This article was originally published by Matt Agorist at The Free Thought Project.
As TFTP reported this week, James Williams, 46, spent his last seconds on Earth wondering who shot him during their family’s celebration to bring in the New Year. It would later be determined that the person who shot him was a Canton police officer, who executed Williams as this father of six celebrated New Year’s Eve in his own backyard.
Without identifying himself, the officer reportedly shot in the blind from the other side of Williams’ 6-foot tall privacy fence. As he was killed just after midnight on New Year’s Eve in the Eastern time zone, Williams became the first person to be killed by police in 2022. He was innocent, a father of six, a loving husband, and he was executed in his own backyard.
Williams was the first of at least 1,000 people who will be killed in 2022 by America’s security force. He had harmed no one and his life was taken from him. Unfortunately, this will happen nearly every day as the year progresses.
According to a recent analysis of police killings in 2021, carried out by the folks at PoliceViolenceReport.org, the majority of police killings involve calls in which there was no crime or that the suspect is only suspected of a non-violent offense.
“Most killings began with police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported,” the report states.
It gets worse.
According to a comprehensive database of all American mass shootings that have taken place since 2018, constructed by Mother Jones, there have been exactly 202 deaths attributed to mass shootings that have taken place on American soil.
As Mother Jones notes, in their database, they exclude shootings stemming from more conventional crimes such as armed robbery or gang violence. Other news outlets and researchers have published larger tallies that include a wide range of gun crimes in which four or more people have been either wounded or killed. While those larger datasets of multiple-victim shootings may be useful for studying the broader problem of gun violence, our investigation provides an in-depth look at the distinct phenomenon of mass shootings—from the firearms used to mental health factors and the growing copycat problem.
If we compare the 202 citizens killed in mass shootings to citizens killed by police in the same time frame, the comparison is off the charts. We are talking about a 2,223 percent difference.
Who Inflicts the Most Gun Violence in America? The U.S. Government and Its Police Forces
As 2022 begins, American police polish off another deadly year, ending 1,124 lives in 2021. This number is set to increase by one, on average, every 8 hours.
Since 2018, cops in America have killed 4,492 citizens. And most people are not saying anything about it.
These shocking numbers highlight a major problem when it comes to how police are policing. For starters, police have proven their incompetence in dealing with mental health issues. Since 2015 alone, police in America have killed over 1,400 people during a mental health crisis. Many of these folks were never accused of a crime prior to police arriving on the scene.
This inability to resolve mental health issues without using deadly force is the impetus behind programs like the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) program in Denver.
As TFTP has pointed out, even cops who voluntarily attend Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), have shown that they are quick to the trigger when dealing with the mentally ill.
The list of unarmed and often completely innocent mentally ill people killed by police is immense. TFTP archives are full of tragic stories in which police were called to help someone in a crisis and end up murdering them. People are killed even when they aren’t in a crisis and simply act differently like Elijah McClain, who was on his way home from buying groceries and was murdered by police because he was an introvert and wore a ski mask.
This is why some municipalities have begun removing cops from the situation entirely.
On June 1, 2020, Denver began the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) program, which sends a mental health professional and a paramedic to some 911 calls instead of cops. When we first reported on the program in October 2020, their results were fantastic. Now, it seems that departments that continue the old way are doing a disservice to the mentally ill.
According to their latest data, STAR has responded to more than 2,500 calls to 911 in which police would have normally been sent out. The STAR team — armed only with experience and compassion — has never once called police to back them up and no one was ever arrested.
Since we originally reported on STAR last year, they have gotten a fleet of vehicles and are expanding their services.
They have settled every single call without killing someone, beating them, ruining their lives, or using violence. Imagine that.
Another type of encounter that turns deadly all too often is the traffic stop.
While most everyone in America commits these same traffic infractions designed for revenue collection instead of safety, most of the people targeted by police for these crimes are the poor and minorities. Oftentimes, officers treat these stops as gateways to fish for drug activity or other victimless crimes. While ending the drug war would have a much more profound effect, some municipalities have kicked around the idea of removing traffic stops from the mission of police officers.
Traffic stops in the land of the free, are a means of bolstering the prison industrial complex by extracting revenue from those who can pay and incarcerating others who cannot.
For those too poor to pay their tickets, routine traffic stops end up in repeated imprisonment due to mounting fines. Cities across the country are running a de facto debtors’ prison this way.
When cops aren’t routinely extorting and locking people up for petty traffic offenses, they are killing them.
This is why moves like we reported on in October, are important. As we reported, lawmakers in Philadelphia have passed legislation banning cops from making minor traffic stops. The law is expected to go into effect by February of this year.
By a 14-2 majority vote, the city council approved the Driving Equality measure which they say will deter and reduce disparate, unequal police practices in how minority motorists are stopped by police for minor offenses like broken tail lights and expired inspection stickers.
According to Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who worked with the Defenders Association, and the city Law Department to draft the bill, it is designed to “significantly reduce car stops by police for minor infractions that advocates believe discriminate disproportionately against Black and Brown motorists.”
The 120 day period before it goes into effect is specifically designated as a police training period so officers can be educated in how not to prey on the poor and minorities through predatory laws like license plate lights, window tint, seat belt laws, expired stickers, and other laws designed to extract revenue from citizens.
Unlike other legislation, which claims to aid society by limiting certain prosecutions for thefts and other petty crimes with actual victims, this bill truly does stop the persecution of a myriad of real victimless crimes.
If we want cops to stop killing more people than mass shooters, these steps and others must happen.
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Accidents happen.
Reduce those accidents by reducing police contact with the public, use other means than armed police to respond to simple non violent complaints and traffic control.
It’s already being proven an effective approach in major cities nationwide , we need to expand it nationally.
There is no other way to do it.
Cops and Sheriffs Depts are low IQ lying scum thieves and thugs with badges and sh!t for brains. I am going to lay a smack down, multi-million dollar lawsuit on the ones in my County soon for violating my civil rights in so many ways. Bend over a-holes payback is a B!tch for you soon.
Blanket statement alert! ^^
Now, this is my opinion (< see how I wrote that), but if the world had zero cops in it we would ALL be positioned behind sandbags on windowsills 23 hours on – 1 off.
Know that, Jethro.
After all, I've seen Live PD. It SEEMS that day in and day out those sticks cops have to deal with some super duper, class A, white trash, dumb fuck meth lab operators out in your parts. Dear LORD!! How they get through an entire seven day week without shooting everyone they encounter is a miracle.
Yee haw.
Let us know how that works out for ya.
Here watch this stupid Pig in FL loose it.
SEE Video Link Below. Sunrise FL is down by Ft Lauderdale.
News Link • Florida
Moment Florida cop grabs female officer by the throat and shoves her into patrol car…
01-17-2022 • ht tps://www.dailymail.co,
By STEPHEN M. LEPORE
A police sergeant in Florida has been demoted to desk work after he was seen on video grabbing a fellow officer by her throat.
Authorities in Sunrise, Florida shared body camera footage of an incident that took place November 19.
Everyone in the video had their face blurred except for Sergeant Christopher Pullease, 46, a 21-year veteran of the force.
Sunrise police were detaining a suspect who was ‘verbally and physically resistive’ when Pullease came on the scene and got aggressive, Chief Anthony Rosa said in a statement.
Pullease then got into a verbal altercation with the suspect, who was already sitting inside a police car.
Body camera footage shows Pullease ducking his head inside the car to talk to the suspect while holding a can of pepper spray.
Rosa said that Pullease was ‘inappropriate and unprofessional’ in the situation and added that he ‘unnecessarily elevated the demeanor of the suspect.’
A fellow officer – who has not been identified but has been on the force two and a half years – ran toward Pullease and pulled him by the back of his duty belt.
Video shows Pullease turn around while backpedaling as he was pulled, then momentarily putting his hand at the other officer’s throat and pushing her backward until she hits a nearby police car. Pullease then walks away.
Video – Remove the spaces between the http
ht tp://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/318807-2022-01-17-moment-florida-cop-grabs-female-officer-by-the-throat-and.htm?From=News
If this is what this Guy does to a fellow Officer, Imagine what he does to the public. Thankfully some were wearing body cameras.
The guy who was killed in the backyard was firing a NEW YEARS salute with his AR-15. It is against the LAW in all 50 States to do this not only with a AR-15 but other firearms too.
You should have seen the one in OAKLAND CALIFORNIA a hole group of people firing rifles in the projects a few of them were Submachine guns where was the POE POE THERE ????
You are an idiot. The cop murdered a man for shooting in the air because it’s illegal? I believe shooting through a fence without identifying yourself as a police officer into a family with kids is also against the law. Law enforcement needs to be held accountable the same way as the public when they break they laws. Time to get rid of the good old boy culture
I do (question the polices action) but how did they know that the guy was not killing anyone in his backyard or shooting at a neighbor that he was maybe pissed off at . Like always some things are not being told.
“Law enforcement needs to be held accountable the same way as the public when they break the laws.
I can think of one prime example, right off the top of my head – where the laws are radically different for cops and civilians. Cops are routinely allowed to shoot a suspect who is fleeing. A regular private citizen, however, who is threatened or assaulted by a thug and who might have a concealed weapon on their person – cannot fire that weapon at a thug who is attempting to retreat from his initial assault on the citizen. The law considers the act of retreating by the assailant as a deescalation of the ‘threat’ to the victim. So, assuming the assailant is not also armed, when they see the victim pull out his or her weapon – they suddenly decide to beat feet to escape the scene to avoid being shot, the law protects them. If it can be determined that the victim shot an assailant who was retreating, said victim can be charged and if found guilty, can wind up in prison.
Ah, and then there is the very tricky area known as ‘brandishing a firearm’, which is yet another crime that can be leveled by the cops. So, if someone is being threatened with assault, or is being assaulted, and they pull out their firearm – at which time the assailant sees it, and decides to run away – is that not the same thing as ‘brandishing’ a firearm?
It looks to me like the corrupt political establishment and this equally corrupt justice system have tried to stack the deck against private citizens and make it dangerous to try to defend themselves against criminals.
Tucker, I enjoy your posts & usually agree with you – but NOT this time. In your first sentence you suggest the standard for police should be the SAME as for other citizens. I disagree, society asks police officers to deal with criminal & insane people on a frequent basis – necessarily presenting more frequent dangerous interactions. The example presented in the second paragraph is bogus due to the infinite scenarios that can be described – for instance – what if a machete-wielding & alahu Akbar yelling terrorist ran toward a group of your children. That specific scenario yields target practice in my mind.
Yes, the citizen was committing a 4th degree misdemeanor. To the best of my knowledge a misdemeanor is not a capital offense in any US state, maybe North Korea or Saudi, but not the US.
The out of control, pampered, overpaid cop committed an act that was more dangerous than anything the citizen did. The cop fired blindly through a fence with no clue who or what was on the other side. He murdered a citizen who was not a threat to him with no warning. Everyone down range of this idiot was in harm’s way. All because the special snowflake with a badge “feared for his life”. The cop was lucky he only murdered a grown man, not any women or children who could have been in his line of fire. This cop is just another example of why government employees should not be allowed the privilege of carrying weapons while on duty.
The rights of conservatives can’t depend on the rights of mindless replacement demographics, and they still have a functional outcome.
Blanket libertarianism for all comers can’t work.
Welp. Common Sense called you an idiot. Fold up the tents. We’ve all been outwitted.
“You’re an idiot.” There. Nanny nanny boo boo (I finished the rest for you.)
I may just cancel my internet connection now. There is simply no need for it. “Common Sense” is online. Also no need for healthy debate. “Common Sense” probably feels everyone is an idiot, anyway.
So because he broke the law they executed him? Perhaps they should have arrested him and not killed him?
WTF?
If you research the whole story, the guy was firing off rounds with his AR-15 in a neighborhood. So, an irresponsible gun owner was randomly firing off rounds in a city neighborhood with other neighbors, ends up shot and somehow he was executed? Could there have been a mistake by the officer, absolutely. However, if you weren’t standing in the middle of a city neighborhood firing off rounds you probably wouldn’t have been shot…..
” cops in America have killed 4,492 citizens. And most people are not saying anything about it.”
????
It is estimated that between 15 million and 26 million people have participated in demonstrations and riots in the United States, making them the largest protests in United States history over George Floyd killing. It was the talk for months in every household.
Meanwhile idiots texting and driving have killed 10X as many people as both of those combined.
Exactly!!!!!
The idiots and their phone addiction.
I’ve been an OTR truck driver for 29 years.
I travel the lower 48 and Canada.
If I had a dollar for every idiot that I’ve seen pass my truck while playing on their phone I would be a millionaire today.
Texting while driving is more dangerous than drunk driving driving.
The Armed Government Workers [AGW’s] no longer honor their oaths and haven’t for a very long time are upping their taken oath violating to the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights by continually physically violate citizens as often as possible, now they are not just going around the absolute laws of the land, but now also directly increasing the harm that their violence will cause.
Are cops constitutional? Clearly no, and it’s incidents like this that highlight that fact.
Police work is often lionized by jurists and scholars who claim to employ “textualist” and “originalist” methods of constitutional interpretation. Yet professional police were unknown to the United States in 1789, and first appeared in America almost a half-century after the Constitution’s ratification. The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary. This article marshals extensive historical and legal evidence to show that modern policing is in many ways inconsistent with the original intent of America’s founding documents. The author argues that the growth of modern policing has substantially empowered the state in a way the Framers would regard as abhorrent to their foremost principles.
Are Cops Constitutional? By Roger Roots
https://libertyunderattack.com/are-cops-constitutional-by-roger-roots
https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/how_did_americas_police_become_a_military_force_on_the_streets
https://youtu.be/nKPp_DZM_Bk
We Do Not Want To Be Hunted by DH Gans
https://www.theusconstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/We_Do_Not_Want_To_Be_Hunted.pdf
In a larger context, the restrictions on citizens’ approved reactions to crime must be considered also. Citizens have been restricted in their responses to crime. Police forces were established for society to exert some control as a response to crime. When govt. restricted law-abiding citizens natural reactions – a controlling societal force became necessary – thus police.
Unless you prefer reverting to a Mad Max scenario.
No closing paragraph tonight?
Who will remind me to check my preps, stay calm, stay alert and be prepared for anything? I feel ripped off.
Conversely, less is better, I suppose. One less paragraph equals one less paragraph littered with more grammatical errors than a 4th grade book report.
Best check the facts, Commie Soreazz DAs are not locking people up for these kind of offenses anymore. I’m in Commierado and drive downtown 6 days a week. I might see someone pulled over now once a month. Not enough cops on the beat.
Felony arrests are out in the same day before the cops get done with there shift. Best check your stats home fry cause this is not an issue now. Hell they give bail for attempted murder now with ankle monitoring.
MAc,,, at least report the whole story and not a propaganda hit piece no different than the MSM.
Two sides of the same coin.
Both are passing opinions for facts.
Both are incorporating drama, sensationalism,hearsay, misinformation, fear porn,etc; to draw in clicks,bump ratings,sale books, and reinforce agendas.
There’s no difference between them.
Very disappointing to see SHTF run this LEO hit piece disguised as factual. Junk news.
Site lost touch with reality 5 years ago and the mass exodus exposed that.
It’s easy to pile-on the criticism of police. The hundreds of millions of interactions by police with our insane society yield some poorly handled events. We ask police to act as a buffer between criminals & the rest of society – then act surprised when “suicide by cop”, killing of terrorists, and other final-solution results happen. Sure, a small percentage of police actions are wrong but what happened to recognizing society’s part in these events. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is missing in many of these stories: 1) Resisting arrest, 2) Potentially lethal activity in close proximity to other citizens – like firing a semi-auto firearm in a neighborhood, 3) Armed robbery, 4) Home invasion and/or kidnapping, 5) Threats with lethal weapons, etc. I’m not a police officer, but many of those activities will yield a dead perpetrator if he is threatening my home & family.
When did Americans become wimps that think there are NO repercussions for life-threatening behavior – the criminal does NOT have a greater right-to-life than my family.