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A burglary suspect fleeing police dogs and a helicopter in Florida wades into a dark lake and disappears. Three weeks later his remains are found inside an alligator.
Was he killed by police?
It is an extreme example of the difficulty faced with increasing frequency by data scientists working on a new US government count of deaths in interactions with police – a count that appears likely to soar beyond all previous attempts, now that the issue has reached the highest levels of both protest and power.
As esoteric as the task may seem, the objective is deadly serious: to measure the true dimensions of an epidemic of lethal violence committed by police across the country on often unarmed civilians. A majority of the victims, such as Chicago teenager Laquan McDonald, die in police gunfire. Others, such as the New York father Eric Garner, may die in a banned chokehold or, like the Baltimore 25-year-old Freddie Gray whose death is currently being prosecuted, from injuries in a police vehicle.
At the start of 2015, the Guardian launched The Counted, a public-service project tallying and shedding light on such cases, which has reached a tally of 1,068 so far. Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed plans for a similar counting effort, after grossly misrepresenting the problem in eight previous years with annual figures averaging 423.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday December 14 2015, @03:27PM
The guy in Florida who was killed by a gator? No - he wasn't killed by police.
No, but he died as a consequence, albeit indirect, of police action, so it should be investigated. IANAL but I'm pretty sure that in the UK the police would have been obliged to refer such an incident to the Independent Police Complaints Commission [ipcc.gov.uk]. Not that we have many alligators, but there are plenty of lakes into which you should not plunge fully clothed at night unless you can breathe under water with your foot impaled on a rusty shopping trolley.
Chasing someone with dogs and a helicopter is risky and, yes, police should need to justify their decision to do this. In this case, the linked article makes it sound pretty clear that the police's judgement was sound, the 'victim' was indeed casing houses for burglary and deserves a Darwin award for trying to hide in an alligator - but you can't safely make that judgement from a 3rd-hand newspaper report.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 14 2015, @04:28PM
I say that he died as a consequence of his own criminal actions and stupidity. But, I'll have to agree that any time a death occurs during a police chase, there should be an inquiry.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday December 17 2015, @07:29PM
I say that he died as a consequence of his own criminal actions and stupidity.
Things can be the consequence of more than one thing.