Police have a dangerous ‘dead or alive’ mentality. Andrew Brown Jr. is dead because of it.

There are so many outstanding arrests warrants in the United States that no one is able to count them all. The numbers we know are astounding: In Ferguson, Mo., in one year, courts issued almost 33,000 warrants — in a city whose population was 21,000. In New York City, in 2016, there were 1.4 million, the majority for quality of life offenses such as riding a bicycle on the sidewalk or being in a park after closing time. In New Jersey, there are 2.5 million outstanding warrants.