COPWATCH.com
Pro-cop propaganda, disinformation,
and manipulation. Pigs dancing with the media...
See illustration at bottom of page
- "COPS" and the other fawning law-enforcement TV shows
- "Police work is far from being one of America's more dangerous occupations, but cops assiduously cultivate that impression."
"Police funerals are getting to be on a par with the obsequies of European royalty fifty years ago. Recently two San Francisco policemen crashed in their helicopter during a routine maintenance flight. Their funeral was attended by a huge throng of police from across California, state officials and the Mayor of San Francisco. *** These ceremonies have always been demonstration rituals designed to protect the cops' budgetary appropriations and boost their overall image."
Counterpunch.com, (Thanks to LD)
- Is law enforcement is the most dangerous profession? According to the feds, it's not even close!
"From 1992-95, truckdriving had the most fatalities of all occupations, accounting for 12 percent of all worker deaths. Abut two-thirds of the fatally injured truckers were involved in highway crashes. Truckdrivers also had more nonfatal injuries (over 151,000) than workers in any other occupation in 1995. *** Cabdrivers had the highest homicide rate —32 homicides per 100,000— among the occupations most affected by deadly violence. This rate is four times more than that of police officers."
- The mundane truth revealed: more cops die in transportation accidents than by homicide
(1998 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries)
THE UNANSWERED QUESTION: Which group has the higher death rate- cops in high-speed pursuits or the innocent civilians they crash into?
- There's lies, damn lies, and statistics: When they try to tell you that cops have a dangerous job, look at the source of the claim, and the basis for comparison
"Based on the index of relative risk in the chart, truckdriver is not the most dangerous occupation. This distinction belongs to fishers. Commercial fishers are about four times as likely as truckdrivers to be killed by a fatal work incident. Using this method of analysis, one could in fact identify even more dangerous occupations like elephant trainers who in some years have had 2 work fatalities. Based on employment figures of about 600 known elephant trainers in the United States, this would produce a fatality rate of 333 per 100,000 workers and a relative risk that is 68 times greater than for the typical worker. Clearly, in this analysis an elephant trainer has the highest risk of a fatal work injury even though the frequency is low or nonexistent in some years. The purpose of this example is to illustrate the importance of viewing frequency counts, fatality rates, and indexes of relative risk to discern dangerous jobs."
- "In a moving gathering of the clan, some 2,000 law enforcement officers from all over California came to San Francisco yesterday to say goodbye to Police Captain George Stasko."
"Stasko was killed when his car hit a tree early Saturday as he drove home. While it is unclear whether he wore a seat belt, the impact of the crash was so great that it wouldn't have mattered, said CHP Officer Wayne Ziese. It will be about three weeks before the results of Stasko's toxicology tests are known."
- "One thousand police officers from throughout California gathered at a well-publicized memorial service to salute to two San Francisco comrades whose helicopter plunged to earth."
"The two crashed as they were returning from a routine maintenance session. ``They were like a giant firefly, leading the way for our troops on the ground,'' says San Francisco Police Chief. "The patches on the mourners' shoulders read like an atlas of the Bay Area and the state. Officers came from Pacifica, Petaluma, Fremont, Novato, Clayton and Burbank. There were mounted police units from Modesto and Vallejo, in addition to six San Francisco mounted officers. There were prison guards, jailers, airport police, park rangers and BART cops."
RELATED STORY
- Robbers take advantage of massive police memorial service, hit 6 banks while cops schmooze
- Actual FBI data reflecting number of cops killed
Many entities, (including so-called "benevolent" organizations devoted to police fundraising), don't utilize the official FBI statistics. Instead, they use figures which, in comparison with those promulgated by the federal government, appear to be wildly inflated. For example, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, ("NLEOMF"), claims that 192 officers died in 1989. The FBI, on the other hand, states that only 66 officers were killed in that year. Perhaps the NLEOMF's figures includes officers who choked to death while eating donuts. Whether this satirical supposition is accurate or not, it would seem repulsive for any fund-raising entity to inflate the number of cops who die honorably in the line of duty in order to capitalize on the public's sympathy for such cops. To do so would demean officers and citizens alike.
- Fewer and fewer officers are killed- statistics reflect a steep and steady decline in police deaths since 1972
Our thanks to “Maryland Speedster” for the excellent artwork.
