I don’t think people are arguing that every police officer should be tried for every incident however in many countries there is at least an investigation. For example, in England there is around 12 incidents per year in which police officers discharge firearms and each of these is investigated extensively — regardless of the cause or justification. Every shot is accounted for. American police can shoot indiscriminately with impunity: there’s a middle ground available, very few people advocate putting every police officer on trial.
No, it’s a fact. Although things are improving, here’s an article from a few years back providing more insight:
““You can get online today and figure out how many tickets were sold to ‘The Martian,’ which I saw this weekend. . . . The CDC can do the same with the flu,” he continued. “It’s ridiculous — it’s embarrassing and ridiculous — that we can’t talk about crime in the same way, especially in the high-stakes incidents when your officers have to use force.””
“In New York, state officials now require a special prosecutor to investigate any death at the hands of police. In Texas, lawmakers recently approved legislation requiring local police to report shootings by their officers.”
“Until now, federal officials have relied on local police to report officer-involved shootings, but reporting is voluntary and typically occurs months after the fact.”
If you consider what happens in other countries, what happens when a citizen shoots someone, what is required of American police when they shoot someone and the accountability police face when they shoot someone unreasonably — it’s pretty clear “indiscriminately” and “with impunity” are valid descriptions of the current situation.
Every shot is absolutely accounted for while cops are on duty in the US. What do you think happens when cases go to trial? “Sorry judge, we don’t bother keeping track of how many bullets our officers come back with, so we can’t prove whether it was the suspect who shot the gun”? That would be ridiculous.
What you’re referring to is a centralized federal registry you can do a simple query on. Yes, that doesn’t fully exist right now, because reporting numbers to a central federal authority is new, and currently voluntary.
But do you honestly think this means we don’t keep track of times officers use their guns, on a local level? That officers are simply not responsible in any way for using their gun on duty?
