Out of the Blue
1402
That is how many people were killed by law enforcement in the US in 2024. Which with a population of 340 million people, might not be that many overall really. Though, that is still 1400 people that died because there was apparently no other option than to kill them.
That is a lot, isn't it?
I was reading in the Finnish newspapers today that a person weilding a knife who didn't respond to the taser apparently, was thirteenth person was killed by police officers. Since 2000.
Yes. The year 2000. Remember the Millennium Y2K bug?
Since then.
Of course, the population of Finland is much smaller than in the US, with only 5.5 million people, but that is 25 years where the average was 0.5 police killings per year. If we combined them all together into a single year, it would be 13 killings in a population of 137 million - or in US numbers, ~32 killings in a population of ~340 million.
That is 2.2% relative to the US.
I wonder if the US is just an inherently more violent place, or if the larger population creates more problems. Or if it is a question of training of the police, where in the US the training can be as little as 12 weeks in some cases, but in Finland it is a four year degree program.
Finland definitely doesn't deal with the same level of crime and violence as in many parts of the US, largely because the social fabric is a bit firmer here, with more social support. However, that is changing unfortunately, and I think that it is relatively soon going to be reflected in the crime numbers, and the type of crimes being committed. I suspect that the police killing rate is going to increase, though I wonder if the better (longer at least) training will curb some of the unnecessary shootings.
I suspect it would.
And I think that citizens should expect more training and control from law enforcement, because they are literally meant to be enforcing the law. How can a person with as little as three months training really have a decent enough grip on all the complication with multiple layers of complexity involved, and expect to perform professionally under what can be extreme pressure, with their own lives in danger?
Also unfortunately, human nature being what it is, there are always going to be people who want more than they can honestly get, even if they Aren't breaking the law. Politicians find and create loopholes all the time to pad their pockets, and still remain somewhat legal. And so do many business people, and others. So "honesty" isn't about the law, it is also about personal moral judgement, where people do things, knowing that they are doing wrong. That is bad behaviour.
But culture is also creating more erratic behaviours in what would have been "normal" people earlier. The new normal person is far more violent and volatile than they were even a few decades ago, as the culture has emphasised emotional instability in a "me first" environment. People "snap" more often than earlier, and now, there is always someone there with a camera to film the event, and post it to social media, to normalise volatile emotional behaviour further.
I am no fan of the police.
I was one of those kids who was unnecessarily harassed by them.
But at the same time, I am not sure what the alternative would be to a police force of some kind. Because without them, crimes of opportunity skyrocket. Putting faith in people to do the right thing is foolish. It just doesn't work in reality and ends up in a race to the bottom, because the people who do the right thing, are at a disadvantage to those who do the thing that gets them what they want by any means necessary. Eventually, people get tired of getting punished and missing out because they didn't push ahead of others.
Still, I think that in the interim and since there isn't much of an option other than having some kind of law enforcement of some kind, based on some set of rules, better training would help not only stop some of the unnecessary violence, but perhaps also improve the relationships between police and the population. Because the thing that should be highlighted is, the police are part of the population. The problem in my experience at least is, the police believe themselves to be something higher, something more privileged, something that can do as they please, to who they please.
If you believe yourself better than others.
Behave better than others.
That goes for everyone.
But even if you don't think you are better than others and even feel worthless in comparison - you can still be better than you were before this moment.
There are already too many assholes in the world.
Be different.
Taraz
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Fortunately, Finnish culture is different from that of the United States.
The reality you describe is sad and complex.
Every life lost in this way is a tragedy in itself, and it raises the question: Was there really no other way?
I suspect most times there is another way. At the same time, if people are being dicks, perhaps they deserve it :D
As police doesn't have guns usually in UK, that seems to be a huge number.
Has there been any differences since the change in the UK? I can't remember when the stopped carrying.
I think since always. The do have batons and tear gas, but no guns. The difference is that nobody dies from accidental shooting.
I think in US police know that their adversary is very likely to have a legal weapon that they are carrying so they take no chances and shoot first and ask questions later. This can lead to these higher numbers. Do you have a right to legally carry a weapon in Finland?
Also, I agree with you about assholes in the Police. I think police jobs attract people with power obsession so when they are given the legal right to be the power freaks they play it to the max. My interactions with police here were few, but always unpleasant, except one time when the female policeman stopped me when I was leaving the gym and told me that I forgot to turn my headlights on. She was nice and didn't even give the a ticket...
No. Gun ownership is high here and there are plenty of hunters, but it is a different culture. None of this 50 cal hunting rifles and semi-auto tactical weapons.
Men bullied as children.
I haven't had many "good" interactions with police in my life. A couple where it was at least professional though.
I believe that the core issue lies with the mindset i.e. Warrior (U.S) and Guardians (Finland) which is directly impacted by their professional training time. Rather than just focusing on arms and equips they need to prioritize social structure that keeps communities and their interactions with police department safe and non-violent.
...
In their defence, U.S. (according to stats) has an estimated 120-130 arms per 100 people, maybe the highest in the world. This turnss many police-individual engagement violent.
Maybe. Once they stop caring about people though, like the rest of society, what then?
Finland is ranked third or fourth in gun ownership I think. But, it is a very different culture around guns. Also, all men go to the military here.
It's a true that as our culture leans more towards individualistic and unpredictable ways of showing emotions, we might notice a rise in erratic behaviors from people who once would have been seen as "normal."
Or the new normal is full of erratic people.
Life is full of surprises. Great opportunities and chances can come our way at any moment. The important thing is to take advantage of them. Because opportunities don't come along all the time. When we seize this opportunity, our lives will change completely.
"It's complicated."
There are lots and lots of superficial explanations given... but if you dig deeper, perhaps we eventually end up at the reality of societal core values. Specifically... in the USA, people tend to value things higher than people. Much of life is centered on the idea of "what we OWN" and "our PROPERTY," and the sanctity of human life fades more into the background.
Point being, somewhere in the deep recesses of US culture, it is deemed to be OK to shoot (at) someone who's trying to steal our stuff. I don't think that holds true in Finland; in Scandinavia.
Am I wandering off-topic? Not exactly... people in the police force in the USA were raised within that cultural framework. Life is — even if people will SWEAR otherwise — "cheaper" in the US than in Finland (and most of Northern Europe, I'd guess).
As to why it is so? I can speculate that the US is a very young nation, in the sense that "the wild frontier" where you (literally) had to protect yourself and your stuff and be your own law... is no more than 150 years in the past.
In most of Europe, it has been 1,000+ years since there was a "wild frontier," in that sense. Not suggesting there wasn't wars and violence... but there were laws of the land to various degrees, going back many centuries.
At least that's my armchair anthropological speculation!
=^..^=
I think this is also why there is a lot of sill death in violent countries, or those with long histories of violence. Life is cheap.
Yeah, I don't think that is the culture here at all. People don't protect "stuff" as strongly. Maybe in the US there is a stronger identity based on what one owns?
Your reasoning aligns with what I said above. One of of my friends was living in Dubai and people would fly past in very expensive cars, with kids unrestrained in the back, just jumping around. What kind of parent doesn't put a seatbelt on their kid? One who thinks life is cheap and expects death I guess.
I too have been listening about such adverse cases which seems to be very painful, and even sometimes it's too bad for the innocent because the police seems to have power so it uses any sorts of mode but that's absolutely bad. The first time I heard about such case was that the police had a doubt about a criminal which it wasn't aware of so they saw a man running along the train on railways and called him once twice, the man he was just missing his train didn't heard about it and kept on running and at one fine point the police shoot him and killed him, but he was found innocent. That's too bad to hear
There was a case in the UK with a Brazilian man that was shot something like 11 times on the train... Wrong guy.
It’s shocking how proper training and a stronger social fabric can mean the difference between 1,400 deaths a year and just 13 in 25 years.
There are other things in play too, but I reckon training plays a big part.
Those are some numbers.
I think over here one of the ideas that someone had was to have neighbourhood watch things replacing local police (I think for things ranging from shoplifting to DV where the people can still be talked to/reasoned with somewhat and along those lines) and freeing up police for more serious problems.
I would be very pleasantly surprised if such a system was set up here and people did step up to go into it, my experience from every activity my kids have been involved with from homeschool groups to sports, there will be a literal handful of parents that step up and the rest will either genuinely be unable to help and usually be upset about it or will make all sorts of excuses about how they can't possibly waste their precious time
I wonder if in order to have some more consequence for juvenile crime, if parents should be liable in some cases for the costs or repercussions.
I don't think neighbourhood watch would work these days. Too many people who don't care. I remember them as a kid though.
If the parents actually care there will probably be consequences already. Some people just don't though -_-
We have a neighbourhood watch centre that looks like it's operational but have never actually looked into it which gives me a vague hope.
F@ck the police! 😉😎🎶🎶
yea.. assholes and opinions..
My wife thinks that police officers should be cross trained with social workers so they can understand more of the social and emotional issues that are happening before they go into a situation. Either that or at the very least have a social worker ride along with them. She is a bit biased though!
I think it has to start before that even. I reckon it is also in the hiring process. It is difficult to become police in Finland - a lot are rejected and there are a lot of aptitude tests to pass.
Yes, that could be part of it for sure.
Sad joke that people become police officers in USA to go on a power trip. I think people having cell phones everywhere is keeping officers more accountable, not less. The whole situations sucks here, especially because many police don't have the psycho/emotional training needed to de-escalate a situation. Most of the time, a police presence will escalate it instead.
Finally, as we are seeing with Trump's ICE gestapo force, all the racist scumbag bounty hunters are lining up to get paid to brutalise immigrants. Get me out of here!