Heather Mac Donald doesn’t add any new details to the NYPD shooting, but she has some excellent background and analysis.

Some data for the “cops have tons of power, they misuse it all the time and you can’t prosecute them” crowd:

“The instances of an [NYPD] officer shooting an innocent, unarmed victim are so unusual that they can be counted on one’s fingers. Last year, of the nine suspects fatally shot by the police, two had just fired at a police officer, three were getting ready to fire, two had tried to stab an officer, and two were physically attacking an officer. Far more frequent are the times when the NYPD refrains from using force though clearly authorized to do so. So far this year, officers have been fired upon four times, without returning fire. In 2005, there were five such incidents. And the NYPD apprehended 3,428 armed felons this year, 15 percent more than last year. Each arrest of a gun-toting thug involves the potential for the use of deadly force, yet is almost always carried out peacefully.”The Department has dramatically driven down the rate of all police shootings—justified and not—over the decades (in 1973, there were 1.82 fatal police shootings per 1,000 officers; in 2005, there were 0.25 such shootings per 1,000 officers, bringing the absolute number of police shootings down from 54 in 1973 to nine in 2005). The NYPD’s per capita rate of shootings is lower than [that of] many big city departments.

…

“It may turn out that the officers failed to follow departmental procedures during the incident (though the NYPD’s rule against firing at cars that are trying to run an officer over seems highly unrealistic). If so, the city will hold them accountable. The criminal justice system may even find them criminally liable.”

The one thing I don’t think she argues well the last two sentences’ assertion, restated this way later:

“The NYPD and the criminal justice system investigate every police shooting with profound seriousness; they will not rest until the facts are uncovered and justice done.”

That’s not to say I disbelieve her; recently I argued the notion that “the law makes it difficult to prosecute cops” is misguided.

(I think aforementioned statistics give further evidence of my argument — if police shootings are this rare, it’s logical to think that the overwhelming majority of the ones that do happen are justified. So the lack of convicted cops indicates innocence, not escape from justice.)

Still, it is hard to convict a cop for practical reasons, not the least of which is that governments tend to trust the officers they hire and have trouble investigating themselves. I wish she’d given some facts and statistics to support this, rather than just asserting NY’s PD and criminal justice system are capable of vigorous self-critique.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.