Tuesday, April 08, 2014

SF Weekly: SF's Cop-Involved-Deaths 10 Times NYC's Rate in 2011

Kudos, a tip o' the hat and muchas gracias to local reporter Chris Roberts for this important story at the SF Weekly blog today.

He's done a fantastic job of using the names and statistics of San Francisco civilians killed by police officers I obtained recently through a public records request, and compiled figures by race and gender over thirty-four-years.

On top of that, Chris also places the stats in the context of officer-involved-shootings in New York City and discovered that in 2011 the rate of OIS here was ten times that for the Big Apple. Let's hope other reporters look into the names, situations and stats I've obtained and that the information is an impetus to more accountability over the SF Police Department. Excerpts from the SF Weekly post:

[I]t appears that public mistrust of San Francisco cops is soaring, especially as of late. Last month, an officer shot and killed 28-year-old Alejandro Nieto, who was armed with a Taser [...] 

San Francisco police appear to be some of the most trigger-happy cops in the country. In 2011, citizens were killed by police in San Francisco at 10 times the rate of those in New York City, and at about twice Los Angeles's rate. 

No federally maintained clearinghouse of officer-involved shooting data exists, but according to stats compiled by one crime blogger, San Francisco's six fatal shootings in 2011 equals New York City's total -- and NYC has 10 times the people. 

Local blogger Michael Petrelis dug up the data from San Francisco police [posted here and here], revealing that 83 people have been fatally shot by San Francisco cops since 1980. Of those, 29 killed were black men and 28 were white men. 

Police shot and killed six people in 2011, which was the bloodiest year since 1990 when seven were killed at the hands of police officers. We compiled a total by race and gender over the 34-year period:
  • Black males, 29
  • White males, 28
  • Asian males, 13
  • "Other" males, 6
  • Hispanic males, 3
  • Black females, 2
  • White females, 2
The recent outpouring of anger of the Nieto shooting hasn't been seen in quite some time [...] Is it because police here are seen as overly zealous with their guns?

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