Black police officers make up only 12% of recruits, but are 60% of those killed while training

[east]

Spoiler: article's longer than jill scott's titties, open for ai summary

Ronald Donat, a 41-year-old recruit at a police academy in Georgia, tragically died during a physically demanding training session known as "Hell Day. " His death is part of a disturbing pattern of fatalities among police trainees across the U.S.

Ronald Donat's Struggle to Become a Police Officer
• Immigrated from Haiti; longed for a policing career after various jobs.
• Encouraged to apply to Gwinnett County Police due to family ties in Georgia.
• After intense training on "Hell Day," he struggled to keep going.
• A sergeant harshly told him, "You are dead!"

Fatal Incident and Lack of Accountability
• Donat reassured instructors he wouldn’t give up but later collapsed.
• One hundred minutes into training, he was pronounced dead.
• The department found no policy violations after the investigation.

Donat Family's Wait for Justice and Benefits
• Volcy, Donat's wife, awaits benefits ruling and expressed disappointment over the investigation's findings.
• Emphasized the tragedy of her husband’s death caused by excessive training demands.

Recruit Deaths at Law Enforcement Academies
• 29 recruits have died in the last decade during training.
• Most deaths caused by exertion, dehydration, and heat-related issues.
• Experts say many of these deaths could have been prevented.
• Nationwide, recruits are often unrecognized in memorials and lack death benefits.

Risks and Training Practices
• First-day workouts are grueling and intended to test recruits.
• Many deaths occurred on the first day of training.
• Past allegations of hazing during military-style drills.
• An ambulance was typically present, but one year it was declined.

Disparities and Health Risks
• Nearly 60% of deceased recruits were Black, despite making up 12% of police forces.
• An increase in deaths noted since 2020, amid recruiting diversity efforts.
• Black recruits often carry sickle cell trait, which increases injury risk.

Need for Safety Improvements
• Experts urge better awareness and safety practices in training.
• Recommendations include adequate hydration, breaks, and screening for health conditions.

Dying to serve: Dozens of recruits have died nationwide while training to become police officers

At least 29 recruits have died during basic training at law enforcement academies nationwide in the last decade.

apnews.com

 

[King Poetic]

An Arkansas cadet died after he was forced to run wearing long pants in the scorching midday sun. A North Carolina trainee’s temperature was 106 degrees an hour after his death, when he had no water breaks during an hourlong obstacle course.

So u telling me cops daily is walking through the sahara desert with no water at ease

Training is fukking ridiculous

 

[CopiousX]

I think the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions here.

Its been a few years since i was in a statistics course, but the professor taught us thatweird stuff happens with numbers when your sample size is low. From what i recall, statitcians have a specific word forthis called a p value which denotes the point at which a result falls too far to one side of a bell curve to be significant. And normally that p value is at the 2 percent value, or 1 percent value for sensitive areas like medical research. Literally 29 out of nearlyhalf a million recruits in that same decade diedin training , so that number of dead recruits is beyond any reasonable p value . a statician would laugh at you if brought this article to them to draw conclusions from.

SoKeep in mind there are hundreds of thousands of police officers in the country. Of which there are 60,000 new recruits each year. Of that 60,000, only 29 died in a span of ten years. Literally less than half a percent , of a tenth of a percent of the whole sample size of new recruits. You can't draw any meaningful conclusions whatsoever from that. It's intellectually dishonest of the article writers to use the overall population statistic of 12 percent of hundreds of thousandsof black cops on such a tiny sample size.


Try applying this logic to any other field. For example, if a new drug was released by a pharmaceutical company and 0.0005% of people suffered adverse health effects or death from it, it would pass as a success and all those cases would be considered outliers. Even if 0.00025% of those numbers affected black people, you could not draw any conclusions from it because there isnt enough data.

 

[The BasedFather]

Breh I’ve been through firefighting academy and that shyt was grueling. We had folks falling out especially in the heat.

The cops were training near us and they had them out there on some military drill sergeant stuff. Yelling in their faces while they did their stuff. They work the cadets hard from what I could see

 

[broller]

An Arkansas cadet died after he was forced to run wearing long pants in the scorching midday sun. A North Carolina trainee’s temperature was 106 degrees an hour after his death, when he had no water breaks during an hourlong obstacle course.

So u telling me cops daily is walking through the sahara desert with no water at ease

Training is fukking ridiculous

Sickle cell trait?

 

[Luke Cage]

I think the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions here.

Its been a few years since i was in a statistics course, but the professor taught us thatweird stuff happens with numbers when your sample size is low. From what i recall, statitcians have a specific word forthis called a p value which denotes the point at which a result falls too far to one side of a bell curve to be significant. And normally that p value is at the 2 percent value, or 1 percent value for sensitive areas like medical research. Literally 29 out of nearlyhalf a million recruits in that same decade diedin training , so that number of dead recruits is beyond any reasonable p value . a statician would laugh at you if brought this article to them to draw conclusions from.

SoKeep in mind there are hundreds of thousands of police officers in the country. Of which there are 60,000 new recruits each year. Of that 60,000, only 29 died in a span of ten years. Literally less than half a percent , of a tenth of a percent of the whole sample size of new recruits. You can't draw any meaningful conclusions whatsoever from that. It's intellectually dishonest of the article writers to use the overall population statistic of 12 percent of hundreds of thousandsof black cops on such a tiny sample size.


Try applying this logic to any other field. For example, if a new drug was released by a pharmaceutical company and 0.0005% of people suffered adverse health effects or death from it, it would pass as a success and all those cases would be considered outliers. Even if 0.00025% of those numbers affected black people, you could not draw any conclusions from it because there isnt enough data.

I automatically dismissed the article as invalid when they started blaming sickle cell.
Yes 90% of the people with sickle are black. But only 100K people in the entire country have sickle cell. There are 40+ million black people in this country.
That's just 2 and half percent of the population. People aren't dying because of sickle cell in that training, because its super unlikely they would have enough recruits with that trait to make that determination.

 

[broller]

I automatically dismissed the article as invalid when they started blaming sickle cell.
Yes 90% of the people with sickle are black. But only 100K people in the entire country have sickle cell. There are 40+ million black people in this country.
That's just 2 and half percent of the population. People aren't dying because of sickle cell in that training, because its super unlikely they would have enough recruits with that trait to make that determination.

100,000 black people in America have sickle cell disease, not sickle cell trait. There's a difference between the trait and the disease.

Apparently 8-10% of black people in America have sickle cell trait.

 

[Luke Cage]

100,000 black people in America have sickle cell disease, not sickle cell trait. There's a difference between the trait and the disease.

Apparently 8-10% of black people in America have sickle cell trait.

People with just the trait don't experience any health problems from it though

 

[broller]

People with just the trait don't experience any health problems from it though

They can.

Risk of Exertional Heat Illnesses Associated with Sickle Cell Trait in U.S. Military - PMC

A number of studies have found an association between sickle cell trait (SCT) and exertional heat illnesses (EHIs) including heat stroke, a potentially fatal condition. The strength of this association varied across studies, limiting the ability to ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/sicklecelltraitandtheathlete.pdf

https://www.nfhs.org/articles/exertional-collapse-associated-with-sickle-cell-trait/

Sickle Cell Trait and Sudden Death - Sports Medicine - Open

Sickle cell trait has long been considered a benign condition but continues to be the leading cause of death in young African Americans in military basic training and civilian organized sports. There continues to be a great deal of controversy surrounding sickle cell trait and its association...

sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com

What You Should Know About Sickle Cell Trait
Ryan Clark lost his spleen due to playing at high altitude in Denver

Devard Darling carries on legacy of twin Devaughn with foundation to learn about sickle cell

After the death of his brother Devaughn Darling while they both were at FSU, Devard is increasing awareness of sports-related sickle-cell deaths.

www.tallahassee.com

Former Ravens player lost his twin brother to complications of sickle cell trait

Sickle cell trait individuals are also more likely to get traumatic hyphemas (bloody eyes after trauma) than those without it Sickle cell trait as a risk factor for secondary hemorrhage in children with traumatic hyphema - PubMed

 

[concise]

People with just the trait don't experience any health problems from it though

This is very wrong.

 

[broller]

This is very wrong.

Indeed. It's a common and risky misconception