They even shoot people theyāre supposedly ārescuing,ā including folks at-risk for suicide or dudes trying to push their truck out of floodwaters without cop harassment in Oklahoma:
Police arenāt really helping much with disaster relief when theyāre gunning down people just trying to get through what is already a very bad day.
This is actually a pretty frightening statistic, when you stop to think about it!
Frightening apparently only to a subset of the population.
The police seem to regard it as either inconsequential or actually reassuring.
āTo Protect and to Serveā
It would appear that they are now becoming unaccountable institutions and individuals acting like organized crime families.
Other than in certain small enclaves and the like, there is no real āpolicingā as in the verb. Seems like more than ever before, they are just armed thugs extracting money and lives from the places they are supposed to be protecting and serving.
āTo Neglect and to Slayā
FTFY! 
Itās a Wildlife Preservation manual and a cookbook!
So police kill approximately 1900 times more people than sharks do.
Itās about time Discovery had a Pig Week.
Weāre number one! Weāre number one!
The police claim they were attacked. I donāt think police should ever get a free pass. But neither should we get a free pass to assume the worst automatically. Iām sure this wonāt be a popular opinion. 
Attacked by a guy with a fist? Because unless they were coming at the police with a deadly weapon then shooting is not the go-to response.
Letās call the rate of police killings in the US a baseline āscoreā of 1.
Chinese police killed 12 people in 2014; their population gives them a score of 0.0028.
English police have killed about 1 person a year; their score is 0.006.
German police havenāt killed anyone at all since 2012. Assuming they do it once this year, that gives them a score of 0.002.
Icelandic police have apparently killed one person ever. They get a 0.
Are criminals in the US really 357 times more aggressive than Chinese criminals, 167 times more aggressive than English criminals, 500 times more aggressive than German criminals and inifinitely more aggressive than Icelandic criminals?
ā¦then maybe thereās another explanation.
America is the country of ābut black people are more likely to be armed, so of course theyāre more likely to turn out to be unarmed after being killed.ā
paraphrasing half the comments here:
The rate is that US Police SHOOT and kill 2.6 people a day.
They KILL 3.1 people a day: http://CopCrisis.com
Itās 1 every 7.6 hours or so, 475 this year so far, ~1120 last year.
You guys need to export the 2nd Amendment to Europe already!
Ninety-two victims ā nearly a quarter of those killed ā were identified by police or family members as mentally ill.
We need better health care in this country and we need police officers trained to deal with the mentally ill. Or maybe we need to make sure our police officers arenāt mentally ill themselves. I donāt know. What I do agree with is that we need real data. I canāt remember what show I was watching where someone suggested shutting off federal funds to any law enforcement organization that doesnāt report deaths in custody. That sounds like a start.
Unless you believe that no police is better than bad police, that sounds like a terrible start.
Why not hold those in command appointments responsible. Make it a mandated duty, and then either fire them or charge them with a criminal offence (whichwever is appropriate) if they fail to carry it out. Just make sure that the person left holding the can is senior enough to actually effect change ā¦ thereās no point charging Constable Snooks for failing to submit a return. Go after Sheriff Dickhead instead - heās the one with the budget, authority, and organisational power to make it happen.
Why not go after both? So constable Snooks knows āif I shoot someone, Iāll have to go to court and explain why it was necessary. Even if it was in self-defense. Just like everyone else in this country.ā
And Sheriff Dickhead thinks āif officer Snooks shoots someone, Iāll have to go to court and explain why he carries a gun at all times.ā
Sure, do that too. But I was specifically responding to the point @Krist made (and which is amplified in the OPās linked article) about PDs not reporting deaths in custody. My comments about Snooks and Dickhead should be read with that in mind.
State and municipal (town, city) services are funded by taxes paid directly to the state or town. The federal government throws more money in, which is why my little townās PD has a fleet of dune buggies, several jet skis and boats, a helicopter and a tank. Yes, a tank. Withholding federal funds wonāt shut down my local police, though Iām not sure how much big city PDs are funded by federal as opposed to local dollars.
The federal government can make it a federal crime to not report deaths in custody, maybe. I think the 10th Amendment might get in the way of that, though. Regardless, I doubt thereās the political will to do that. What the federal government canāt do is dictate state or local personnel decisions, so they canāt make a state or local police boards fire anyone.
As an example, the federal government canāt mandate changes in schools, eitherāschools are under local controlābut what they have successfully done for years is threaten to withhold money from states or local school districts that donāt do what they want.
