Comment by bdcravens
11 years ago
I was originally address joesmo's comment: "being a police officer is not even a very dangerous job"
And I apologize if my words suggested a dig at you - I was still addressing the idea that it's a safe pedestrian job filled with intentional racists. I really was speaking to the general HN'er, rather than you specifically. I think you'll agree that there is a lot of armchair activists who have never seen a battle field, or a bullet wound, and whose opinions are shaped more by Twitter and emojis than reality.
It really isn't a particularly dangerous job, regardless of the opinions of social media users. For instance, doing the research you suggested isn't feasible, because no Chicago police officers have been killed AT ALL since 2011.
A brief record search indicates approximately 440 Chicago PD officers died in the entire 20th century -- remarkably similar to the number of murder victims in the city per annum among the general population.
Police officers need training, and they need public support, and they need good leadership and a healthy government to support and oversee them -- but they don't need breathless hyperbole that justifies warfare-grade equipment loadout.