Violent killings by Utah police outpace deaths by gangs, drug dealers and child abusers

Well this is interesting.

Raw Story

The Salt Lake Tribune recently reviewed records for 300 violent deaths over a five year period, and found that deaths from police violence were the second most common type of killing after intimate partner violence in Utah.

Records showed that law enforcement officers were responsible for 15 percent of the violent deaths by killing 45 people since 2010.

So the police in Utah seem a bit trigger happy now don't they? Mind you I don't know the details behind those shootings and they could certainly have been all legitimate uses of lethal force, but it does seem like a bit much doesn't it?

It's a short article.

Here's the original from The Salt Lake Tribune

According to a spokes person from the UFOP:

"Police are trained and expected to react to deadly threats. As many deadly threats emerge is the exact amount of times police will respond," wrote Ian Adams, a West Jordan police officer and spokesman for the Utah Fraternal Order of Police. "The onus is on the person being arrested to stop trying to assault and kill police officers and the innocent public. … Why do some in society continue to insist the problem lies with police officers?

To me that is very troubling way to look at things. Police are there to serve and protect citizens. It's becoming more about protecting themselves from perceived threats the more I look at it.

Now I don't want this to be a cop bashing thread, obviously the majority of police are doing a fine job at what they do. My only complaint would be, as with most groups is that there is little coverage of those 'good' officers, coming out against the use of force and police militarization.

Thoughts ATS?

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

LEOs are in place to do the following:

1. Protect themselves.
2. Maximize their total compensation.
3. Revenue generation for their department and union.
4. Protecting commercial interests
5. Protecting private property
6. Controlling dissenting narratives that would interfere with 1-5.

They've been totally co-opted, insulated from consequences and the citizens are picking up the tab.
Defund departments now. It's perfectly legal.

Yep the police are just as corrupt as the government they serve....(did you think they serve you? your mistake...)
The whole mess is festering like a giant boil.....and like all boils it will erupt one day into a real mess (of dead people) cops and civvies alike as we retake our country from the oligarchs and corrupt police gangs......that have usurped the power of the people.....

I would actually be more suprised if the percentage for American police's violent killings was lower then gangs, drug dealers etc.

Thats an indicator of how they are viewed these days...


Not only do they hide behind their badge, the people they protect and serve are themselves not the general public.
As an outsider looking in, America seems to be on a landslide towards becoming a police state.

Hardly a day goes by without a headline of a fatal shooting by a cop and in a lot of cases on an unarmed victim.
Something very real and very big needs to be done to curtail the Outlaw Police...

Either ' Trigger Happy' cops, or there are more people living in Utah that pose a deadly threat?

Worrying statistics to be honest. I would consider re-evaluating the training they are receiving, as they claim all officers go through training in dealing with deadly situations.

I appreciate it's a very difficult job, but it seems shoot first ask questions after is the order of the day for some officers.

If it's anything like it is here in the U.K, then I would imagine that there haven't been many officers charged with unlawful killing or in fact charged with anything.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

With 600,000 laws on the books, it is pretty easy to understand how The People are considered enemies.

I don't want to see cops bashed. I am absolutely sick of it. I would rather see the legal system streamlined and the need for cops reduced. Distill the current roles of LEO down to the best of what we have, and give the rest a severance.

This isn't just local level, either. Do we need an ICE, INS, DEA, and FBI? Could we not just have a singular civil policing authority from the federal level, with the rest just being dissolved?

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: tothetenthpower

With 600,000 laws on the books, it is pretty easy to understand how The People are considered enemies.

I don't want to see cops bashed. I am absolutely sick of it. I would rather see the legal system streamlined and the need for cops reduced. Distill the current roles of LEO down to the best of what we have, and give the rest a severance.

This isn't just local level, either. Do we need an ICE, INS, DEA, and FBI? Could we not just have a singular civil policing authority from the federal level, with the rest just being dissolved?

They call that an army of occupation I believe...much like the Canadian RCMP have been foe 100 or so years.....

a reply to: tothetenthpower
Givin the content and level of information posted how could this end up being anything but a cop bashing thread? I do see the need for review of each case but at present one would have to be tranquil to everything not to leave here without a sense of destain for the events. Off the top of my head i seem to remember that utah has some areas with the highest areas of employment for men and that the ratio of men to women is extremely high. i think i remember the numbers 100 men to one woman in the crude producing areas.

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: tothetenthpower

LEOs are in place to do the following:

1. Protect themselves.
2. Maximize their total compensation.
3. Revenue generation for their department and union.
4. Protecting commercial interests
5. Protecting private property
6. Controlling dissenting narratives that would interfere with 1-5.

They've been totally co-opted, insulated from consequences and the citizens are picking up the tab.
Defund departments now. It's perfectly legal.

I agree, its that simple, but no one understands this, nor are many willing to accept these facts.

Also most importantly that's how Fascism works and in turn uses domestic police forces. This is the simplest answer that nearly everyone continue to ignore.

Despite what the media and regular people claim, the USA is NOT socialist, NOT communist, NOT a democracy and NOT even a Republic, but in reality a Reactionary, Fascist State, enshrouded in Protestant religious dogma. Once people start accepting this fact, it will then become easier to understand why certain policy decisions are made by Law Enforcement Agencies, Big Business and Government. Once people accept the true purpose of Domestic Police Forces, the easier it will be for all of us to move forward and ENACT change, PHYSICALLY, at the community level.

Defunding government is a sensible voter solution to reining in local government By Dave Duffy

Council reaffirms choice to defund Balch Springs police chief position

Washington Police Department defunded, closed by Council vote

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a reply to: tothetenthpower

I see you like to bash police. What about the people that they killed? Up-standing citizens without arrest warrants, not drugged-up individuals, not dealers, not felons of some sort?

Why not make a project of it and research those police killings and tell us what you find about the circumstances? Of course, that would mean checking official accounts of the deaths, not what some family-written obit said or editorizing newspaper said about the deceased. You know, you can't trust them as you can't trust a person pointing fingers when there is no fire there. (Excuse my mixed metaphors, they were intended to show the leap of "logic" used to build this thread.)

To slow the number of shootings by cops, the laws need to be changed, their training needs to be examined, and the investigations into shooting needs to be done from outside the department.

I am not blaming the LEO's, just the defunct system they are working under.

originally posted by: Aliensun
a reply to: tothetenthpower
Why not make a project of it and research those police killings and tell us what you find about the circumstances? Of course, that would mean checking official accounts of the deaths, not what some family-written obit said or editorizing newspaper said about the deceased. You know, you can't trust them as you can't trust a person pointing fingers when there is no fire there. (Excuse my mixed metaphors, they were intended to show the leap of "logic" used to build this thread.)

What are you talking about?

America's Lack of a Police Behavior Database Is a Disgrace.

Excessive or reasonable force by police?

NACDL has mounted a three-year quest to obtain the Chicago and Joliet police data under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Both departments have rebuffed those efforts, and a 2008 Cook County Circuit Court decision required only partial disclosure of the information.

This has been tried already, by many individual people, law firms and human rights organizations. The main issue is that the data simply doesn't exist, either it was never collected in the first, or it was "thrown away" or "lost". This also doesn't include the various known stonewalling tactics to prevent release. As a nation we need to pass a federal law that requires police departments to keep data and physical evidence on file and/or in physical storage in perpetuity. No auctions, no disposal, just an ever growing data storage and warehousing of both digital and physical assets. I personally don't care what it costs either because police are so corrupt today. We have no other choices. If something gets lost or thrown away, it should result in jail time for the last responsible person and a fine for the department/jurisdiction responsible.

a reply to: tothetenthpower
Yeah I have heard terrible things about utah police. So much so that its on my list of states I would never visit. I would prefer to walk through harlem with money taped to my body.

They are IMO as bad and anti american as terrorists. I am not even kidding. In my eyes they are about as necessary as a chapter of Isis in the US.

The citizens would do a better job with no training. Really they are enemies of the public and the.country.

Screw you Utah police....