Here is some context I left out of my column on police use of lethal force and its intersection with mental illness and drug addiction last week because I didn’t have enough space.

Police in Minnesota have killed over 160 people since 1995, with an uptick in the last 10 years. Only two officers have faced charges, Jeronimo Yanez (charged with manslaughter in the death of Philando Castile; acquitted) and Mohamed Noor (charged with third degree murder and second degree manslaughter in the death of Justine Ruszczyk, trial in April 2019). Like I said earlier, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will recommend no charges for officers when they take the ultimate measure of ending a human life.

In 2016, Minnesota police killed 13 people, the highest number in one year. That same year, though, Minnesota’s violent crime rate hit a 50-year low, dropping in half from what it had been some years in the 1980s and 1990s.

Germany has a population 15 times larger than Minnesota’s, yet German police kill about the same number of people that police in Minnesota do.

For all of these reasons, it’s important to take an expansive look at how to reduce these deaths in Minnesota, and not accept them as normal.

In response to Brad Kramer’s letter last week, to insinuate it’s not legitimate to question police work if you don’t have a law enforcement background or because it’s “unfair to all” is not how power and authority are meant to function in our form of government. Those with power accept accountability and transparency. And if that is lacking, it opens the door for corruption and abuse of power, which certainly doesn’t build public trust. The freedom to ask questions, get answers, and push for better outcomes separates our form of government from authoritarianism.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

Albert Lea