[mgleason_3]

NPR's Planet Money just released a podcast titled: "Police Unions and Civilian deaths".

Some of the notable quotes include:

* Starting roughly in the late '50s, Rob says, state governments began allowing police officers to collectively bargain - in other words, to join unions. This is where we found a really remarkable and really horrible result....after officers gained access to collective bargaining rights ... there was a substantial increase in killings of civilians ...about 60 to 70 per year ... killed by the police in an era historically where there are a lot fewer police shootings. So that's a humongous increase.

* One possible reason why police unions might want more ways to protect officers from being prosecuted is the safety of the officers. If an officer is worried about being prosecuted, then that officer might hesitate to shoot in a dangerous situation. [but the number of] Officers killed in the line of duty .... doesn't change after bargaining rights are granted.

* ...someone who lives in the U.S. was almost 60x as likely to be killed by police as someone in the United Kingdom. ...A black American... is about 3x as likely to be killed by police as a white person.

[imtringued]

Not being protected from prosecution doesn't stop cops from engaging in self defense. If you genuinely think you are in danger as a cop you are willing to break the law to survive and accept being fired as a consequence. Protection from prosecution means there is no consequence to "premature self defense". If a citizen is perceived to possess a weapon but does not draw or fire it the cop still has an alibi that can be used to justify pulling the trigger.

I have seen a video where four cops randomly shot a man with a tazer. That man had no intention of escaping. The excessive use of police force served no purpose. It didn't make the job safer.

[dredmorbius]

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869176943/police-unions-and-c...

[chicagoeads]

HRDAG estimates that 1 in 3 Americans murdered by a stranger are killed by a police officer. https://granta.com/violence-in-blue/

In Chicago, the police union has attempted to destroy complaint records and uses an arbitration clause to minimize impact of discipline and to keep information about sustained misconduct complaints under wraps, including other police departments considering hiring an officer (https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/il-grievances).

(Full disclosure, I'm a co-author of the OP linked article and the article about CPD grievances.)

[refurb]

Well that's certainly playing with statistics.

Most people are murdered by someone they know, so we're looking at a pretty small slice of all murders.

And that stat is for homicides, not murder. So it includes people lawfully killed.

[BLKNSLVR]

> So it includes people lawfully killed

I would imagine that's part of the point.