Harvard Scientists Say Police Killings Should Be Recorded As Public Epidemic

Harvard Scientists Say Police Killings Should Be Recorded As Public Epidemic

Harvard scientists and researchers have called on US Public Health Agencies to label police killings and police deaths public health issues. Scientists are agreeing with #BlackLivesMatter activists who encourage them to begin tracking the number of people killed by police.

Via UsUncut reports:

The proposal was inspired by a year of continuous protests and public pressure from the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which stemmed from the murder of unarmed Michael Brown on August 9, 2014, and the consistent police murders and protests that have happened since.

As there are no official numbers, the best available data comes from independent news agencies like the Guardian (UK), who reported that 1,058 Americans have been killed by police in 2015. For African Americans, the number of law enforcement-related deaths per capita is twice as high as it is in the white population.

Their project, “The Counted” also indicates that US civilians are killed by police at an average of about three times a day. It includes cases of police who kill armed suspects, which many vocal police supporters consider justified without carefully examining the situation.

Making police killings a notifiable condition would require Police Departments to report each killing to their corresponding Public Health Department. Medical and public health professionals would then report law-enforcement related deaths in real time.

Researchers say this is critical for the well being of the public, and that since efforts over the past century have been unsuccessful, it is imperative that the government treat law-enforcement related deaths as reportable conditions.

They even mention how absurd it is that in the US, we have to rely on a UK newspaper to count the number of people being killed by police. The US public health system already reports numerous notifiable diseases nationally and in real time.

Predictably, police organizations attacked the idea with typical rhetoric. Common Health reports that Bill Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said he thinks it’s “misguided” and added, “The best way to reduce the number of deaths by police is to follow the instructions of the officer in any kind of confrontation. I don’t have a lot of hope that academics from Harvard would publicize that as an easy and quick way to reduce deaths by police.”