The Detroit Police Department is systematically undercounting homicides, leading to a falsely low murder rate in a city that regularly ranks among the nation's deadliest, a Detroit News review of police and medical examiner records shows. [More]So Detroit "Only Ones" are no better than the rest of that hellhole's government? Imagine that.
And they're trying to make it appear safer than it is. I wonder why?
Y'know, they've been doing commercials here to attract tourism to Detroit, and I just have to laugh every time they come on. You couldn't pay me...
[Via William T]
Why does this sound familiar??? Oh yeah, across the pond in Brady Paradise they were doing the same thing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079927/Violent-crime-22-Home-Office-admits-police-recording-offences-years.html
The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program defines murder as the willful killing of one human being by another. The classification is based on police investigation and not that of a court, prosecutor's office, medical examiner or jury. The category does not include deaths by suicide, accident or justifiable homicides. But a justifiable homicide, according to the bureau, is limited to the killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty and the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a citizen."
ReplyDelete....
But FBI guidelines state: "Reporting agencies should take care to ensure that they do not classify a killing as justifiable solely on the claims of self-defense or on the action of ... prosecutors" and that "agencies must report the willful killing of one individual by another, not the criminal liability of the person or persons involved.
"It is very, very clear in the language," Worthy said. "Lawful self-defense is still a homicide and it still has to be counted as a homicide and it still has to be reported to the FBI."
As a matter of policy, the other top cities for murder Houston (294), Chicago (510), Philadelphia (331), Los Angeles (384), New York (523) and Baltimore (234) claim that they use the medical examiner's numbers.
"The presumption of police reporting that someone did not die of a murder because he was killed in self-defense is not correct," said Lee Baca, the Los Angeles County Sheriff.
The system of crime reporting works on the honor system. "The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program is a cooperative statistical effort that relies on the good-faith reporting of thousands of law enforcement agencies across the nation," according to a statement from the FBI.
Color me confused, but is sounds like _justifiable_ homicide is counted as _murder_ in some places. WTF???