Last year, American police killed between 1,200 and 1,300 people, depending on which database one looks at. Compare that to two people shot in the last decade by Scottish police.
There are some obvious differences between the United States and the Scotland. For instance, the U.S. has a far larger population of more than 300 million people — and nearly as many guns in circulation, Sky News points out. While police in the United Kingdom are generally unarmed, American police are.
Still, many of the people killed by police last year were unarmed, Sky News reports, while some were armed with objects like knifes or rocks. In an effort to seek a resolution to the issue of lethal force, American police visited Scottish officers to see what they could learn.
Chuck Wexler, a former hostage negotiator for the Boston Police Department, explained how American police would likely respond when dealing with someone holding a rock.
“You’re going to kill someone for throwing a rock. That’s what you’re gonna do,” Wexler explained. “How would society over here think about you shooting someone with a rock? They would not accept it.”
Via American police ask Scottish cops to teach them how to stop killing people @ Raw Story.