I’m sure someone will take offense to the following
information, but please don’t. There is
no attempt to justify anything. These
are just facts. I’m not massaging data. If you take offense, you don’t like what I
have here, take exception, or you want to accuse me of something, you have two options. Place your opinion on your own timeline or
don’t say anything. If you wish to
respond, please keep it clean and respectful.
I reserve the right to delete comments.
It’s my timeline.
·
From 1998 through 2018, 1,120 police officers
were killed by gunfire.
·
632 of the assailants were white, accounting for
56% of the offenders.
·
447 of the assailants were black, accounting for
40% of the offenders.
According to the United States Census population estimates
of July 1, 2019:
·
76.3% of the U.S. population is white,
·
13.4% of the U.S. population is black.
From 2017 to the present:
Police have killed 3,416 individuals, of which
·
1,398 were white, or 41% of those killed by
police,
·
755 were black, or 22% of those killed by police,
·
542 were Hispanic, or 16% of those killed by
police,
·
133 are unknown race or ethnicity, or 4% of
those killed by police, and
·
588 are “other” race or ethnicity, or 17% of those
killed by police.
Professors Caroline Brooks and David Johnson of the
University of Maryland and Professor Joseph Cesario of Michigan State University
published their research about police shootings in “Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences” in July 2019. They
found that
(1)
The race of the officer doesn’t matter when it
comes to predicting whether blacks or whites are shot.
(2)
Black citizens are more likely to have been shot
by black officers.
(3)
The reason blacks are more likely to be shot by
black officers is because black officers are drawn from the population they
police. The more black citizen there are
in a community the more black officers there are in that community.
(4)
Violent crime rates are the driving force for fatal
encounters with police.
(5)
90-95% of those shot by officers were either
attacking the officer or another person.
(6)
90% were armed with a weapon when shot by
police.
(7)
50% of fatal shootings of whites involved a
mental health issue, “suicide by cop” in particular.
(8)
20% of fatal shootings of blacks and 30% of
Hispanics involved a mental health issue.
It is rare that a police officer mistakes a billfold or cell
phone for a weapon. That doesn’t make it
right and these incidents need to be addressed; however, I’m not sure that they
should drive the narrative concerning allegations of police racism and/or
brutality, especially if there are accusations of systemic racism. I’m of the opinion that factual information
should drive policy and practice decisions.
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