Checking on that "one in a trillion" probability:
That piece of junk is about 1 square meter.
Earth's surface area is 5.1 x10^8 Km^2 = 5.1 x 10^14 m^2
There are about 8 x 10^9 people on Earth.
So, the probability that some person will be in a particular square meter is (8 x 10^9) / (5.1 x 10^14) = 1.6 x 10^-5. So, about 1 in one hundred thousand. That is per launch of a dragon capsule.
So, the probability that somebody will get hit is not nearly as low as "one in a trillion".
The probability stated in the article is more like the probability that a specific person will get hit, which is more like 1 m^2 / (5.1 x 10^14 m^2 ) = 2.0 x 10^15. So, that is still "two in a trillion", and again, that is per launch of a dragon capsule.
What we really need to do is add up all of the launches that cause some junk to eventually hit the earth's surface, and take into account that the Chinese are having some much larger pieces land from their Long March rockets, to get a probability per year that somebody is going to get hit by a piece of junk falling out of orbit.
We also need to take into account that most of the orbits that are dropping space junk are not polar, so the junk will land in latitudes pretty far removed from the poles, in the latitudes where most people live, so the more accurate probabilities will be higher than the averages I calculated assuming even distributions of falling junk and people across the surface of the Earth.
Yes, we have other risks which are higher. But, if somebody is negligent about putting others at risk, and that causes a death, that is "negligent homicide", which is a felony. It is unavoidable risk that is considered an accident.
.