Itchy Trigger-Fingers in DC

[HyperReal-Anon <nobody@sind.hyperreal.art.pl>]

D.C. police top list of fatal
                  shootings 

                  'We shoot too often' 

                  November 15, 1998
                  Web posted at: 8:54 p.m. EST (0154 GMT) 

                  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police in the
                  nation's capital fire their weapons at a rate
                  more than double those in New York, Los
                  Angeles, Chicago or Miami and kill a higher proportion of people than
                  comparable police forces elsewhere in the country. 

                  An investigation by The Washington Post showed that throughout the 1990s,
                  more people were killed by District of Columbia police officers per resident
                  than in any other large American city. 

                  "We shoot too often, and we shoot too much when we do shoot," Terrance
                  W. Gainer, the executive assistant police chief, told the newspaper. 

                  In the last five years, the Post said, Washington's officers fatally shot 57
                  people, three more than police in Chicago, where the police force is three
                  times as large and the population is five times larger. 

                  Deaths and injuries from police shootings have resulted in almost $8 million
                  in court settlements and judgments against the district in the last six months,
                  the report said. 

                  "The spate of police shootings in the district this decade is closely tied to the
                  training and supervision of officers and the way the department investigates
                  cases and holds officers accountable," the newspaper said. 

                  It said police shootings began to rise at the same time the department added
                  a large number of new, ill-prepared recruits and adopted the light-trigger,
                  highly advanced Glock 9 mm handgun as the department's service weapon. 

                  On the other side of the coin, eight district police officers were slain in
                  Washington from 1990 to 1997, a number the Post said was surpassed in
                  only a half-dozen other U.S. cities, each much bigger than the district. 

                  After meeting last week with Post reporters to discuss their findings, Police
                  Chief Charles Ramsey, who took office this year, tightened the department's
                  policy on using force. 

                  He also announced that in January, the department will begin additional
                  training for all officers in firearms and alternatives to the use of deadly force. 

                     Copyright 1998   The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
                   material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.