1904

In a country where the federal government went out of it’s way, purposely created laws, to ensure certain groups were persecuted and labeled as criminals in the first place. Filling privately run prisons and targeting not just minorities but political adversaries. Perhaps if so many encounters were not manufactured, designed to put others in place, the cops wouldn’t have that many criminals or incentives to engage the public as they do.

There is no proof that a law like this will serve as any sort of deterrence.

1905

Strange then, that cops are more likely to be killed in traffic accidents than by criminals. Criminals know what happens when you kill a cop, and traditionally that has very little to do with sentencing.

1906

Is that strange? I mean, everyone is more likely to die in a traffic accident. Traffic accidents aren’t murder. I don’t get the connection.

1907

In context this doesn’t really make sense. Police departments in the U.S. are not generally understaffed, and policing is not a particularly dangerous occupation (compared to, say, commercial fishing or logging or construction work or an electrician or etc etc.) Crimes of passion won’t be affected by deterrence. And most criminals, by far, are not going to specifically target police officers. Criminal organizations might have an incentive to do this, but I’d think bribes and corruption are, by far, the bigger danger there. Violent action against police tends to draw violent reprisals.

People I think need protection more than police do: witnesses at trial, jurors, politicians, criminal lawyers, criminal judges, people in police custody. What are the factors they have in common? 1) They are plausible assassination targets for organized crime and other agitators. 2) They aren’t generally armed.

1908

If criminals had an incentive to kill cops, you would think it would be far more common than it seems to be.

1909

Hey, clearly I’m the minority here, but I still don’t see any problem with having harsher penalties if you murder a cop.

1910

Well maybe you trust the justice system more than some others do, even though it has repeatedly, constantly and continues to fail and serve justice for large groups of people. Once we kill them, that’s it. I guess we can exonerate a corpse but… doesn’t seem the same.

1911

Thankfully, murder is an exceedingly rare crime. Workplace violence statistics show someone is much more likely to be murdered as a cop than if they worked in any other occupation.

Again, I don’t think cops should have extra protection, but dismissing it because you think there’s no additional incentive to kill them is a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

1912

Agree, that’s good. Are cops more likely to be murdered, though? I confess I have no idea, and it doesn’t seem to be an easy question to answer. Which makes me doubt that the reason for harsher treatment is based on greater risk.

1913

It’s great that the lawmakers are focusing on more protections for the police! Instead of focusing on protecting the general public from them, which is what they should be doing.

1914

Hah, well that won’t get the “right” votes.

1915

Are you okay with hate crime laws?

Should someone get a harsher penalty for murdering a teacher? How about a doctor? How about a soldier, off duty or on duty?

Police offers are #14 on the list of dangerous jobs.

I have enormous respect for people who serve. Especially police officers, firefighters, teachers, and soldiers. But to me a crime is a crime. And you don’t get to be the “right to life” party and advocate murdering murderers. I’m not saying that’s you, @Timex, I’m just not sure I understand the reasoning. If we as a country are going to have a death penalty–and I don’t think it’s moral that we do–it shouldn’t be based on some sliding scale based on your job.

BTW, logging is the most dangerous job.

-xtien

1916

I guess that is a semantical argument.

Are police more likely to be deliberately killed than, say, a crab fisher? Sure. Which one is more likely to die on the job? The crab fisher by far.

But the number of homicides of police is and has been fairly stable in the 30-40 range per year, which is notably down from prior decades. By any measure it is safer now to be a cop than at any previous time in history, and the two leading causes of on the job death are car accidents and (most years) medical. I.e. most years you are more likely to die from heat stroke or a heart attack than from being shot.

1917

I’m actually pretty sure this is untrue. Taxi drivers are at relatively high risk. Retail workers, especially women, are at relatively high risk from their domestic partners. Only about 8% of all workplace homicides are committed by an detainee or attempted detainee.

1918

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017 workplace homicides:
351 deaths by “Shooting by other person—intentional”
47 deaths by “Stabbing, cutting, slashing, piercing”
(there were also 275 suicides, but those are tabbed separately)

That’s a total of 398 workplace homicides that year across all forms of employment.
According to the FBI, 46 belonged to law enforcement, which is 11.55%.

In 2017, there were approximately 153,000,000 people employed in the US.
670,279 were law enforcement officers, or about .44% of the work force.

So .44% of the workforce is accounting for 11.55% of the workplace homicides, which is disproportionate to the degree of 26x that of the whole population.

edit -

This is actually quite true; very high risk of being murdered on the job compared to the rest of the population. They’re right up there with cops.

1919

Then we need laws to enhance sentencing for murderers of taxi drivers. If that’s the rationale for police. Personally, I think it’s about retribution for lack of respect for authoritah, myself.

1920

Like I said earlier, I don’t think we should have extra protection for cops, but it’s not because there’s no extra incentive for criminals to kill them. Rather, I think it’s the societal inequity that bakes into the system along with the BS “qualified immunity” stuff.

1921

Yes.

No, because murdering those people isn’t generally going to be useful for intimidating law enforcement. Potentially doing something like murdering a judge or prosecuting attorney could incur a steeper penalty.

1922

Murdering a judge in that way would be premeditated murder. We already have laws for that.

1923

The GOP is all about increasing penalties for killing cops but clutches their pearls when we talk about preventing gun violence. Makes sense.