- A new AJC analysis of a decade of records across 651 Georgia police departments and sheriff’s offices found departments that took more than $1,000 in 1033 money, on average, fatally shot about four times as many people as those that didn’t. The newspaper’s analysis used the military’s database and paired it with a database of fatal police shootings from across the state, controlling for statistical variables like community income, rural-urban differences, racial makeup, and violent crime rates.
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- The AJC analysis looked at departments across the state and measured the number of fatal police shootings in years following the receipt of military gear. Atlanta Police Department spokesman Sgt. John Chafee questioned if anyone could link a department’s use of the program to police shootings.
APD’s use of the 1033 program is limited. In 2009, the department took possession of a medical evacuation helicopter. Eight years later, the department got a new transmission for that helicopter.
“A suggestion this helicopter transmission somehow played a part in the number of fatal officer involved shootings seems like quite a stretch to me,” Chafee said. “I have been a police officer with Atlanta for more than 16 years and, until this week, had no idea we obtained a helicopter or helicopter transmission through this program.”
Not to continually try to be the data police, but that graph title is bullshit, insofar as it does nothing of the sort. $1000 is not much money, certainly not enough to outfit a department with anything deadly. So maybe what the graph is really telling us is that PDs who ask for money are those that are more predisposed to being reactionary. I get that Chekhov told us long ago that if you bring a gun to act I, you better use it in act III. But the controls just aren't there to believe there's a causal link. The police can kill people pretty efficiently with hand guns...they don't need military money to buy hand guns.
That's the whole point. Departments in Georgia that engaged with the program in a non-trivial way were more likely to kill people. That's even why I pulled out that quote about the helicopter and its transmission - it isn't just the purchase of ex-military combat gear, it's engagement with the program at all. The adoption of a military footing leads to the adoption of a military doctrine. full stop.$1000 is not much money, certainly not enough to outfit a department with anything deadly.
Instead of "defund the police", I think we should say "demilitarize the police". Whether or not that includes defunding could be left to individual departments to propose how/if they would shuffle up their allocations. We can take any next steps soon thereafter.
My perspective on it is that thee and me are statistically the least likely people to need to worry about it. Do I think it'd be an easier sell for Grandma Duluth? Fer sher. Does "demilitarize the police" get people to flood the streets? I don't think people pull down statues of Lincoln without already being in an unresty mood. Someone spraypainted "this is unceded Duwamish land" on the streets around here and hey - I'll take that over swastikas and "pinochet did nothing wrong" memes. But yeah. Retiring the big iron is a gimme. From a simple game theory standpoint if you have it, you're gonna use it - if shit goes wrong and you didn't use it, you're at fault because why didn't you do everything to protect the Blue Lives that Matter? If shit goes wrong because you used it, you can go "hey our standard doctrine is to use the most appropriate means necessary to limit the risk to our Brave Officers Whose Blue Lives Matter and we regret the glitch."