Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [police]

A publicly funded organization charged with keeping the law and peace within a certain geographic area.

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Can 1 in 1,000 black men expect to be killed over the course of their lifetime by the police?

In Last Week Tonight of June 8th, 2020, John Oliver mentions that 1 in 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by the police. At 5:05 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4cea5oObY I have tracked the source to Edwards, Lee & Esposito, 2019, "Risk of…
nautilus
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Are these 'French children held at gun point'?

I've come across this post on facebook several times now. The video shows a group of young people kneeling on the ground with police around them. The text attached is as follows: School children in France held at gun-point for peacefully protesting…
Lio Elbammalf
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Did Trump order tear gas to be used on protesters to clear a pathway to a church for a photoshot?

There are dozens of articles out there like this one which states that Trump ordered the use of tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters so he could do a photoshoot. However I recently read that reporter Neal Augenstein (whom I am otherwise…
Levi C. Olson
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Did Martin Gugino, 75, who was injured at the Buffalo, NY protest, provoke the police?

Today on Twitter, Trump has made a claim that a 75-year old man previously filmed being pushed and falling to the pavement by police might be an ANTIFA provocateur. Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old…
Zibbobz
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Are one-third of Americans 'killed by strangers' killed by police?

According to Granta - Violence in Blue, One-third of all Americans killed by strangers are killed by police. Is this true?
Simd
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Did a raid by a SWAT team from Joe Arpaio's office end with a house on fire and deputies laughing as a dog burned in it?

I've seen references to the article Dog Day Afternoon (Phoenix New Times, August 2004) in a few places around the internet. It tells a story of: An incompetent SWAT team under Arpaio's jurisdiction (unprepared and damaged property) Repeatedly…
SCB
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Was Andrew Tate raided by police because of a pizza box revealing that he is in Romania?

After the arrest of controversial internet personality Andrew Tate on December 29th 2022 it has been claimed in multiple highly viral posts (example on Reddit) that the arrest was made possible because in a video he created during an online spat a…
Haris
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Is the number of complaints filed a good measure of how abusive a police officer or department is?

Derek Chauvin had 17 complaints on record when he killed George Floyd. I have seen many articles, including this NYT article, which use this statistic as evidence that the whole department is corrupt. I don't discount that possibility, but it…
Ryan_L
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Does the United States have more tax preparers than police and firefighters combined?

According to The Economist (May 13th, 2017, print edition, webpage), America has more tax preparers—over 1m, according to a project at George Washington University—than it has police and firefighters combined. Is this true?
user17967
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Are white and non-white police officers equally likely to kill black suspects?

Well, that's the conclusion of a 2018 US study, as reported in the press: "White officers do not kill black suspects at a higher rate compared with nonwhite officers," concludes a research team led by Charles Menifield, dean of the School of Public…
Fizz
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Are African Americans victims of a disproportionate number of police killings?

Many people are currently arguing that African Americans are being killed by police disproportionately to their percentage of the US population. An example of the claim is given at Mapping Police Violence: Unarmed black people were killed at 5x the…
dsollen
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Did the NYPD use an ambulance to trick protesters into cooperating?

I saw this tumblr post (with over 50,000 notes, so it's notable), which says: Tonight the NYPD tricked protesters into helping them by driving empty ambulances through the crowd. We thought they were transporting real sick people and let them…
ike
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Is saying "du" to a police officer illegal in Germany?

A very popular YouTuber called Bharat in Germany recently made a video where it says that it is illegal in Germany to address a police officer informally, that is, using the informal pronoun du rather than the more reverential Sie. And if one does…
Reine Abstraktion
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Did a cop get fired after stopping police abuse?

From https://twitter.com/PolicePoliceACP/status/546020531665772544 (1754 retweets, 705 favorites) Cop Stops Cop From Choking a Handcuffed Man, She Was Then Beaten/Fired Read more >> http://bit.ly/1DQqUAT #PolTwt This cop [Officer Carol Horne]…
Andrew Grimm
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Did a police officer hand back a weapon after disarming a criminal because of bad habits learned in training?

Kyle Eggimann writes on his blog LuckyGunnar in an article titled "Muscle Memory: Combat-Proven Self-Defense Training Tips": One very important thing to remember is that while muscle memory can save your life in a defensive shooting situation, it…
Christian
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