Australians Shocked by U.S. Killing: ‘It Would Have Never Happened Here’
“You stand and look at this peaceful place,” he said, “and you think — it would have never happened here.”
All across Australia this week, similar sentiments were bursting into public view as the struggles over American
policing — well known to so many in the United States — suddenly hit home for a country half a world away.
Specifically, the number of people killed this year by the police in the United States is about five times the 105 killed by the police in Australia from 1989 through 2011, according to an extensive government study
that is more comprehensive than anything compiled by law enforcement officials in the United States, where police departments are not necessarily required to report fatal shootings to any central authority.
Put another way, about four people are fatally shot by the Australian police each year, or one per six million people; in the United States, it is about one in 333,000, and
that disparity is integral to the sense of bewilderment and fury in Australia.
As a result, while this is a country where guns are deeply tied to history — where police officers have carried guns since the First Fleet from England arrived — there is little tolerance for the American idea
that possession of guns should be treated more as a right than a threat.
“To use a gun might be overkill, but you had no choice because the baton wasn’t going to be sufficient,
and the handcuffs were only once they were restrained.”
Many American police forces have also put Tasers and pepper spray in the hands of officers
and have added training to help officers better assess threats and de-escalate potentially violent situations.