Police shootings - an internet meme?

Did the Combat Cop meme migrate north?

There is this thing called the internet meme - a viral phenomenon that transmits behaviors from one culture to another. Television, print, internet, films - they all carry ideas far and wide. Police cultures from one country to another are no different.

Is it possible that police shootings of civilians is one of those memes in police culture?

In You In Blue we did not write about the number of civilians shot by police, but we did discover 48 police officers were shot and killed last year. That is three times lower than a few decades ago. It raises a question: Have the numbers of people killed by police also declined? Actually, it seems the opposite.

One report by the Bureau of Justice Administration suggests about 500 to 700 people are shot by police, often in encounters on the street during crimes in progress.The Guardian newspaper finds that by July of this year alone over 500 people have been fatally shot by police, suggesting the numbers are increasing.

Sadly, we have no idea if that is beyond what normally happens. With over 750,000 police officers in a country of over 350 million we have no idea whether that is beyond the “average”, if such an average even exists!

MIGRATION INTO CANADA? 

I had a cursory look at Canadian police shootings for the past decade and made an interesting discovery. Unsurprisingly the Canadian rate is considerably less than the U.S. rate. With fewer handguns it stands to reason there will be fewer incidents of police confronting armed suspects.

Police-civilian fatal shootings in Canada - 2005 to 2015

What was surprising was the uptick in Canadian police-civilian shooting deaths over the past few years. Ten years ago it rarely rose above 5 per year for the whole country! (California, slightly larger than Canada’s population, has over 90 this year alone).

But five years ago the Canadian numbers started to increase - 7 in 2010 and 21 in 2014. By July this year that number was already 17, nowhere the U.S. rate but still alarming.

Are these increases just a blip on the statistical radar screen? Or are Canadian cops influenced by happenings with their U.S. counterparts?

Our final chapter in You In Blue is on The Warrior Agenda. To the Combat Cops in combat cop culture, “warrior ways” is an appealing meme. To the rest of us it is a nightmare. Is it moving north?

Coming out of the storm - A SafeGrowth Summit

Announcing 2015 SafeGrowth Summit

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The post Great Recession years in this first part of the 21st Century carry great change, much of which fires the turbulence we see around us this summer.

A US President sings a eulogy following a racial massacre. American cities simmer in urban discord following police shootings. Broken windows and stop-and-frisk remain incendiary police tactics. And in Britain and Australia, quota-driven policing is seen for the sham that it is.



It's hard to imagine a more apt time to remember Haruki Murakami's words from his book Kafka on the Shore.

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

In response to the turbulence we just launched a three-pronged reply:

1. An upcoming SafeGrowth Summit,
2. A new SafeGrowth website with a network of SafeGrowth advocates, services, events, and answers
3. A  police recruit training book by Gerry Cleveland and myself - You In Blue - outlining the shape of  21st Century policing. 

Check them out. We can choose our way out of this storm. That's what it's all about!

Blackstone Mountain Lodge, Alberta - Venue for 2015 SafeGrowth Summit

You In Blue – Guidebook for the new cop

A new book on policing by Gerry Cleveland and Gregory Saville

As I write, citizens in Cleveland are protesting yet another police shooting.

Sadly, the wrong members of the community receive the brunt of the blame. Vandals and troublemakers cause the problems, yet many in America are prepared to lay the blame at the feet of African American citizens.  That blame is both misplaced and unfair.

Irresponsible media fan the flames. They mix editorial opinions and ideological pundits into their news coverage, a cheap parlor trick guaranteed to boost their revenues. They ignore root causes. Fed up with the nonsense, one Baltimore resident confronted an on-the-street Fox reporter on national television during a protest (which that network censored).

Without doubt the media, vandals, and a minority of cops all carry an equal share of blame in what is happening in our cites. So does racism, poverty, corruption and criminal behavior. But there is another culprit looming large.

A different kind of policing for the 21st Century city

President Obama’s recent Task Force and their report into 21st Century Policing point to one of the root causes of what we are seeing on our streets.

That culprit is police training.

A GUIDEBOOK FOR NEW COPS

Today my colleague, Gerard Cleveland, a former cop, a lawyer and law lecturer, and I completed a new book that responds to the problem of outdated and improper police training. It is called You In Blue – A Guidebook for New Cops.  We wrote it as a guidebook for rookie cops and for those who train them.

The book includes chapters on academy life, street realities, intelligent tactical response, arming oneself with emotional training and the destructive issues arising from a warrior agenda.

We describe a method that academy directors and police leaders should have adopted long ago. We will be launching the book at the upcoming annual conference of the Police Society of Problem Based Learning in Madison, June 1-3.

Now is the ideal time to reconsider our broken training system.

Stay tuned.