On: NYC pilot tries mental health responders in place of police

[jnwatson]

The net deaths might still be lower. 978 people have been shot by police in the US in the past year.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...

[CincinnatiMan → jnwatson]

Wow, I wasn't aware of this data. 978 shot and killed in a year is way lower than I would have expected. Like, order of magnitude lower, possibly 2.

[syrrim → jnwatson]

Exchanging a larger number of deaths of civilians for a smaller number of civil worker deaths is a good trade. Dead civil workers mean less people willing to do that work, which means less help available to people overall.

[briandear → jnwatson]

Out of how many police-citizen interactions? The raw number is meaningless without context.

[jhardy54 → briandear]

I think your sentence is missing a "because" at the end. Why do you think that deaths are meaningless as an integer here but would be useful as a ratio? Usually I've heard this line by folks who want to minimize the perception of police killings.