Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Unarmed Black Men are Being Killed by Police, BUT...

Are unarmed blacks being killed by police?

Absolutely but so are whites and Hispanics.

If you're talking pure ratios such as the percentage of people in the US being black to the percentage of those being killed then unarmed blacks are infact being killed at a higher rate than unarmed whites.

However, this simplistic view isn't statistically accurate. For better or worse young black men commit more crime than whites and Hispanics combined.

A recent analysis by the Washington Post found 987 people were killed by police last year of which 68 were unarmed. Of those unarmed victims, 30 were white, 20 were black and 13 were Hispanic and 5 were of unknown or other race.

According to the US Census website whites, Hispanics and blacks make up 61.3, 17.8 and 13.3 of the US population. So the first clue the common narritive isn't correct is Hispanics are shot fewer times than blacks per capita.

Incarceration rates also fill in some blanks and yes I acknowledge and reject the notion that blacks get locked up at a higher rate. They are still committing crimes to end up in court. According to prison/jail data 4.7%, 1.8% and .7% of black, Hispanic and white males are incarcerated. FYI those numbers are scary high and clearly something isn't right.

This results in a prison population of roughly 40% white, 34% black and 20% Hispanic. Based on these numbers it would seem unarmed Hispanics are killed at a rate commiserate with the crimes they commit while whites are killed at a slightly higher rate and blacks are killed at a statistically measurable lower rate.

Regardless of what you are being feed by the media, it's clear to me the US doesn't have a problem with cops killing unarmed black men. Furthermore, I think it's important to note none of the major media outlets mentioned one of the cops in the recent shooting of Stephon Clark in Sacramento California was himself black.

Why wasn't this widely known? Because a black cop killing a unarmed young black man doesn't fit the racist profile being levied against police officers.

Police have a tough job and I would venture to say police working in crime-ridden inner-city areas are experiencing stress at the level experienced by a combat soldier.

ln 2016 state, local, university, college, etc... law enforcement agencies reported 57,180 officers were assaulted while performing their duties resulting in 66 police killed and 16,535 non-fatal injuries in the line of duty during felonious incidents.

Data from the 2016 FBI UCR LEOKA

So before you buy into the narrative that unarmed blacks are routinely being guned down by racist cops take a moment and ponder the statistics. A population of 326 million is being policed by roughly 1.1 million cops in uniform with so few incidents that when one unfortunately happens it's major news and more than likely will result in social unrest if not riots.