Why did more than 1,000 people die after police subdued them with force that isn’t meant to kill?

  • 📰 ladailynews
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 102 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 44%
  • Publisher: 59%

United States Headlines News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

Police in the U.S. rely on use-of-force tactics meant to stop people without killing them. But when misused, these tactics can end in death.

This combination of photos shows, top row from left, Anthony Timpa, Austin Hunter Turner, Carl Grant, Damien Alvarado, Delbert McNiel and Demetrio Jackson; second row from left, Drew Edwards, Evan Terhune, Giovani Berne, Glenn Ybanez, Ivan Gutzalenko and Mario Clark; bottom row from left, Michael Guillory, Robbin McNeely, Seth Lucas, Steven Bradley Beasley, Taylor Ware and Terrell Clark.

Every day, police rely on common tactics that, unlike guns, are meant to stop people without killing them, such as physical holds, Tasers and body blows. But when misused, these tactics can still end in death — as happened with George Floyd in 2020, sparking a national reckoning over policing. And while that encounter was caught on video, capturing Floyd’s last words of “I can’t breathe,” many others throughout the United States have escaped notice.

“We were robbed,” said Carl Grant’s sister, Kathy Jenkins, whose anger has not subsided four years later. “It’s like somebody went in your house and just took something, and you were violated.” The federal government has struggled for years to count deaths following what police call “less-lethal force,” and the little information it collects is often kept from the public and highly incomplete at best. No more than a third of the cases the AP identified are listed in federal mortality data as involving law enforcement at all.

In hundreds of cases, officers repeated errors that experts and trainers have spent years trying to eliminate — perhaps none more prevalent than how they held someone facedown in what is known as prone restraint. One of the last hopes for accountability from inside the system — what are known as death opinions — also often exonerated officers. The medical examiners and coroners who decide on these did not link hundreds of the deaths to force, but instead to accidents, drug use or preexisting health problems, sometimes relying on debunked science or incomplete studies from sources tied to law enforcement.

“The only way to get down to zero is to get rid of policing,” Moskos said, “and that’s not going to save lives either.” At a second house about a half-mile away, police found him sitting in a porch chair. When he didn’t follow an order to get off the porch, a different officer pushed him down the stairs, according to previously unreleased body-camera video. Grant gashed his forehead in the fall.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 332. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Maryland town suspends its entire police force, leaving residents to wonder whyOfficials of a Maryland town announced that their entire police department had been suspended pending the results of an investigation by state prosecutors.
Source: FoxNews - 🏆 9. / 87 Read more »

Why You Really Do Need Eclipse Glasses—and Why You Should Buy Them Right NowAlso, here’s why you can't look directly at the sun.
Source: Slate - 🏆 716. / 51 Read more »

Why is Japan changing its ban on exporting lethal weapons, and why is it so controversial?Japan’s Cabinet OK’d a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets to other countries on Tuesday, its latest step away from the pacifist principles the country adopted at the end of World War II.
Source: AP - 🏆 728. / 51 Read more »

Why is Japan changing its ban on exporting lethal weapons, and why is it so controversial?Japan’s Cabinet OK’d a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets to other countries on Tuesday, its latest step away from the pacifist principles the country adopted at the end of World War II.
Source: ksatnews - 🏆 442. / 53 Read more »

Why is Japan changing its ban on exporting lethal weapons, and why is it so controversial?Japan’s Cabinet OK’d a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets to other countries on Tuesday, its latest step away from the pacifist principles the country adopted at the end of World War II.
Source: wjxt4 - 🏆 246. / 63 Read more »

Why is Japan changing its ban on exporting lethal weapons, and why is it so controversial?Japan’s Cabinet OK’d a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets to other countries on Tuesday, its latest step away from the pacifist principles the country adopted at the end of World War II
Source: ABC - 🏆 471. / 51 Read more »