California county sheriff says killing suspects is 'better financially' than wounding them
A Kern County sheriff in California reportedly once said that it was less expensive to kill the suspects than to wound them, according to reports. The county has an unusually high number of police shootings and was once labeled as "America's deadliest police."
Sheriff Donny Youngblood was asked a question while he was seeking an endorsement in 2006: "When a deputy shoots somebody, which way is better financially? To cripple them or kill them for the county?”
Someone off camera asked "Kill them?" to which Youngblood replied with "Absolutely," according to NY Daily News.
"Because if you cripple them you have to take care of them for life and that cost goes way up," the sheriff reportedly said at an endorsement consideration interview.
The entire incident was captured in a video, which was released on Monday by the Kern County Detention Officers Association, one of the three officers' union which had endorsed Youngblood's upcoming election opponent and chief deputy Justin Fleeman.
The officers said that they released the video because they believed that the county police force was "in desperate need of positive changes," according to reports.
Statistics show that at least 13 people were killed by police in 2015 in the particular county, which had less than 900,000 residents at the time. Records show that the county registered more fatal police shootings than New York, which recorded at least nine such shootings in 2015, according to reports.
The sheriff, in the video, also tried to turn the issue of police killings into a matter of dollars.
"When a guy makes a bad shoot on somebody and kills them, $3 million dollars and the family goes away," Youngblood said.
After the release of the video, the sheriff told Bakersfield.com that his words were taken out of context and that he "never inferred that we should shoot to kill.” The sheriff, however, added that he now wishes he had carefully chosen his words while speaking on the issue.