Tex-s

A previous post on "pet peeves" got my into a deep bout of introspection and, to be honest, irritation.

Question 1: How do the emotionally hyperactive manage to drive statistically rare events to the fore as a national crisis when FAR greater crises, even of the same type are ignored?

To illustrate, let's pretend a bus with 50 people drove off a lookout point and fell into the Grand Canyon. That would be awful, and every human alive would imagine suffering that loss and would pray for the victims and their families, but no one would suggest we ban Grand Canyon visits or buses. Rational investigation would include determining if the bus had defective brakes, instrumentation, etc, and would include verifying the driver had been properly trained and not improperly 'medicated'. The investigation would also verify the road conditions, and the road signage at the Canyon, as a downed warning sign could have been a contributing factor, but NO ONE would deem it a national failure of all busses, all bus drivers, or all national parks.

Yet change the bus incident to police incidents, where a total of less than 50 'unarmed' lives were lost in 2019 (and less than 7 if you include non-aggressive and compliant) and you get a "national crisis" news barrage.

50 awful outcomes are 50 too many, but the number of police/potential offender interactions in the US are estimated between 80 and 200 million yearly, depending on sources and definitions of potential offender. (for example, is a domestic violence call only one potential offender or two?) 50 / 80 000 000 gives a 0.000062% catastrophic fail rate, which is remarkably near zero. Rational investigation here includes training methods, local precinct policy, ongoing education, de-escalation training, and other avenues, but also must include investigation into the contribution of the environment (the roads and signs in the Canyon parable) such as compliance of the suspect, the intoxication of the suspect, the aggression of the suspect, and the actual environment. There is no doubt improvements can be made, but the sheer number of 'successful' interactions suggest that abolishing / defunding police is a catastrophe-by-design just waiting to happen.

Also, the 50 lost lives don't exceed those lost to gang and drug violence a single month in many individual cities.

Question 2: How is a 62 millionths of one percent fail rate in the police more of a national crisis than thousands of lives lost in the streets of our cities?

Just in the last 28 days 67 lives have been lost in the Chicago streets.
https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1_PDFsam_CompStat-Public-2020-Week-41.pdf

Question 3: Can any of us "say their names" and if not, why not? Is it not probable that a 30-ish year old woman was shot in or at her home and killed? Why are those (mostly black) lives not as valued as those in the national media who happened to be killed in LESS illegal and intentional ways?

Question 4: Is it not the most likely answer that there is a narrative to be bolstered? Is it not the most likely case that posturing and blaming and finger pointing is a far easier course of action than actually looking for solutions?