Amber Guyger Fallout: What is the frequency of police crime?

A prominent law enforcement expert has already written that "law enforcement forces are exempt from law enforcement," which means police officers do not like to stop other police officers. In my experience, most people assume that police crime is rare. Sometimes they read an article in their local newspaper or watch an evening report on a local policeman accused of a crime. This seems unusual. What they do not realize is that every night, across the country, people encounter similar stories. It is only when we consolidate police crimes from all over the United States that the scale of the problem appears.

So what are we dealing with?

More than 900 police are arrested each year and about 60% of all crimes for which police are arrested occur while they are out of service, as Guyger did when she shot Jean. Across the country, 5,475 police officers were arrested for crimes committed outside working hours between 2005 and 2013. (This number includes police arrested more than once during the years of study.)

Half of Americans think that police kill black men.

More than half of all service offenses are violent (52%) and many are alcohol related (42%). Police officers on duty often carry a handgun. It may not be surprising that a significant number of cases in my database (11%) involve an officer who used a firearm to commit an off-duty crime. In some cases, an officer on duty used a police-issued firearm to settle a non-violent dispute with family members, friends or neighbors.

More and more police officers are being arrested each year for murder or manslaughter as a result of shootings outside of work hours. This does not of course mean that the police are more likely to shoot at someone while they are out of service, but that shooting outside of work hours is more likely to be considered criminal. that the shots in service.

From 2005 to 2013, 56 police officers were charged with murder or manslaughter as a result of a shooting and 41 (73%) were convicted. During the same nine-year period, only 41 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter as a result of a service shootout and only 21 (51%) were convicted.

The data suggests that we should discourage police officers on furlough from carrying firearms. I had used to work in the field of law enforcement and I know from experience that agents are socialized in a police subculture that is based on a mentality between us: everyone except "we" is a potential threat. And the police can not just turn off that view when they leave. It may be natural, and we can not do anything about it, but our environment would be much safer for "them" for the Botham Shem Jeans of the world, if the police who saw red did not carry weapons.