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Black people are certainly killed by police at a disproportionate rate relative to their population, that is an objective fact. This does not necessarily imply

Black people are certainly killed by police at a disproportionate rate relative to their population, that is an objective fact. This does not necessarily imply that there is racial bias by the police, however. For example if black people encounter the police 2-3x as much, you would expect them to be killed by police more frequently as well even without any bias.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> This does not necessarily imply that there is racial bias by the police, however. A 2010 NY State report on police-on-police shootings, studying them nationally, found clear evidence of racial bias being a factor in suh shootings. But I'm sure that either racial bias has been eliminated in the last decade or it somehow doesn't effect police interactions with people who aren’t unrecognized police officers. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html?auth=login-google https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html?aut...
- GhostVII 6y ago
  I think it is very probable that there is some amount of racial bias when it comes to police shootings, but police-on-police shootings is not very good evidence in favor of that. Not enough data (26 cases in 30 years), the data is from 40 years ago up until today, and it is a completely different situation that police on civilian.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Isn't this just a reiteration of the thing where more black people interact with the police and so there are disproportionately many shootings and people assume racism? It's not that surprising that the same would apply to police officers, e.g. off-duty black officers live in black neighborhoods and black neighborhoods have a larger police presence or higher crime rates, so there are disproportionately many police shootings and black officers are no less affected than anyone else there. The article seems to imply this: > Of the 26 fatal shootings, 5, including Officer Ridley’s case, involved an off-duty officer who came across a crime in progress and moved to help other officers or a civilian, the report found. In five other cases, including the Edwards shooting, an off-duty officer was a crime victim and then tried to make an arrest or to take police action, the report found. > In all but 2 of the 26 fatal shootings of officers that were examined, the victim was holding a gun and had it “displayed” when he or she was shot, the report found. Sounds a lot like off-duty white officers may just be less likely to encounter situations in which they draw their weapons.
zaroth 6y ago
Black people encountering police at a much higher rate than white people could be taken itself as evidence of systemic bias in policing. A study found that white police are no more likely to shoot minorities than non-white police, but that is dismissed as flawed reasoning. [1] Another study examining lethal and non-lethal interactions with police; > In the raw data, blacks are 21.3 percent more likely to be involved in an interaction with police in which at least a weapon is drawn than whites and the difference is statistically significant. Adding our full set of controls reduces the racial difference to 19.4 percent. > In stark contrast to non-lethal uses of force, we find no racial differences in officer-involved shootings on either the extensive or intensive margins. Using data from Houston, Texas – where we have both officer-involved shootings and a randomly chosen set of potential interactions with police where lethal force may have been justified – we find, in the raw data, that blacks are 23.8 percent less likely to be shot at by police relative to whites. [2] I think at this point the statistics can be used to argue both ways. I think what’s left behind is the undeniable fact that certain inner cities are more like war zones than civilian population centers with the number of daily shooting and killings. Chicago just saw 18 murders in 24 hours, or nearly ~4,500 shootings per year. [3] According to the Washington Post last year there were 9 fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police (19 of white people). Fatal police shootings in total were about 1,000 and ~25% were black, a number that under-represents black people relative to the rate of violent crime. Compare to what the Atlantic describes as the “homicide plague afflicting black America“ of black on black civilian violence, which claims nearly 100,000 lives per decade. This is not whataboutism, this is flip sides of the same coin, because while “defunding” police can reduce the total number of armed and unarmed black people killed by police a maximum of ~2,500 per decade, what will it do to the 100,000 killed per decade in inner city gang wars? In my estimation, the vilification of police as racist, declarations of “ACAB” and “Fuck 12”, and calling to abolish or defund the police is more likely to result in significantly more dangerous environments where the majority of black homicides are occurring. [1] - https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/study-claims-white-police-no-more-likely-shoot-minorities-draws-fire https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/study-claims-white-p... [2] - https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/leo16_fryer.pdf https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/l... [3] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-charts-htmlstory.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-...

dragonwriter 6y ago

> This does not necessarily imply that there is racial bias by the police, however. A 2010 NY State report on police-on-police shootings, studying them nationally, found clear evidence of racial bias being a factor in suh shootings. But I'm sure that either racial bias has been eliminated in the last decade or it somehow doesn't effect police interactions with people who aren’t unrecognized police officers. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html?auth=login-google https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html?aut...

GhostVII 6y ago
I think it is very probable that there is some amount of racial bias when it comes to police shootings, but police-on-police shootings is not very good evidence in favor of that. Not enough data (26 cases in 30 years), the data is from 40 years ago up until today, and it is a completely different situation that police on civilian.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Isn't this just a reiteration of the thing where more black people interact with the police and so there are disproportionately many shootings and people assume racism? It's not that surprising that the same would apply to police officers, e.g. off-duty black officers live in black neighborhoods and black neighborhoods have a larger police presence or higher crime rates, so there are disproportionately many police shootings and black officers are no less affected than anyone else there. The article seems to imply this: > Of the 26 fatal shootings, 5, including Officer Ridley’s case, involved an off-duty officer who came across a crime in progress and moved to help other officers or a civilian, the report found. In five other cases, including the Edwards shooting, an off-duty officer was a crime victim and then tried to make an arrest or to take police action, the report found. > In all but 2 of the 26 fatal shootings of officers that were examined, the victim was holding a gun and had it “displayed” when he or she was shot, the report found. Sounds a lot like off-duty white officers may just be less likely to encounter situations in which they draw their weapons.

zaroth 6y ago

Black people encountering police at a much higher rate than white people could be taken itself as evidence of systemic bias in policing. A study found that white police are no more likely to shoot minorities than non-white police, but that is dismissed as flawed reasoning. [1] Another study examining lethal and non-lethal interactions with police; > In the raw data, blacks are 21.3 percent more likely to be involved in an interaction with police in which at least a weapon is drawn than whites and the difference is statistically significant. Adding our full set of controls reduces the racial difference to 19.4 percent. > In stark contrast to non-lethal uses of force, we find no racial differences in officer-involved shootings on either the extensive or intensive margins. Using data from Houston, Texas – where we have both officer-involved shootings and a randomly chosen set of potential interactions with police where lethal force may have been justified – we find, in the raw data, that blacks are 23.8 percent less likely to be shot at by police relative to whites. [2] I think at this point the statistics can be used to argue both ways. I think what’s left behind is the undeniable fact that certain inner cities are more like war zones than civilian population centers with the number of daily shooting and killings. Chicago just saw 18 murders in 24 hours, or nearly ~4,500 shootings per year. [3] According to the Washington Post last year there were 9 fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police (19 of white people). Fatal police shootings in total were about 1,000 and ~25% were black, a number that under-represents black people relative to the rate of violent crime. Compare to what the Atlantic describes as the “homicide plague afflicting black America“ of black on black civilian violence, which claims nearly 100,000 lives per decade. This is not whataboutism, this is flip sides of the same coin, because while “defunding” police can reduce the total number of armed and unarmed black people killed by police a maximum of ~2,500 per decade, what will it do to the 100,000 killed per decade in inner city gang wars? In my estimation, the vilification of police as racist, declarations of “ACAB” and “Fuck 12”, and calling to abolish or defund the police is more likely to result in significantly more dangerous environments where the majority of black homicides are occurring. [1] - https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/study-claims-white-police-no-more-likely-shoot-minorities-draws-fire https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/study-claims-white-p... [2] - https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/leo16_fryer.pdf https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/l... [3] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-charts-htmlstory.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-...