Police and Unjustified Murders

[Sheps 0]

Ok so this might no be in recent news of the sort, but i wanted to bring it up.

I'd like to know what you guys think about Law Enforcement murders, and the fact that the officers who put an end to innocent peoples lives never serve the full face of the law, infact they get lesser sentences for murder then someone would for driving violations.

Just to give you a few examples:

Sean bell, most people have probably heard of this, plain clothes  officers drew weapons on Bells car, Bell attempted to drive off he hit an officer, then hit a van, at which point the officers opened fire on his car, can i just say, at no point in time have there been reports the police officers did anything to identify themselves, other then the lies of a man who was obviously payed, who corroborated the officers stories, but contradict every other witnesses.

Or the murder of Jean-Charles de Menezes, which has intrigued me recently as to the story, which i thought was that they chased him through the subway in his clunky clothing and shot him was a complete fabrication by the metropolitan police.

And that actually he boarded the train, with about 3 or 4 plain clothes officers monitoring him, one challenged him in some form of way, Jean got up and was pushed down and held by a plain clothes officer, at which point jean was shot in the shoulder i believe by another officer, the officer who was holding him down was dragged off and Jean was executed in cold blood with 7 shots to the head. Again not one officer has faced the full justice of the law.

Or just to wrap it up, the story of Ousmane Zongo, who was working at a warehouse where he repaired musical instruments, the warehouse itself was under investigation of for DVD and CD pirating, anyway Zongo came into contact with an undercover officer who was diguised as a postman, a chase ensued for a reason not yet released, Zongo was corned in a dead end alley and murdered by the officer, who not once identified himself according to reports, who shot at him 4 times, hitting him twice in the back, killing him.

Everything these cases have in common that these were cold blooded murders and not one of the officers has served jail time. Sure you might argue "you don't know what its like in that situation" or the sorts, but at the end of the day, if that were a civilian, murder is murder and they would have been sent to the dogs, why should officers be allowed murder people UNARMED people on the street and get away with it.

In all honesty, its disgusting that police officers are able to beat people and harass people for no reason other then a suspicion let alone murder people.

I know there are alot worse places in the world (Brazil being one of the most prominent for police murdering people) but being under a stable government its worrying to see the increase in police brutality on all kinds of people (no doubt it was worse 100 years ago, but thats not the point)

I mean, i'm suppose to be moving to America something this year with my Wife, and after all the incidents you see on the TV and all over the Internet with American police pretty much harassing people, im crapping myself. I mean here in England i haven't had too many run ins with the police but they seem to be smart people who are capable of empathy, on my journeys to America, every run in with the Law Enforcement has been a very bitter and annoying affair, just being a normal hard working civilian and the hassle i was given was not needed.

Anyway going off topic there! Discuss

[-Snafu- 78]

I don't think you have to fear anything from the Police. If I was moving to the USA I would watch out for the civillians seeing as they can carry firearms. Just watch where you go. I'm not saying to walk around and have to watch your back all the time. I've been to the USA a couple times and the thought of the armed populace never crossed my mine. Just stay out the dodgy areas like you would in England.

The Menezes shooting was tragic and it's disgraceful the officers have not been punished for the crime. I do not entirely blame them. This was right after July 7th and the pressure is on for the Police to catch these terrorists and stop further attacks. Especially now that we see that there was an attack planned for later in July. But the public don't know the full story. Were they even Police? Maybe they were MI5? Very few people know what actually happened that day.

[shinRaiden 0]

If you believe everything you see on TV, and assume that that statistically reflects reality, then come on over, you'll fit right in with all the rest of the residents of the state of Loonyville.

It's one of the reasons why TSG is so refreshing, they publish the ACTUAL FACTS - ie the police reports and paperwork that the media finds boring.

Sure there's stuff that can be improved in society, but the 'great thinkers' who presumed that utopian parks are inherently probable also were high on mind-altering substances and often mentally ill to boot.

The biggest difference you'll find here is that instead of state-mandated selective memory like the old countries, you have the liberty to choose your own flavor of selective-memory and observation.

[chops 111]

Here in this little corner of the world, Melbourne Australia, there have been more people shot by police than the rest of the country put together. I remember a few years ago there was a nutcase smashing an ATM with a hammer, he was shot because he didn't put down the hammer.

In Sydney a Frenchman was shot on the beach, by police who were still effected by cocaine from the night before.

Most of this goes by without much public uproar, as there all criminals anyway, so who gives a shit?

Even at the last Australian Open tennis tournament, the police used pepper spray on spectators who were being too noisy.

I spent several months in England and was impressed with the general professionalism of the police there. I guess without guns, they have to use their brains a bit more.

[Sheps 0]

Believe me i don't believe every thing i see on TV (actually theres a TV show over here on Bravo that was dedicated to showing cops being a-holes)

Theres a difference between believing something a Fox newscaster tells you, and seeing a cop beat the crap out of a man who posed no immediate threat.

Melbourne sounds like.... well not a very nice place lol, damn i'd never heard of any of those situations.

Considering I'm in the 1% of people in my city that aren't white, the police have been pretty good considering a lot of the residents are scummy racists, almost expected the cops to be the same, but they seem to be quite intelligent and a lot of my mates have been doing public service courses at college and uni for about 3 years now tying to become officers.

The main thing that put me off of American cops,wasn't the videos of them going apeshit or anything, but the customs agents when i was in Atlanta Airport trying to catch a connecting flight to michigan, and got treated like a criminal when they decided i might not want to go back home and pretty much all the evidence i gave them to prove my story they told me i could have typed it myself and other foolish crap.

Not to mention the fact that in America cops are more like babysitters, i mean here, i get into a fight with a guy, we scrap it out then go our separate ways, in America it seems the cops would be called, or hell, someone told someone else to "f*** off" and someone would call the cops.

The residents i've met are incredibly nice, in comparison, I don't think i bumped into one stranger that didn't give me a smile and say hello, which was weird as hell.

[milobr 0]

What happened to Jean-Charles de Menezes of course gained a lot of attention by the brazilian media. It's a sad story to say the least. And not, this case wasn't overtaken by the media as the investigation was conducted by Scotland Yard itself.

Murders by the police in Brazil is a very misunderstood fact. It does not happens as seen in the news - it happens as much as any other country. If you see how things work in favelas you'd have an idea - works pretty much like in Iraq. For example, the population remove any evidence (fireweapons, drugs) a killed drug dealer may have and claim him to be a civilian who was just standing there and was shot by the evil policeman.

And we have units like BOPE (have you seen Elite Squad yet?) which make use of deadly force very often.

Of course there are situations of - I can't find any other word to explain this - complete evilness where murders are intentional or not even necessary.

And I prefer a drug dealer dead than a member of my family. Violence here is often necessary and I've seen by myself.

[Sheps 0]

The one video that comes to mind anytime i think of Brazil, is when the cops had a shoot out with these two guys in the middle of a busy road, and the cop drags the injured man behind a van, out of view of the cameramen and shoots him in the head.

Now i can quite rightly say that would never happen in England, and the same that the cop didn't even get told off let alone anything else.

I've heard of alot of the Brazilian anti-drug policemen or something like that, the dudes that have the helicopters and are armed to the teeth with heavy assault rifles and full body armour and generally go into the ghettos and pretty much declare war on the gangs (who are generally made up of kids no older then 24)

[baddo 0]

It's not too long ago when I watched a TV program in which 2 British police officers travelled to Chicago, USA, to see how the local police works there. They participated in the everyday operations the Chicago police was doing, and got to see closely the differences to their homeland. They also analyzed the differences between the police forces of the two countries.

A summary of what this particular program told me:

- In Britain, regular police are not given handguns expect in special situations. In USA they carry a handgun.

- In Britain the crooks usually don't carry handguns or even knives. In USA most of them carry a weapon of some sort most of the time.

- In USA drunk drivers are sometimes let go with a warning, but in Britain this could not happen according to the British police officers. Video footage on the program proved this actually happened in Chicago - the police were drug police and they were not that interested in a drunk driver, so they just warned him and let him go (the officers knew about the video recording).

In this same program the British police officers interviewed some sort of chief at the local police station. The chief gave a statement which doesn't sound too good to me - he said that his men are "aggressive" and thus good police officers. This is completely opposite to how the police officers are trained in my country: they are trained to remain calm and not to behave aggressively. I know it is an important part in their training because a police officer told me it certainly is. I have seen the Finnish police in an emergency situation, and they were acting calm and certainly not aggressive. And it certainly helped! They made people at the scene feel themselves safe and made them to calm down by being calm by themselves. They never raised their voice to a tone which could be taken as aggressive. This is how I believe that the police should behave in 99 % of the cases they have to deal with. The rest are then the "hard" criminals which need a gun pointed at their face until they understand to give up.

The police in Finland also carry handguns by the way. There are hard drug criminals here too, and I think that's what the police have their guns for. Only very rarely there are reports in our newspapers about shootings involving police.

Problem in USA might be that the crooks have lots of guns so the police need them to, and the bigger the gun the better. But is it an egg and a chicken type of problem? Which was first? And if we take the guns away from the other side, what the other side will then do with their guns? I'm afraid it's too late for that now.

I read about both the Sean Bell and Jean-Charles de Menezes cases when they happened. Both cases sound quite amazing... problem is that we actually have very little information of what actually happened. The Sean Bell case sounds, as reported by the CNN, like very bad behaviour from the police but Sean Bell wasn't actually helping as I have read.

One thing I don't quite understand. Why would you fire tens of rounds into a vehicle which is taking off? Is your imagination so limited that you can't come up with any other way to stop the vehicle, than to kill the passenger(s)? The police of course says that the vehicle is a deadly weapon too but I think in most of the cases when the police shoots a car full of bulletholes, it's bullshit that they really needed to do that.

[Necromancer- 0]

Problem in USA might be that the crooks have lots of guns so the police need them to, and the bigger the gun the better. But is it an egg and a chicken type of problem?

As you provided an example of the Finnish police do carry firearms.. I think it actually isn't an egg and a chicken type of problem.

Even Dutch police carry firearms with them and they were relatively rarely used. However recently they are allowed to pull their pistol (not fire) in case the suspect is resisting arrest.

We have specialised police-teams (usually ex-SF) which are meant to arrest suspects, which are known to be violent and/or use firearms and too dangerous for common police officers. As far as I know, such teams also exist in the UK.

Keep in mind that there are also methods of disabling a crook from a distance without the use of firearms (tazers, pepper spray etc..). They are relatively safe for the police officer and doesn't kill the suspect/crook.

[baddo 0]

Problem in USA might be that the crooks have lots of guns so the police need them to, and the bigger the gun the better. But is it an egg and a chicken type of problem?

As you provided an example of the Finnish police do carry firearms.. I think it actually isn't an egg and a chicken type of problem.

Even Dutch police carry firearms with them and they were relatively rarely used. However recently they are allowed to pull their pistol (not fire) in case the suspect is resisting arrest.

We have specialised police-teams (usually ex-SF) which are meant to arrest suspects, which are known to be violent and/or use firearms and too dangerous for common police officers. As far as I know, such teams also exist in the UK.

Keep in mind that there are also methods of disabling a crook from a distance without the use of firearms (tazers, pepper spray etc..). They are relatively safe for the police officer and doesn't kill the suspect/crook.

Tazers have killed many. But of course the Tazer manufacturer says it's safe to use, they want to get money by selling tazers.

Other thing: I believe if a group of people has weapons. And another group of people are going to fight against them. This another group is going to get weapons too. Because they know that they don't have a chance if they don't have weapons. This is common sense logic and there is no way around it I think. I meant with "egg and chicken problem" that which group had and used weapons first, and thus made the other group have weapons too. But I said also that I'm afraid it's too late to reverse this evolution in the USA. It is this evolution which they try to prevent from happening in the UK. And according to the British police officers of the TV program, it has worked pretty well, because as they said, their crooks usually don't have any weapons when they go arrest them. That will change if the police has weapons, is my bet.

[Sheps 0]

Alot of the time you hear about American police killing people its usually a one sided afair, i mean if a cop and a civilian shoot at each other, thats a shoot out and its pretty wide reported if that were the case.

In my honest opinion, i think American cops are trigger happy, the slightest problem and they have their gun drawn, i remember a while ago, this family was pulled over and they were mistaken to be someone else, anyway, the cops pulled them over, and walked over to them guns drawn, and had them all hands on head in a field, the guy warned them he had a dog, and the dog comes pouncing out of the car, as dogs do and he was just sniffing at the officers, it seemed the dog was hyper as most dogs are when they meet new people, anyway one cop had his shotgun drawn facing down, and the dog went to sniff it and the cop blew the poor dogs brains out.

Protect and serve right?? Cp[s om every country have been more like enforcers for the government, not once has a cop ever "protected" or "served" me, in most cases if you ask a cop for directions or help they tell you to go away because they are busy (according to my experiences)

I honestly believe if American cops were in better shape they wouldn't have to rely on guns to restrain their suspects.

[Messiah 2]

or even knives.

I assure you that a fair few families would care to disagree on that one.

[baddo 0]

or even knives.

I assure you that a fair few families would care to disagree on that one.

I was only talking about what I heard two British police officers saying. So it is their view, not mine. It is the best information I have about the subject.

Sheps, keep in mind not all police officers are rude. I think not in America even. In all the times I have met a police officer, there has not been any unfair behaviour. Only once did a police officer look angry and I think almost yelled at me, because I had broken a speed limit with ~30 km/h in a 50 km/h zone and he wasn't too happy about that (and I wasn't either when I payed the ~1200 FIM fine). But the other guy who gave me the ticket was very professional and didn't make any angry gestures. In all other cases in which I have seen the police, they were very professional and did not behave rudely or aggressively at all towards anyone.

So I have a very good opinion about the Finnish police, and I think it is very much because they have been specifically trained to behave well and remain calm. I have never met an arrogant police officer. They must exist sure in some amount here too, but they didn't come my way.

I think there might be big differences in police training between my country and the USA. But I can only speculate, I never met any US police officers but only saw videos and news on TV/Internet.

[Daniel 0]

I see the logic that bobbys in the UK without firearms reflects relatively low gun crime.

[milobr 0]

The one video that comes to mind anytime i think of Brazil, is when the cops had a shoot out with these two guys in the middle of a busy road, and the cop drags the injured man behind a van, out of view of the cameramen and shoots him in the head.

Now i can quite rightly say that would never happen in England, and the same that the cop didn't even get told off let alone anything else.

I've heard of alot of the Brazilian anti-drug policemen or something like that, the dudes that have the helicopters and are armed to the teeth with heavy assault rifles and full body armour and generally go into the ghettos and pretty much declare war on the gangs (who are generally made up of kids no older then 24)

That's true of course. The policemen were judged accordingly and that was.. what? 15 years ago? I can assure you Brazil has changed a lot since that happen. For example the state of Sao Paulo reduced it's criminality in 50% in the last 5 years. That's A LOT.

Of couse Brazil is still one of the most violent countries in the world. And yes, police go into the "ghettos" armed to their teeth with heavy assault rifles (G3, FAL, M4, etc) in special operations. I didn't mean to deny it. What I can assure you is that police actually murdering people is a theme that is taken wrong by the media and specially outside.

I can assure you that a 24 years old is a grow man. Also I can assure you that that's not where it ends. Mostly the drug dealers are kids from 13-17 years old. But I see no other alternative than using fire against fire. No matter if the guy firing at you is 14 years old. He's trying to kill you anyway. What would you do?

Take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMSfhV_UfgQ

I'm pretty sure that in England most of these things would never happen. Your history is very different from ours (yet we had much in common in the past - brazilian gold for example) and we're a big country with a lot of things to put an end to.

The problem is that much of our problems are residues of Portugal bad colonial administration and people just want us to solve our problems in a blink of eye. They say "Brazil is a bad country because of the lack of government aid, etc" but that's not true entirely. There are a LOT of reasons why we're like this now but we can clearly see the differences. Happily enough it's growing much more now and we can see the results. I just hope it keeps going that way though.

About Menezes: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/17/july7.menezes

I don't know if The Guardian is a trustful source. You brits tell me.

[cozza 24]

Melbourne sounds like.... well not a very nice place lol, damn i'd never heard of any of those situations.

Its a wonderfull place if u look past all the gangland killings and youth gangs now popping up. Didnt we have a biker gang war last year?.

That agent 166 who testified agaisnt the mob used to live in my town under police protection. Saw him get the shit beatin out of him one day at a supermarket lol.

i was caught drunk one night like 2 years ago. (I was under age lol).  So they cuffed me and stuck me in the back of a Divvy Van and drove offroad with me in the back. Hurt like hell too. Chucked in the back and they made me clean it out. Bastard, just becuase I'm spanish I rekon. and I was in St Albans HAHAHAHAHA

[Sheps 0]

About Menezes: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/17/july7.menezes

I don't know if The Guardian is a trustful source. You brits tell me.

Guardian is alot more trustful then the sun so yeah.

Thats what i was talking about in my first post, he was being restrained when he was shot in the shoulder, then as he lie on the floor in the pain, he was executed with 6 additional shots to the head.

I think the problem with Brazil is that the gangs have been allowed to grow and flourish, and they grew so fast because of what they were allowed to get away with. Not to mention the poverty they have to put up with.

And there ghettos there are real ghettos, not the crap you see here or in America, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the despair of the Brazilian people in the favelas seem to be alot more then ours here.

[milobr 0]

Yea, you could say the military period pretty much f'ked up the whole country.

That combined with the enormous growing up population of the period (in 1970 we had 90 million hab. and now we have about 185 million), bad administration and huge debts with the international banks.

Today we have aprox. 6 million people living in the ghettos in Brazil and yes they're huge. In Rio de Janeiro there are aprox. 1.8 million people living in the most various "favelas" (how we call them).

An UN report says that in 2020 Brazil will have 55 million people living in ghettos. I lol'd. Again you see the bad reputation that Brazil have outside and the mistakes that are very often made by UN Reports. That's just impossible. Still the UN have those reports gaining credibility despite the attempts of the government to correct them. Sad stuff.

[UNN 0]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if Police Officers, commit a disproportionate number of murders. Compared to the rest of the population?

If it's less than, then perhaps the majority are there for good reasons. Given we are talking on an international level and not regional\country.

[Sheps 0]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if Police Officers, commit a disproportionate number of murders. Compared to the rest of the population?

If it's less than, then perhaps the majority are there for good reasons. Given we are talking on an international level and not regional\country.

I drug dealer kills someone because they screwed him on a deal.

A soldier kills a man because thats his job, to kill the enemy

A cop kills someone.......

Cops are here to protect the people and enforce the law, emphasis on the word protect the day that a man whos main job is to protect people, ends up killing people who cause no threat, its a big deal.

Just as its a big deal if a Soldier, who has been trained to kill the enemy, ends up killing his own men.

I wouldn't dare run away in America, cause I'm pretty sure the law is enforced at the end of 9mm Glock, and if killing me means the law is upheld, im pretty sure they wouldn't mind.

[-Snafu- 78]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if Police Officers, commit a disproportionate number of murders. Compared to the rest of the population?

If it's less than, then perhaps the majority are there for good reasons. Given we are talking on an international level and not regional\country.

I drug dealer kills someone because they screwed him on a deal.

A soldier kills a man because thats his job, to kill the enemy

A cop kills someone.......

Cops are here to protect the people and enforce the law, emphasis on the word protect the day that a man whos main job is to protect people, ends up killing people who cause no threat, its a big deal.

Just as its a big deal if a Soldier, who has been trained to kill the enemy, ends up killing his own men.

I wouldn't dare run away in America, cause I'm pretty sure the law is enforced at the end of 9mm Glock, and if killing me means the law is upheld, im pretty sure they wouldn't mind.

Get your head out the Guardian. You seem to think all Police officers just kill people.

Police officers are people remember. They are not Robocop. They can mistakes in the heat of the moment. Sometimes armed police are needed to protect the people. Sometimes shooting a criminal is needed.

Has a police officer wronged you in some way? You seem to have appeared out of nowhere and started this whole anti-police rant.

You shouldn't run away from the police anyway. Unless if you have something to hide...

[Sheps 0]

This thread wasn't even a rant at police, and i've made it clear more then once that, the things you claim i think isn't the case. The thread was discuss how Police Officers can murder an unarmed person and get off completely free , whereas if that were a civilian they would be jailed for 30+ years.

At the end of the day, police haven't been anything but hassle to me, and a lot of the time when my family needed help nothing was came of it, and even now we know police only bring people to justice to fill a quota and the rest of the cases are dropped.

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if Police Officers, commit a disproportionate number of murders. Compared to the rest of the population?

If it's less than, then perhaps the majority are there for good reasons. Given we are talking on an international level and not regional\country.

I can only speak for US statistics, because thats what I was looking at.  Police officers (and soldiers for that matter in contrary to rencent media) do not commit a disproportionate number of murders.

They do however have a disproportionate likelyhood of being murdered.

Quote[/b] ]HOMICIDE RATES FOR OCCUPATIONS, 1980s OCCUPATION

PER 100,000

Taxicab driver/chauffer 15.1

Law enforcement officer 9.3

Hotel clerk             5.1

Gas station worker             4.5

Security guard             3.6

Stock handler/buyer 3.1

Store owner/manager 2.8

Bartender             2.1

After reading that, I sure won't be taking a job driving a taxi.

What is disproportionate is the way the media covers murders.  While murder rates spike in cities following handgun bans & gang killings between different ethnic groups soar, the media in the US is foaming at the mouth over 2 cases where Police officers killed their wife/girlfriend.

Less reported, because its not sensational enough I guess, is the rate at which families and specific groups are fleeing from specific metropolitan areas due to the radical increase in crime.

Here is some interesting info.  First on the US, and World stats follow.

Quote[/b] ]

TEN WORST US STATES FOR MURDER, 2003

STATE                PER 100,000

(1) Louisiana 13.0

(2) Maryland 9.5

(3) Mississippi 9.3

(4) Nevada 8.8

(5) Arizona 7.9

(6) Georgia 7.6

(7) South Carolina 7.2

(8) California 6.8

(9) Tennessee 6.8

(10) Alabama 6.6

TEN SAFEST STATES FOR MURDER, 2003

STATE                PER 100,000

(1) Maine 1.2

(2) South Dakota 1.3

(3) New Hampshire 1.4

(4) Iowa             1.6

(5) Hawaii 1.7

(6) Idaho 1.8

(7) North Dakota 1.9

(8) Oregon 1.9

(9) Massachusetts 2.2

(10) Rhode Island 2.3

Ok here is where it gets interesting.

Quote[/b] ]

USA State Suicide Rates and Rankings, 2005

Rank   State   Crude Rate

1 Montana        22.0

2 Nevada          19.9

3 Alaska           19.8

4 New Mexico    17.8

5 Wyoming        17.7

6 Colorado        17.2

7 Idaho            16.0

8 Arizona          15.9

9 South Dakota  15.6

10 Oregon         15.4

11 Oklahoma      14.7

12 North Dakota  14.5

I just thought it was interesting that 4 of the "Safest Cities" were on the list of cities with the top sucide rate, while only 2 cities from the top murder rate cities were on the same list.

Here is some International stats:

Quote[/b] ]

TOP TEN COUNTRIES FOR HOMICIDE, 2003

COUNTRY             PER 100,000

(1) Colombia 63

(2) South Africa 51

(3) Jamaica 32

(4) Venezuela 32

(5) Russia 19

(6) Mexico 13

(7) Lithuania 10

(8) Estonia 10

(9) Latvia 10

(10) Belarus 9

TEN SAFEST COUNTRIES FOR MURDER (LATE-1990s)

COUNTRY

PER MILLION

(1) Slovenia 0.7

(2) Austria 0.9

(3) Sweden 1.8

(4) Switzerland 2.3

(5) Israel 2.3

(6) Hong Kong 2.4

(7) Norway 2.5

(8) Ireland 2.8

(9) Finland 3.7

(10) Singapore 4.3

And here is the real kicker!!!!!

Quote[/b] ]GENDER RELATIONSHIP OF KILLERS AND VICTIMS

RELATIONSHIP

PERCENT

Male kills male 65.2%

Male kills female 22.6%

Female kills male 9.7%

Female kills female 2.4%

Total 99.9%

***Keep in mind these are all figures that I found on the web, so they are not necessarily proof of any opinion. And no, I did not get any of this info from Wikicrapia.

[Necromancer- 0]

Nice statistics... But in my opinion useless as they aren't localised and are undiscriminated from non-structural nuanced events.

(no intent to flame though)

"You have lies"

"You have damn lies"

"..and you have statistics"

Guess they're all useless in this case.

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

"You have lies"

"You have damn lies"

"..and you have statistics"

Heh, I do agree. But I don't see them as useless.

Take them with a grain of salt and just use them as something to provoke thought about the topic at hand.