A video allegedly depicting a very kind and wonderful cop has been circulating around the internet for a while now. I ignored it at first, but it keeps popping up – along with peoples’ maudlin and obsequious commentary about how touching and heart-warming this officer’s last act of kindness is, and how this surely is a stellar example of how police officers ought to be.
You may ask, what was this last act of kindness? Did the officer lay down his life for another? Did he save a child from drowning? Or perhaps he protected an individual from some kind of vile crime against the person, such as murder or rape?
No, no – none of that. Something far more glorious and admirable – he bought a kid $1 worth of cookies at McDonald’s. Daveon Tinsley purportedly asked Officer Jeremy Henwood for 10 cents to buy a cookie, and Officer Henwood in response bought the him 3 cookies. Subsequently, Henwood was gunned down and killed, allegedly in an unprovoked attack (more here).
The media frequently demonstrates their extreme bias when it comes to police; this is nothing new. When innocent people are murdered or beaten by police for no reason, the media is quick to point out the victim was a criminal, was drinking, or was engaged in some other mild offense, as if to justify police actions. Funny how it works though – when police die in unfortunate circumstances, the media has no interest in digging up dirt on the dead officer, but instead rushes to point out any inane, worthless factoid that will “humanize” the officer. Yet, one cannot blame the media, when people demonstrate that this kind of nonsense is exactly what they prefer.
While it is lamentable when anyone dies in an unprovoked attack, a logical assessment of this situation leads one to the inevitable conclusion that many people in America are idiots. The first clause of the previous sentence is bolded because no matter how clear I make it, any time I show anything less than uncontrollable anguish at the news of an officer’s death, I am accused of the utmost depravity, and of cheering on their deaths. Nevertheless – buying someone a cookie would not be news in any other context for other people who die in tragic circumstances, but somehow, when a police officer dies, a non-negligible number of Americans start incoherently babbling about how fucking great it was that some man bought a kid some cookies. Americans get so excited about this that it actually is reported as news.
This is to say nothing of the fact that people like Henwood are basically gang members in nice uniforms. They spend their lives prowling the streets, extorting people of their hard-earned money based on stupid crimes like jaywalking, speeding, rolling stop signs, drinking on the beach, or smoking marijuana. This is a fact, because most people in jail/prison are not there for violent crimes or property crimes. They are there for drugs or other offenses which involved no victim. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude police spend most of their time on drug and victimless offenses, rather than on offenses involving personal or property crime.
Accordingly, police officers dedicate their lives to essentially terrorizing people. At the worst, they kill children in drug raids, chase down and beat innocent people, kill harmless pets or abuse wildlife. At the very least, they drive around and make everyone they pass feel anxious. They have a dress code, and adhere to the Blue Code of Silence, which is a loyalty oath they make to each other. Really, the gang member analogy could not be more apt.
No one posts videos such as, “Crip member’s last act of kindness,” or “M13 leader shows last act of kindness by buying boy a sammich,” but for some reason, people wet themselves over Henwood’s last act of kindness – completely ignoring the fact he spent most of his days being an asshole to people.
This is surely reminiscent of the hysterical behavior exhibited by the mourning citizens of North Korea when Kim Jong Il passed, although on a milder level. Here, we have the same kind of bizarre hero-worship of a man who in all likelihood had the moral integrity of a local thug. Inexplicably, people’s reactions are of greatly exaggerated sorrow, followed by diarrhea-like outpours of lament. Are you one of the Americans who thought North Koreans were insane for putting on such histrionic displays of sadness when Kim Jong Il died? Better check the mirror; you might be an only-slightly-less-insane, only-slightly-less-ignorant version of them.
Annually there are 30,000 search warrants executed per year of all types, narcotics, weapons, searches for stolen property etc. 1200 police shootings (people hit, not hit, where bullets fired) per year equals 0.04%.
I derived 1200 from the number of total FBI reported officer involved shooting leading to death (400) then averaged it against the LA County Sheriff who did an excellent study on shootings in their department. 50 police shootings last year, 1/2 were hit, 1/2 were not. Of those hit, approximately 1/3 were killed. 1200 seemed logical for his comment. (The numbers were actually 406 and 51 respectively but I rounded them for calculations)
NYPD 34500, NYC 8100000 equals police vs population ratio of 0.004%
Kneene NH PD 38, Kneene NH 24400 equals police vs population ratio of 0.001% (doesn’t sound like a police state to me)
Police kill 400 people per year. 30,000 search warrants eqauls 0.013% if everyone one of ALL police shootings took place during the execution of just search warrants.
Police have 1200 shooting per year (on average). As an assumption, there are 100 million police contacts with the population per year. That’s all calls to 911, traffic stops, search warrants, vol. contacts, everything, in every city, county, covering 50 states with 17000 police departments. That equals 0.000012%
Chance of a police department having a officer involved shooting 0.07% (1200/17000)
Police misconduct complaints of all types…there is no national clearing house for complaints. One site cited 6600 complaints over 2010. I only assume thats from news releases, internet searches, etc. Matched against ALL police contacts – 0.000066%. Perhaps is 6600 is low. Lets go to 250,000/yr. When matched against ALL police contacts equals 0.0025%. Lets say 250,000 complaints against just the DOJ/FBI stats for ALL national arrests, just reported arrests was 14 million last year. 0.017% (The website listed 1500 uses of excessive force from the original 6600 but using 1500 against total police contacts is also, low in my opinion and not considered)
Federal civil suits? Annaully there are 25-35,000 per year against the police. Use 30,000 and you get the name percentages as above.
Lets say there are 750,000 police (I think there are around 850,000 but taking off some for supervisors, detectives, animal control – the non-patrol officers equates to 750,000) Match against 30,000 lawsuits you get 0.04% of a police officer facing a civil suit.
Using numbers from the FBI, percentage of typical police officer being killed by a felonious act is 0.00009% (71 firearms death 2010 / 750,000) 53,000 reported assaults towards police from 550,000 total officers from reporting 11000 agencies equals 0.096% 26% of those 53,000 needing medical attention.
The average citizen kills legally 64% as many citizens as the police do (261/406 in 2010).
US population 304,000,000 vs 400 police shooting involving in death to the suspect? 0.00000132%.
You are more likely to be killed by a relative, during a robbery, or by a juvenile gang member then by the police (FBI stats). There is on average, one fatal police shooting per day nationwide. There is one murder in Los Angeles city per day. NYC has 1.5 murders per day.
Clearly, the numbers show that while police misconduct exists and is sometimes shocking, it is a tiny fraction of all police intactions with the general population.
You’re just jealous, people like cops more then they like you…