***DISCLAIMER I WROTE THIS BLOG POST A WEEK AGO, THEREFORE EVERYTHING I SAID WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE EVENTS OF LAST WEEK. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE MY OPINION ON THE EVENTS THAT OCCURRED THEY ARE BELOW***
It is hard to believe, but another year has already gone by. When I was a kid a year felt like an eternity, but the older I get the years seem to go by faster and faster. If you have been following me for some time then you know I typically write a blog post reflecting on my accident in how I am extremely lucky to even be alive. Since, I started writing this blog, these past several years on this day, I wrote about the injustice of our judicial system in terms of the extreme corruption within police departments when it comes to police pursuits or use of excessive force by those individuals who are “supposed” to “protect & serve” us residence.
That being said, I told myself last year’s post 21 Years And Counting… would be the last time I was going to write on such issues within the police and judicial system as it looked like nothing was going to change. However, due to cameras virtually being everywhere nowadays, every year that goes by it seems people are wising up to what police and their departments have been getting away with since the dawn of mankind. With all this new visual information getting released almost on a daily basis, “change” maybe in the works causing people to realize that the evidence points the finger in “my direction” for what I have been saying these past several years.
Ironically, just twenty-two days after I published last years post 21 Years And Counting…, a lot of new evidence was exposed by a USAToday article on the undercounted numbers of people injured or killed due to police pursuits. The USAToday, article was released July 31, 2015, and it elaborated on the inconsistencies of the recordings of how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) tallies the number of individuals that are killed annually due to police pursuits. And its conclusion mainly has to due with where the source of information is coming from.
The NHTSA’s slogan is “Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes.” However, when it comes to understanding the number of individuals killed due to police pursuits, their numbers may not be showing the whole picture. There are multiple problems when it comes to the NHTSA’s numbers, and I talked briefly about this back in 2013, in my post 19 Years And Counting. One of the main reasons the NHTSA’s numbers are incredibly inaccurate is the information given is directly from police departments. Not an independent organization. As a result of this, the information is very misleading. In fact, a 2002, FBI bulletin (starts on page 15) stated the reason why:
The interpretation of the term “pursuit-related crash” represents one common police practice that affects accuracy of reporting. Often, police officers or their agencies will make the determination that a crash occurred right after a pursuit was “terminated,” hence the crash is not pursuit-related. Agencies immediately can determine if this occurred by replaying tapes of radio transmissions during the pursuit, even days after completing a comprehensive accident investigation or reconstruction. Either way, the process can be very subjective.
With the data being presented to the NHTSA this way, the figures USAToday found were that:
At least 11,506 people, including 6,300 fleeing suspects, were killed in police chases from 1979 through 2013, most recent year for which NHTSA records are available. That’s an average of 329 a year — nearly one person a day.
But those figures likely understate the actual death toll because NHTSA uses police reports to determine if a crash was chase-related, and some reports do not disclose that a chase occurred.
With facts being solely collected by the NHTSA from police reports that may not be showing the “whole picture” USAToday found that the number of deaths could be exceedingly higher:
NHTSA’s undercount suggests that the actual number of people killed in police chases since 1979 could be more than 15,000 — far more than the 11,506 chase-related deaths found in the agency’s public records — and that chases result in a death much more frequently than studies have stated.
Since, the data of police chases do not count those injured or killed after a pursuit is supposedly, “terminated,” we really have no idea what the actual numbers are. The irony of the way the statistics are collected means my accident on July 11, 1994, did not make it into that year’s data as the Laguna Beach police chief “claimed” the officer “stopped the chase” about an eighth of a mile ahead of the guy fleeing. So this just goes to show the hypocrisy in the research, as I suffered a catastrophic injury as a result of the police pursuit the cop initiated.
With injuries and deaths not counted after a pursuit is “supposedly terminated” USAToday, found:
The number of innocent bystanders killed is impossible to pinpoint because hundreds of NHTSA’s records fail to show whether a victim was killed in a car fleeing police or in a car that happened to be hit during a chase.
Analyzing each fatal crash, USA TODAY determined that at least 2,456 bystanders were killed, although the death toll could be as high as 2,750.
Injuries are even harder to count because NHTSA keeps records of only fatal crashes.
However, records from six states show that 17,600 people were hurt in chases from 2004 through 2013 — an average of 1,760 injuries a year in those states, which make up 24% of the U.S. population. Those numbers suggest that chases nationwide may have injured 7,400 people a year — more than 270,000 people since 1979.
So, with all these statistics pointing out the flawed numbers of individuals, killed or injured due to police pursuits, you would think police departments and the public would want to do something in order to prevent this from further happening. But that could not be farther from the truth.
There are typically, two types of people in this world when it comes to dealing with the police: 1) those who love them or 2) those who hate them. The difference between these two types of individuals are those who love cops, see them as protecting their town so they can live their way of life, therefore, they support everything they do and criticize anything that draws negativity. Where those who hate cops are individuals, who see them as power hungry people who think of themselves above the law, whose sole job is to harass and tax the residents of the town so the city can stay afloat.
For instance, look at the comment section from the USAToday article, in how there are a lot of “pro-police” individuals calling the article “anti-police” and “yellow journalism” for just trying to show awareness of the inconstancy in the statistics. In terms of where I find myself standing on the “pro” or “anti” police spectrum, I definitely fall into the second category, but I was not always on that side.
Growing up post my accident I never really looked into my situation as I was a kid, where I only though about, “How can I have the most fun today?” However, what caused me to start hating cops was four years ago I began looking into police pursuits, and I learned how common innocent victims like myself were getting seriously injured or killed, but cops and their departments showed little to no empathy. Therefore, I figured if cops do not have any respect for me, why should I have respect for them? I started to figure this out after reading tons of articles and bulletins on this matter where cops, police chiefs and their departments always say, it is kind of sad someone died or was injured, but it was not our fault. Although, the FBI disagrees.
Let me take my accident, for instance, the cop who initiated the police pursuit was off duty, out of his own jurisdiction and on his way to get his radio fixed. However, the police chief defended the officer’s actions and the city of Laguna Beach “lawyered” up because they knew they were going to get sued. I was only seven years old at the time, and the police should have been trying to help me, not screw me over.
The USAToday, article mentioned how and why police pursue individuals at all costs, instead of thinking about all the lives they are endangering:
Police often suspect fleeing drivers are wanted for a serious offense. And they dislike letting a violator get away. During a chase police can be overcome by “a need to ‘win’ and make the arrest,” which blinds them to the danger they are helping create, a 2010 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin reported.
Also, with the polices’ desire to “win” in the fact that they will chase someone indefinitely endangering thousand upon thousands of innocent people, USAToday, found a Justice Department study stating police are significantly under trained:
The average police trainee received 72 hours of weapons training compared to 40 hours of driving training, only a portion of which covered chases, according to a 2006 Justice Department study of police training academies.
It is crazy to think that those who are there to supposedly “protect & serve” us residents receive less than 2-days of driver training, and just 3-days of gun training before being sent out into the real world. That is significantly one of the problems in how it only takes six months of training and a minimum education level of a GED (General Education Development) to “enforce” the law, but seven years of education to “defend” the law. So, we have individuals who are uneducated with minimal training patrolling our streets. If we raised the standards of education and increased the training, I think it will fix a lot of our problems.
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Overall, the police are not the only individuals who are to blame or criticize in how they handle these situations; it also has to do with the local news. A couple of months ago I was on our local news affiliate NBC4 Los Angeles’ website. As I was browsing around, I stumbled upon a thumbnail at the bottom of the front page, with a picture from a helicopter showing a moving truck on the freeway, with the caption, “Car Chases.” I clicked the link, and it brought me to a page loaded with videos showing all the police pursuits you can imagine. The really disturbing part was the head of the page had the following image:
Los Angeles is the police pursuit capital of the world, and this is the exact problem with our news media in that it is supposed to be “informative,” but instead they treat a very serious issue as if it is “entertainment” as police pursuits are ratings boosters. Will Ferrell portrayed this in a great scene from Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues:
This scene which is just a little over 3 minutes in length sums up a lot about our society in what we deem “important information” or “entertainment.” It also captures the way our local news salivates over police pursuits. The lines that hit the nail on the head are: RON BURGUNDY: “A high-speed car chase is in progress, reaching speeds of 100 mph, and for the first time in news history, we will stay with it live until it resolves in either a huge accident or a massive shootout.” LINDA JACKSON: “Freddie, what is going on, why is there a local car chase on TV? FREDDIE SAPP: “It’s Burgundy, he insisted on it.” LINDA JACKSON: “Can’t you see what that son of a bitch is doing? We didn’t have a story so he made one.” FREDDIE SAPP: “You can’t do that!” LINDA JACKSON: “Tell Ron to speculate on who is driving the car.”
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Before I end this blog post, there is one last thing I wanted to talk about. On April 12th of this year, something happened to me that was associated around my accident, and it was incredibly creepy. My parents and I attended a city council meeting to support an item up for discussion. After sitting in the audience and watching the meeting progress, we ended up having to leave early, due to the issue we were there to support was not going to be discussed before I needed to get out of my chair. At first, I was a little disappointed that I was not going to be in the room to be apart of the discussion, but without knowing at the time, it was a good thing that we left.
During every city council meeting, there is a section of the meeting called “public comments,” where anyone can get up and talk about an issue they might be having within the city. When I got home, I started streaming the meeting on my TV through the city’s online link. During the public comments, a stack of cards are given to the Mayor of those individuals who want to speak. As the Mayor went through card after card calling each individual up to talk, my jaw hit the floor when I heard one of the last names called. I am not going to use the individual’s name, so I do not get sued for defamation, but the individual who was there to say their two cents was one of the lawyers that represented the city of Laguna Beach in our lawsuit against them.
Reading that last sentence some of you may not think that is a big deal. But what creeped me out about being in the same room with the lawyer, was four years ago when I started doing research on my accident I found both of the individuals who represented the city of Laguna Beach online. The one who was at the meeting has our case on his resume, and he is proud that he screwed over my family and I.
For the next several days it really bothered me that I was in the same room with someone who is proud that they screwed over a 7-year-old kid. The only way I can really think of a way to convey what it felt like to be in the same room with that individual, is what I imagine it must be like what a rape victim goes through when they have to attend a courtroom and identify the suspect. If I did not have to leave early and would have been in the room when the Mayor called the individual’s name, I have no idea how I would have reacted.
With everything I have written over these years from my previous posts 19 Years And Counting…, 20 Years And Counting…, 21 Years And Counting… and now 22 Years And Counting…, I have learned a tremendous amount on police corruption, and police pursuits that hurt innocent people almost on a daily basis. However, police departments are constantly tweaking their pursuit policies to try and make their liability window smaller and smaller. This is one of the reasons I want to attend law school, as I want to try and help those with little power who’s civil rights were violated like mine.
Ultimately, because of this, pursuit policies are just written forms of literature that are developed by huge law firms that put any form of rhetoric they can think of to cover themselves from liability. Just look at my case, in how the cop who initiated the pursuit that left me a (C1, C2) quadriplegic: was off duty, out of his own jurisdiction, and on his way to get his radio fixed essentially rendering him “deaf” and “blind.” But despite those things being grossly negligent, they were all covered in Laguna Beach’s pursuit policy, complying with the minimum standards of California Vehicle Code 17004.7 giving them 100 percent immunity.
Whether anything will ever “change” in the near future is still waiting to be seen. However, it sure looks like police departments and the public, in general, are not itching to do anything different to prevent future deaths or injuries. In fact, the USAToday article found that:
Officers continue to violate pursuit policies concerning when to avoid or stop a chase, police records show. And federally funded high-tech systems that would obviate chases, such as vehicle tracking devices, are undeveloped or rarely used due to cost.
People every day go about their daily lives oblivious to the dangers around them. It takes something drastic to happen before their minds are opened. Just look at the debate on global warming, in how 97 percent of scientist agree it is happening and it is man made, but still a significant portion of the United States population does not believe it is occurring. The reason for this is we do not see the every day affects due to not living on the polar ice caps. So when it starts affecting a significantly greater number of people in their own homes, it will be too late.
If you have not already, I highly recommend reading the USAToday article in its entirety, as I did not cover everything. There also is an interesting data analyst chart where you can checkout the number of individuals killed in police pursuits by typing in your state.
***RESPONSE TO EVENTS OF LAST WEEK***
I was going to stop this post at the previous paragraph, but with the deadly shootings last week of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the five officers killed in Dallas on Thursday; I felt compelled to say something, because I talked about a lot of these issues.
Cops are the individuals in our community that are supposed to be there if we run into trouble. However, there is a disproportionate way police officers view each individual, specifically when it comes to race. It would be nice if police were colorblind, but unfortunately, we do not live in that world. As a result of this whether you want to hear it or not the black community has significantly been picked on by cops, without fear of any repercussions.
Since, the invention of the “smart phone” putting a camera in virtually everyone’s pocket, people have been able to record any activity that they deem “important” with extraordinary ease. Just 10 to 20 years ago this was not possible, but because of the advancements in technology people have been able to capture “news related stores” in real time, significantly, broadening our horizon to what is happening within our community. Ultimately, this new technology has mainly shined light on what our police departments have been getting away with forever.
With the emergence of cell phone video, people have begun recording police activity as they see it happening in their daily lives, trying to keep police accountable for their actions. Police officers do not necessarily like it, but the ability to record officers in public is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. In fact, the ACLU created an app called, Mobile Justice which allows you to record audio/video where it can be sent to your local ACLU branch with the touch of a button if your phone gets confiscated and searched, (which is illegal unless a warrant is sought — see the 2014, Supreme Court Case: Riley v. California.)
Other than that, this might come to a surprise to you, but there is no federal agency that keeps track of the number of individuals killed a year by the police and their departments. The reason for this is police departments do not want one. Since there is no national database documenting the number of individuals killed by police, other sources like newspapers began trying to do so.
One of the most respected databases that keeps track of individuals killed by police in the United States is The Guardian’s, The Counted. The Counted found the total number of people killed in 2015, came in at 1146, where 2016, has already reached 571 (as of this posting) and the year is barely half over. Even James Comey, the head of the FBI said, “…it is ’embarrassing and ridiculous’ that the federal government has no better information on police shootings than databases compiled by the Guardian US and the Washington Post.”
With these numbers showing the data, we can guarantee that 100 percent of those killed were not all guilty, but trying to identify the percentage of those killed who were not guilty is a difficult thing to pin-point. However, cell phone video is helping tremendously. Looking at the statistics the highest percentage of individuals killed by police in 2015, were members of the black community with the probability of 7.27 killed per 1 million individuals.
As a result of this and video capturing police killings of unarmed individuals in the black community, an organization began to be seen throughout social media called, “Black Lives Matter” (BLM). If you are a Fox News watcher, you would not know it, but BLM is a peaceful movement in how they support non-violent protests to help further their cause of the awareness of police corruption in terms of excessive force. Black Lives Matter has always been a non-violent movement as they look at themselves to be better than police departments that kill and defend their actions to the Nth degree.
The shooting last week (by the individual I will not identify as that is what he wants) in how he killed five officers and shot 12, was unfortunately, going to happen sooner or later. The reason it was only a matter of time before an “unstable person” retaliated against the police, is how they have been responding to criticism over these past years.
Cops, police chiefs, their departments and especially, the police unions think whatever they do is always “justified,” regardless of how silly or negligent the actions may be. A great example, is how Tamir Rice a 12-year-old kid, was shot and killed by two officers within 2 seconds of arriving on the scene for having a toy gun. The police union leader in Cleveland defended the actions of the officers saying they were completely justified and was upset players on the Cleveland Browns football team had “Justice for Tamir Rice” on their jerseys. Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks does a great job breaking down the video and the union leader’s statements below:
It is statements like these where someone who represents the police, has zero sympathy for killing not an adult, not a teenager, but a kid, is why people in the black community do not respect cops and are hesitant to deal with the police in their community. In fact, what makes the Tamir Rice case even more ridiculous, is Ohio has “open carry” laws permitting individuals to carry guns “openly” in public.
The events of Thursday, really were unfortunate, as retaliation is never the answer and it changed the talking points from showing the corruption of the police after the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, to cause people to rally around cops diminishing what BLM is trying to shed light on. In fact, because of this lone gunman (who was not associated with BLM), it more than likely will cause more innocent people to be killed because it just puts everyone on edge.
As the years have gone by and police stories have dominated the news of unarmed individuals constantly being killed by police in the United States, with little to no consequences The Young Turks did a phenomenal story in what sets “our police” apart from the rest of the “world’s police.” You can see it here:
Overall, there are significant problems with our police force in the United States as it disproportionately affects individuals all across different race, ethnic and economic backgrounds. If our country is going to get any better in the near future, we must find a way to bridge the gaps, and Donald Trump is not helping by playing into people’s fears/emotions. The police are the individuals who created these issues, therefore, it is their turn to step up to the plate.
For sometime now, I have been watching this YouTube channel called LiberalViewer and the following video sums up what is going on within our society. It is by far one of the best videos I have ever watched in my lifetime:
Trent McGee 