Thanks for this! It seems to be a testimony to the power of the media. Even conservatives were off by quite a bit. The question that bugs me is whether this might have been intentional. Another question is how many unarmed White men are killed by police each year?
Hey Tom. Good question. I’ve done some extensive digging on this issue also. Some will use the population fallacy when giving numbers. But that assumes every single person in a group has violent interactions with police. So that’s out. The numbers I ran in 2018 were using the individuals committing crimes— of those, how many are dying. 47% of white people were killed and 23% of black people were killed.
Meaning: if 10 white men and 10 black men commit a crime and have a violent interaction with police, 5 white men will be shot and 2 black men will be shot.
In 2020, I looked at these numbers from 2018. 12 unarmed black people (all male except one) were killed by police. 10 of those were things like an officer being beaten by 5 men and gets to his pistol and fires or he’ll be beaten to death. So they deem it justified. 2 of those were unjustified and those officers were fired, prosecuted, and convicted.
There’s no epidemic. One is too many. But it’s not an epidemic.
Lastly— there are over 800,000 officers in this country. Even if it were 100, that’s 799,900 officers doing it right.
Thanks Grainger, very interesting stuff. The other thing that crosses my mind is the assumptions of those arrested about how they might be treated. My experience with other White males is that we have been taught to be respectful, stay calm, and don't cause trouble. I wonder if Blacks don't get a very different message. I think if I was told that it was life threatening to be arrested I might have a very different encounter with police.
Thanks for this! It seems to be a testimony to the power of the media. Even conservatives were off by quite a bit. The question that bugs me is whether this might have been intentional. Another question is how many unarmed White men are killed by police each year?
Hey Tom. Good question. I’ve done some extensive digging on this issue also. Some will use the population fallacy when giving numbers. But that assumes every single person in a group has violent interactions with police. So that’s out. The numbers I ran in 2018 were using the individuals committing crimes— of those, how many are dying. 47% of white people were killed and 23% of black people were killed.
Meaning: if 10 white men and 10 black men commit a crime and have a violent interaction with police, 5 white men will be shot and 2 black men will be shot.
In 2020, I looked at these numbers from 2018. 12 unarmed black people (all male except one) were killed by police. 10 of those were things like an officer being beaten by 5 men and gets to his pistol and fires or he’ll be beaten to death. So they deem it justified. 2 of those were unjustified and those officers were fired, prosecuted, and convicted.
There’s no epidemic. One is too many. But it’s not an epidemic.
Lastly— there are over 800,000 officers in this country. Even if it were 100, that’s 799,900 officers doing it right.
Thanks Grainger, very interesting stuff. The other thing that crosses my mind is the assumptions of those arrested about how they might be treated. My experience with other White males is that we have been taught to be respectful, stay calm, and don't cause trouble. I wonder if Blacks don't get a very different message. I think if I was told that it was life threatening to be arrested I might have a very different encounter with police.