“You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a police officer”

Column By George Miller 

I almost choked on my sashimi when I heard: “You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a police officer,” while lunching at the Anaba restaurant in Oxnard at the time (the food is great). The statement sounded like another Internet legend. But it was coming from Sgt. Chris Williams of the Oxnard, CA Police Dept. a well-respected head of the Major Crimes/Homicide Unit (solving, not committing). In addition, he’s in charge of police use of force and hand-to-hand combat policy and instruction. So I was careful not to be excessively confrontational. I should mention that he’s also the President of the Oxnard Peace Officers (as opposed to “law enforcement”) Association. Somehow, he also finds time to participate in civic activities, raise a teenaged son, two daughetrs and stay married, in addition to answering questions from reporters.

That subject was only one in a surprisingly wide-ranging conversation about our community, police role and more. The meeting was to promote relations with the press and give them an appreciation for what goes on and what the challenges are. So, I had my “PR” antenna up and running.

He must have noticed my raised eyebrows when he made the comparison to lightning strikes, so he promised to send a presentation on Police use of force by Dr. Richard R. Johnson of the University of Toledo, supporting that and other things we discussed.  Sure enough, on page 8, it mentions that an average of 372 persons are killed by police every year (mostly for good cause), compared to 373 struck by lightning. Some have said that police kill black people in particular far more frequently. However, police actions account for an infinitesimal percentage of all deaths of black people (124/year) and people in general, according to the same report previously referenced. The report shows comparative statistics on other causes of death to support that conclusion. Those statistics came from Uniform Crime Report’s Supplemental Homicide Reports published annually by the federal government. Yes, that’s the same government whose head has been criticizing police for excessive, often racially-motivated violence.  It also appears that the vast majority of these cases are justifiable.

But we agreed that even one unjustified death by police, who are here for public safety, is too many, so improvement efforts are warranted.  But, we should all know the true magnitude and whether this is an epidemic, or just some anomalies. Even cases of justifiable use of force might be handled differently to avoid killing the subjects while restraining them.

We discussed high visibility slayings by police in recent years, starting close to home, with Oxnard. The tragic Alfredo Limon incident occurred when an innocent man was in the wrong place at the wrong time, unintentionally caught in the crossfire of a gang attack on police.  Mr. Limon was mistaken for one of the protagonists and paid the ultimate price. While the District Attorney’s investigation found no crime committed, it is less clear whether anything could have been done to prevent this unfortunate occurrence.  Litigation/settlement went against the city, so there must have been some justification for the payment of $6.7 million and other considerations to the Limon family.  But even if no crime was committed by police, was there anything wrong in how officers conducted themselves, or are there alternate tactics, methods and tools which could have resulted in Mr. Limon surviving?

Oxnard resident Robert Ramirez died while being restrained. Friends called 911 for an ambulance when it became apparent that he was in distress while overdosed on meth. Police also responded and attempted to take an intoxicated Mr. Ramirez into custody. He died of asphyxiation in the process. It appears that police restraint might have contributed to that. Was this a racial killing or just a combination of the overdose and poorly-applied restraint?

A much higher visibility national headlines case was the death of 18 year old black man Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Even Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and other national figures inserted themselves into the case and made him the 2014 poster boy for police racial discrimination in use of force. Many believe that this helped prompt destructive rioting and social divisiveness which has led to widespread violence in Ferguson and elsewhere. The case involved a man with a record of violence, who committed a violent store theft only minutes before encountering Officer Wilson, assaulting and injuring him while attempting to take his gun, rarely a good move, before being gunned down. Accounts on how he was killed vary considerably, but the grand jury decision exonerating Wilson and evidence presented pointed to a justifiable shooting. We may never know for sure. Opponents say that the DA exerted undue influence and the process wasn’t sufficiently rigorous. Significantly, the Department of Justice recently dropped plans to prosecute Wilson.

Then there is the more questionable (both Sgt. Williams and I agreed it doesn’t look good at all), tragic death of Eric Garner at the hands of NYPD in Staten Island, fairly well-documented on multiple videos.  He was a serial petty, non-violent criminal, terminally committing the unforgivable offense of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. Ordinarily this death would only make local news reports, but did I mention that he was black?  Did you know that the on-scene supervising officer is also black?  Did the “Mainstream Media” (MSM) report this?  No. Why?  Good question. But Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and MSNBC would not want you to know. At least they didn’t mention it.

But the poor guy was being held down by two big lunks, restricting his breathing and possibly blood flow. Experts say it wasn’t a chokehold, but treating a severely obese man in obviously poor health that way could only end badly. Heck, I’m in pretty good health and am not sure I would have survived that. My own conclusion is that this tragedy was the result of incompetent police work, incompetent supervision and possibly inappropriate tactics, but I’m no “law enforcement” expert.  But even the deceased’s wife didn’t think it was racially motivated.

The Big Picture

In the larger picture, these few tragic episodes are being used to make a case that this is a major, widespread and unresolved problem, largely racially-motivated. But why were THESE deeply flawed cases moved to the front of the line for high public headlines visibility and made representative poster boys? After all, they aren’t clear-cut examples of their working hypothesis- namely that police violence is out of control and minorities and especially blacks, are being murdered in large numbers because of white racist police.  Why not pick slam dunk, clear-cut cases which have strong public agreement and support?  With all of the thousands of confrontational situations and hundreds of shootings, surely there must be some- actually many if accusers are correct?

A more clear-cut case of excessive use of force is James Boyd, a homeless, mentally ill, violent man. Officers were called about a homeless man illegally camping in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, outside of Albuquerque, NM. He was ordered to surrender to officers and didn’t react appropriately. He was armed with a knife. They shot him from a distance out of range of any knife thrusts and also set a police dog upon him.  I don’t know if Boyd was committing any crime, but whatever it was, it wasn’t violent.  It never achieved the level of notoriety of the other cases mentioned. Maybe because he was white?

We have heard more than once that perhaps ambiguous cases were deliberately chosen as nation-wide examples of racist-inspired police brutality, to increase divisiveness – politically, socially, racially- and to de-legitimize police in the eyes of the public.  In other words, this could be intentional agitation.  The only other logical explanation is incompetence. Neither one is comforting.

It’s harder than it seems

Police have also offered to let activists and journalists try shoot/don’t shoot situation simulation exercises and were amused, but not surprised, to see that they were more likely than police to inappropriately shoot. Rev. Maupin, a Phoenix, AZ vocal and prominent critic of “police brutality,” agreed to go through a series of police use-of-force training scenarios. In one scenario he “shot” an unarmed man who approached him. In another he took an unarmed man to the ground. And in the third test the seemingly “unarmed” man “shot” him dead.  In a recent experiment of shooting simulation exercises conducted with police, the results showed that officers were actually less likely to shoot likenesses of African-Americans than whites, in forced split-second decisions.

Conclusion

My take is that there is a fair number of cases of poorly applied use of force. What’s yours? The 372 average annual deaths are overwhelmingly justifiable use of force, some not necessarily deserving of  death, but in total nowhere near epidemic. It is possible that too many of these are fatal which should not have been. It is unknown how many are unjustifiable. Investigation results say the number is tiny, but some say that there is a strong bias in favor of police. Government and police departments are striving to improve via better police recruitment, selection, training, tactics and supervision.

Oxnard PD, for example, screens out all but a very small percentage of applicants in its recruiting process. It is always looking at its training and tactics, as well as lessons learned in the field, including investigating (internal and external) and taking remedial action where justified. It is also willing to meet with the public for airing of grievances and discussion of issues and solutions. Keeping the pressure on will help, but wild, unsubstantiated charges will only undermine credibility of wrongful accusers- and probably other justified critics as well.

George Miller is Publisher of Citizensjournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant, active in civic affairs, living in Oxnard.

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