Police Shootings in Los Angeles

While on a recent business trip to Los Angeles I read your editorial that discussed the issue of the use of deadly force by police officers. In it you cited data about the differences in fatal police shootings between the Los Angeles Police Department and their counterpart in New York City. The statistics disclose that between 1975-1983 “the LAPD was twice as likely to use deadly force as the NYPD.” However, the study you cited only counted suspect deaths by police gunfire, not the number of incidents where police officers fired their weapons at suspects. Because police bullets can miss, wound or kill, using citizen fatalities as a unit of analysis in the study of police shootings is less than optimal. The best indicator would be shots fired, not fatalities.

While I do not know what an examination of the total number of shootings for the years in question would disclose, existing data sources indicate that the primary reason that LAPD officers kill more suspects than do NYPD officers is that they are much more likely to hit their intended target when they fire their guns. The 1979 Los Angeles Police Commission report indicates that LAPD bullets hit their intended target approximately twice as often as do shots fired by New York officers. If this trend continued, the fact that LAPD officers hit what they aim at more frequently would explain why they kill more frequently. Thus, it would appear that LAPD officers are simply more competent at defending their lives in violent encounters with suspects, not more likely to shoot.

DAVID A. KLINGER

Seattle, Wash.