Discussion on answer by james turner: Are one-third of Americans 'killed by strangers' killed by police?

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09:07

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A: Are one-third of Americans 'killed by strangers' killed by police?

this appears to be false as written. police only kill about 1k people per year, whereas car crashes kill somewhere around 30k people a year in the usa. 53% of car crashes involve more than 1 vehicle. if we assume that half of the car crashes victims in those are "strangers" to the driver who caus...

mmeent

According to the link you posted that is only about 11k (30k is the total of traffic related fatalities). A significant portion of those deaths are either the driver theirself or occupants of their car. Both would know the driver.

tim

-1 Given that on-duty police officers kill 1000+ people a year, that would only be one order of magnitude higher (not several). But as mmeent mentioned, you are looking at total traffic fatalities & at a minimum, you'd have to exclude driver & passenger. For "Nonoccupant" fatalities, your source gives ~7000 people (who may or may not have known the driver) for all traffic fatalities (but the claim doesn't really seem to be about accidental deaths), or ~1000 for drunk driving.

mmeent

@tim I don't think that table distinguishes between occupants of the car driven by the drunk driver, or occupants of any other vehicle involved. The table is therefore not very useful for determine the "number of known victims".

DJClayworth

It's fairly clear that the question is talking about deliberate killings.

tim

@mmeent Oh, you are probably right, I misread that table. The statistics really are not very helpful for this question then.

james turner

09:07

@DJClayworth it's fairly clear that the question is trying to make a sensationalist claim by deliberately leaving the word "killing" ambiguous so that people are inclined to compare deliberate total killings to non-deliberate police killings. in any case, i decided to answer the question as asked rather than as it could have been asked.

@mmeent good point. but if you assume that on average half of those fatalities are caused by the driver in "the other car" and that most of those people would be strangers, you're still an order of magnitude off.

mmeent

You would then have to first assume half of the fatalities involved another car. (As opposed to e.g. a tree)

james turner

@mmeent after updating my answer to address your concerns it brings the ratio down to 8:1. still seemingly false, but close enough that those assumptions really start to matter. it seems this claim is harder to disprove that it appears.

gnasher729

I’d seriously hope that there are very few unintentional killings by police.

DJClayworth

@gnasher729 The defence lawyers of the charged officers will presumably argue that George Floyd's death was unintentional. Cops do also get in automobile accidents as well, especially during high speed chases. However 90% of police killings (in the US) are by shooting, so yes, almost all are intentional.

james turner

i'm not sure why you assume that killing someone with a gun is intentional. if i shot a someone with a gun, my intent would be to reduce the threat that they posed to others. once they no longer posed a threat, i would immediately try to save their lives. if they happened to die as a result of the gunshot despite my best efforts, i would not classify that killing as "intentional". it seems like an odd definition of the word.

mcalex

09:07

@gnasher729 there are plenty of innocent bystander killings by police - car chase accidents, cross-fire shootout mishaps and everyone not in MOVE that day in Philly. This doesn't even include kneeling on people's necks and other 'restraint only' chokeholds used on alleged criminals.

David Hammen

Suppose a car driving on a highway hits a patch of black ice, causing the car to go out of control and collide with another, which collides with yet another, with all occupants of all vehicles dying. This is just a horrible accident, not a killing. Suppose a drunkard driving on a highway causes people to die. This is criminally negligent homicide, and if the drunkard lives, he or she should go to jail. But most people would not classify this as the act of a "killer". The linked article clearly addresses people who die by murder and non-negligent homicide. This excludes most vehicular deaths.

DJClayworth

@jamesturner The law doesn't work like that. If you fire a gun at someone deliberately and in a way that will kill them, then you can't argue "I didn't really intend to kill them". If you fired in such a way as to only injure them you could reasonably say you only intended to injure, but that is very difficult to do and police are trained not to attempt it.

Jeffrey

Counting car accident as "killed by stranger" is disingenuous. You could ask the OP to clarify their question, if you find it ambiguous, but it feels more likely to me you are trying to falsify the statement.

Kevin

@jamesturner: It's a basic rule of gun safety that you never point a gun at anything unless you intend to destroy it, particularly a human being. Note also that "intentional" and "unjustified" are not synonymous; it is legal to intentionally kill someone in self-defense, if you reasonably fear for your own life.

Hagen von Eitzen

@DJClayworth That's it. Either the claim is about deliberate killing, and then the restriction "by strangers" artificially cuts of all killings by acquaintances - which are the vast majority (if you have a "reason" to kill someone it is usually because you don't like them wand this usually requires you to know them; and statistics agree). Or one has to account for accidents with strangers as done here.

DJClayworth

09:07

The question is about deliberate killing by strangers, and is a perfectly natural and straightforward question. What is "artificial " is answering a different question and trying to pretend it's relevant.

james turner

@Jeffrey i genuinely think the statement is clear and meaningful as-is. when i first read it, i thought it was an interesting question and gave it some thought, which is why i came up with this answer. i'm not sure why other people have chosen to interject other concerns like intent into a simple factual question of cause and effect..

fredsbend

@Jeffrey Skepticism is an effort to falsify things ...

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