Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen

It turns out that police killings are more than twice what the official statistics report.

This is not a surprise.  It is law enforcement that reports and collects the numbers: 

In 2019, the FBI claimed to be compiling the first-ever database of police use of force, including killings of citizens by officers. It was, of course, not the first-ever database of police killings. Multiple databases have been created (some abandoned) prior to this self-congratulatory announcement to track killings by police officers.

What this database would have, however, is information on use of force, which most private databases didn't track. Whether or not it actually does contain this info is difficult to assess, since the FBI's effort does not compile these reports in any easily-accessible manner, nor does it provide readable breakdowns of the data -- something it does for other things, like crimes against police officers.

It also does not have the participation of every law enforcement agency in the nation, which prevents the FBI from collecting all relevant information. It's also voluntary, so even participating agencies are free to withhold incident reports, keeping their own official use-of-force/killing numbers lower than what they actually may be.

………

A recent study published by The Lancet says the official numbers are wrong. And they're off by a lot. Utilizing outside databases compiled by private citizens/entities and data obtained from the USA National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), the researchers have reached the conclusion that law enforcement self-reporting has resulted in undercounting the number of killings by officers by thousands over the past four decades.

We found that more than half of all deaths due to police violence that we estimated in the USA from 1980 to 2018 were unreported in the NVSS. Compounding this, we found substantial differences in the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence over time and by racial and ethnic groups within the USA.

So basically, the FBI report is a lie on any number of levels.

According to this study [PDF], the NVSS did not report 55% of deaths attributable to police violence, resulting in an undercount of ~17,000 deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers. There are a lot of contributing factors, not the least of which is law enforcement's hesitancy to report or provide data on their own possible wrongdoing.

But there are other contributors. Misclassification of deaths often starts in the coroner's office. Some coroners and forensic examiners work hand-in-hand with local law enforcement, resulting in pressure to define cause of death as something unrelated to force applied by officers. One way to fix this ongoing contributor to underreporting is to protect coroners and examiners from other government agencies.

Coroners and forensic medical experts also propose that to avoid incorrect assignment of cause of death due to pressure from the police, politicians, or the deceased family members, forensic pathologists should work independently from law enforcement. Additionally, forensic pathologists often must investigate and testify in cases of police violence. To ensure that pathologists are free from pressures that could influence these cases, pathologists should be awarded whistleblower protections under the law.

And the problem is compounded throughout the whole criminal justice apparatus.

Eliminate qualified immunity.  Make police officers carry their own liability insurance, and allow the insurers to review their personnel files.

Insurance companies do a good job of spotting high risk individuals.

Also, ban moonlighting by cops, reduce overtime, and institute mandatory (paid) counseling fore every cop.

When cops put in 55 hours a week on the job, and 20 hours a week doing a security gig, they are fatigued and more likely to make tragic mistakes.

As to counseling, when every cop has to talk with a therapist, there is no longer a stigma associated with doing so, and perhaps it will help with PTSD issues that are endemic in law enforcement.