Use of deadly force by sheriff's deputies in US counties is on the rise

Lina PortmanMay 25, 2024

0 5 minutes read

A CBS News investigation details the increasing rate of deadly force used by sheriff's deputies across the United States. According to the report, county sheriff's offices are three times more deadly than municipal police departments.

A San Diego County sheriff's deputy holds a “less lethal” weapon during an anti-genocide protest at UC San Diego, Monday, May 6, 2024. [AP Photo/Denis Poroy]

Last year saw the highest number of people killed by police in the last 10 years, with 1,247 people killed in 2023. It was the tenth consecutive year in which more than 1,000 people were killed by the police, which is probably an underestimate. Law enforcement is required to report any use of deadly force, but a Government Accountability Office report found that at least 70% of states failed to meet reporting requirements in 2021. A study by The Lancet found that in Oklahoma, 84 percent of deaths in police custody went unreported.

Urban areas often attract media attention, but a steady increase in murders in rural areas at the hands of county sheriff's deputies has played a significant role in the increase in police killings over the past decade . The report shows that county deputies are significantly, and increasingly, deadlier than police departments at a rate per 100,000 arrests made, with police departments killing 9.7 per 100,000 arrests in 2022, up from 27 .3 per 100,000 by the county sheriff's department.

And the death rate has increased. In 2013, the fatality rate per 100,000 arrests by county deputies was 13.4. At its peak in 2021, the rate was 30.8 murders per 100,000 people.

CBS News noted that this is largely due to an increase in rural police killings in states like Wyoming and New Mexico, where county deputies are often responsible for large areas and sometimes take on law enforcement responsibilities. local police that close in small towns.

The lack of oversight and accountability of the county sheriff's department is a significant issue highlighted in the report. He cites a particular incident in which McCurtin County, Oklahoma Sheriff Kevin Clardy was caught on audio tape from March 2023 speaking with county leaders about the killing and disposal of bodies of two local journalists who were reporting on corruption in his office.

Despite a public scandal over corruption and the audio tape, with even Governor Kevin Stitt calling for Clardy's resignation, the sheriff remained in office. Although sheriffs are elected officials, ostensibly accountable to the public and subject to removal, they are rarely removed from office, and candidates often run unopposed and can remain in office for decades.

It's also rare for the federal government to step in to accuse county sheriff's deputies of misconduct. CBS reports that since 1994, the Justice Department has filed only seven complaints against sheriff's offices for “classic or practical” civil rights violations. No complaints were filed under the Trump administration, and the Biden administration only filed one.

Even if law enforcement properly reports deadly force, it is incredibly rare for officers to face consequences for their actions. According to Mapping Police Violence, officers were charged with a crime in just 10 cases last year, or less than 1 percent of police killings. Some killings resulted from an immediate threat to officers or civilians, but in the majority of reported cases, a person was killed during a traffic stop or an alleged nonviolent offense.

Media and academic coverage of police violence is often hyper-obsessed with the racial component of police violence. They draw attention to the disparities between each racial group's share of police shooting deaths and their share of the overall population without delving into the broader social issues at play.

There is certainly racial bias in policing. Police departments actively recruit from the most backward and right-wing strata of society and have a history of ties to fascist and racist organizations like the Klu Klux Klan.

But police violence cannot be explained in purely racial terms or on an arbitrary spatial scale. White people make up the majority of victims of police violence, and the increase in homicides by sheriff's deputies reflects an increase in police violence in rural areas, areas of the United States where residents are predominantly white. .

Police killings in urban areas declined slightly, with the decline more than offset by an increase in rural areas. These increases are most clearly evident in the increasing police homicide rate in Western states with the highest police homicide rates, such as New Mexico, Alaska, Colorado, and Wyoming. as well as in other rural states, such as Oklahoma and West Virginia.

In most of these states, the rate of police homicides per 1 million residents is highest among the black population, but this rate is not always the best indicator. In New Mexico, there have been 25.2 police killings of black people per 1 million residents, compared to 7.5 for white people since 2013, but black victims accounted for only 4% of police killings in the state. State. In Wyoming, the rate of black victims is 37.1 per million, but represents only 2 of the 39 people killed in the last 10 years.

Such numbers take into account the demographics of a state as a whole, even when killings may be localized or subject to broader geographic trends.

When we look at murders committed by county deputies, we see a clear propensity for white victims in rural areas. Since 2013, there have been at least 3,841 killings committed by deputies, about a quarter of total police killings in the United States and likely an underestimated figure. White victims were the majority with 2,071 deaths, or about 54 percent. Black Americans make up the second highest share at 17 percent, and Hispanics are third at 13 percent.

These figures demonstrate the importance in geography when examining demographic data. According to Mapping Police Violence data since 2013, there have been 1,067 black victims in urban areas, 1,179 in suburban areas and 267 in rural areas. As a percentage of the total, this represents 33, 36 and 8 percent respectively. For white victims, the geographic distribution is 698 urban, 2,233 suburban and 1,448 rural, or 12, 40 and 26 percent respectively.

People of black, Asian and Hispanic origin are more likely to be killed in urban or suburban areas. While people of White, Pacific Islander, Native American, and undetermined racial origin are more likely to be killed in rural and suburban areas. This means people are more likely to be killed by police in the areas where they live.

Fundamentally, class, not race, is the primary driver of police violence. Based on U.S. Census data for census tracts in which police killings occur, compared to census tracts in which they do not occur, victims of police violence typically live in areas with lower poverty rates. higher, median household income is lower, food stamp and utility rates are higher. welfare use, higher rates of people without a high school diploma, and an increased proportion of people in working-class occupations.

Police violence is fundamentally the product of capitalist violence against the working class. It is the result of an increasingly militarized police system, prepared for decades to violently repress the working class at the first sign of opposition. This was demonstrated by the violent police crackdown on the George Floyd protests in 2020 and, more recently, the brutal attacks on anti-genocide protesters on college campuses across the country.

The official narrative – that police violence is a purely racial problem that could be solved with more black police chiefs and officers and better training – crumbles under scrutiny and is exposed as an attempt to divide the working class. The police are an instrument of class domination and cannot be reformed to murder fewer people. They, along with the entire capitalist system, must be abolished and replaced with a socialist system based on human needs, not private profit.

Lina Portman

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