Philip M. Stinson Case Analysis
ALBUQUERQUE — The 911 call to the Albuquerque police on March 16, 2014, sounded routine: A man had been illegally camping in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, just 100 yards from the caller’s backyard. Could an officer come by and take him away? But the man refused to comply.
Officers arrived in waves, a handful at first, then more of them, bringing stun guns on their belts, rifles on their shoulders and dogs by their leashes. The man, James Boyd, seemed angry, incoherent. He was wielding two knives, and when officers ordered him to drop them, Mr. Boyd bellowed, “Don’t attempt to give me, the Department of Defense, another directive.”
Four hours into the standoff, two police officers fired six shots at Mr. Boyd, hitting him in the back …show more content…
Boyd was white; the officers who shot him were white and Hispanic.
About 1,000 times a year, an on-duty police officer shoots and kills somebody in the United States, according to an analysis by Philip M. Stinson, an associate professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, using numbers from the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The vast majority of the shootings were deemed justified: Since 2005, when Dr. Stinson began his analysis, only 75 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter. Of those, 26 were convicted.
“These used to be local stories, quite often,” Dr. Stinson said. “Now, these cases are making national and international headlines, and people from all walks of life are paying close attention.”
One reason is video, which has transformed average citizens into arbiters and participants as they watch the action as it unfolds, unfiltered, on their cellphones and laptop screens.
In the case of Mr. Boyd, it was video footage captured by a resident and by cameras worn by officers that showed portions of the encounter — and the shooting itself. An officer’s body camera registered more than two hours of the confrontation, including the many attempts to get Mr. Boyd to
Officers arrived in waves, a handful at first, then more of them, bringing stun guns on their belts, rifles on their shoulders and dogs by their leashes. The man, James Boyd, seemed angry, incoherent. He was wielding two knives, and when officers ordered him to drop them, Mr. Boyd bellowed, “Don’t attempt to give me, the Department of Defense, another directive.”
Four hours into the standoff, two police officers fired six shots at Mr. Boyd, hitting him in the back …show more content…
Boyd was white; the officers who shot him were white and Hispanic.
About 1,000 times a year, an on-duty police officer shoots and kills somebody in the United States, according to an analysis by Philip M. Stinson, an associate professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, using numbers from the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The vast majority of the shootings were deemed justified: Since 2005, when Dr. Stinson began his analysis, only 75 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter. Of those, 26 were convicted.
“These used to be local stories, quite often,” Dr. Stinson said. “Now, these cases are making national and international headlines, and people from all walks of life are paying close attention.”
One reason is video, which has transformed average citizens into arbiters and participants as they watch the action as it unfolds, unfiltered, on their cellphones and laptop screens.
In the case of Mr. Boyd, it was video footage captured by a resident and by cameras worn by officers that showed portions of the encounter — and the shooting itself. An officer’s body camera registered more than two hours of the confrontation, including the many attempts to get Mr. Boyd to