many areas have dangerous wild animals to deal with. Bears, coyotes, wolfs, etc. that Britain has mostly eliminated.

This is only true for a very small handful of remote areas where few of the US Population live.

pmorici2• 12 years ago

Any city of sufficient size probably has it's own animal control department. It isn't like police are in mortal danger from wildlife and need the gun for protection from it.

philwelch2• 12 years ago

Outside of major cities and suburbs there's virtually no crime anyway, and law enforcement is usually handled by the Sheriff's Department. For some reason, sheriff's deputies seem a lot less antagonistic than city cops. And sure, let them carry shotguns in their trunk if you're worried about wildlife.

avn2109• 12 years ago

> "...dangerous wild animals to deal with..."

I come from one of the wildest remaining areas in the lower 48, with a correspondingly high density of charismatic megafauna and apex predators.

On exactly zero occasions have I ever witnessed the police or sheriff's deputies interacting with wildlife. There are specialized (and very heavily armed) government divisions for that sort of thing, and the vanilla police would spark a turf conflict by stepping in.

For example, it is common to see Fish and Wildlife department employees tranquilize and cage a grizzly bear in someone's yard, or to find the Animal Control division running a family of moose out of town, or to see NPS Rangers on horseback herd wild bison. I have even seen crews of municipal snipers deployed to reduce mule deer populations in town.

No sane person would deny very heavy weapons to the men who come face to face with grizzly bears in their daily life. Similarly, the deer sharpshooters should undoubtedly have long and powerful rifles with fancy optics.

But that is certainly not an argument for supporting the militarization and firepower expansion of the ordinary police.

philwelch2• 12 years ago

The UK and US have fundamentally opposing views of government, I think. The UK strongly believes in "good government". If the government makes mistakes or does something poorly, the press will challenge them on it with the expectation that things will improve.

In the US, we are almost self-defeatingly cynical about the idea of good government. "That government is best which governs least" is a distinctly American motto. But I think we actually can expect more from our government, we just don't because we don't think it's possible. And so ironically we are stuck with a government that governs quite a lot, actually, and not that well.

Already in the US, standard search and arrest warrants are unnecessarily performed by heavily armed SWAT teams. Depending on where you live, you better not have any pets if the police come for you because they will kill them. If we disarmed ordinary patrol cops in the US, they would just not do anything and send SWAT to do all the real work.

biomcgary• 12 years ago

It does seem like a non sequitur that a country with the mindset "government is best which governs least" would routinely utilize SWAT teams. I'm curious about the social dynamic that transforms the desire for minimal government intervention to overkill in policing. I have a hard time believing that it is simply low expectations. Perhaps the low expectations exist because reform is structurally difficult (e.g., voting system, etc).

On the other hand, perhaps the situation is slow to change because it is exactly what the majority want? Only poor and minority populations interact with police regularly.

pm90• 12 years ago

I really like the attitude of the father of the kid who was shot. To not vent his anger, but use it to come to a constructive solution that will hopefully reduce the chances of such unnecessary deaths in the future... that is amazing. And a great use of settlement money as well.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 12 years ago

What solution?

Do we have any evidence that when another police agency investigates such things that the conclusions are different? It already happens, some PD will have an incident that is investigated by the Sheriff or state police. And yet, in those cases, we see the same thing... everyone's cleared of wrong-doing, and maybe some mandated "use of force" training.

It's bizarre and depressing.

busterarm• 12 years ago

I'm surprised there hasn't been more attention to this case until now. I'd have been pretty mad.

His son was scheduled to testify the next day in a case involving a previous incident with the very same officer who shot him in the head.

That alone should require an independent investigation.

Bell was shot by the officer at close range after he was already tased, pinned to a vehicle and restrained by two other officers.

rbcgerard• 12 years ago

The problem with many of these "structural reforms" is that they are very susceptible to capture by police unions. Take for example civilian complaint review boards - often appointed by the mayor. Except the mayor often relies on police unions for votes - and they care who is on that review board - where as the typical person (I'm including myself) doesn't even know if there is a review board, let alone who is on it.

Definitely think it's a step in the right direction - but think more time needs to be spent ensuring an "adversarial" relationship that is not prone to capture.

innguest3• 12 years ago

Putting billboards up and working to pass a new law is a much more sensible course of action than rioting. I wonder what the difference here is.

happyscrappy• 12 years ago

You are being racist.

innguest3• 12 years ago

If the shoe fits... I'm simply being curious.

ArtDev• 12 years ago

Louis CK - Being White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmzT4OV-w0

mikeash2• 12 years ago

I can think of two obvious differences off the top of my head:

1) The family sued and won almost $2 million, which is what allowed them to pay for the ad campaign.

2) White people still generally have a friendly relationship with police. There is no systematic discrimination, brutality, and killing the way there is with (at least some) minorities.

In short, this difference is precisely what you would expect to see when a member of a powerful group is wronged versus when a member of a powerless group is wronged.

larssorenson• 12 years ago

This strikes me as something that should have been a law since day one. We have checks and balances (and we can argue their effectiveness some other time) between the different branches of government, yet when it comes to the police departments (under the executive branch) there is no check or balance when the police departments screw up like when someone in the federal government screws up. tl;dr: We need to have this law in every state.

In Wisconsin, a Decade-Old Police Shooting Leads to New Law

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