4 ms·

Cops Kill White People as Easily as They Kill Black People

11 points by hirundo 6y ago

api 6y ago
Statistically you are more likely to be the victim of excessive police violence if you are black. That being said, we may get further with this issue if we broaden it and point out that it’s a general problem that affects everyone. I won over a few more right wing people on the George Floyd case by reminding them of the Ruby Ridge case. The circumstances are very different but in the end both cases are about not just unnecessary but seemingly malicious police violence and the difficulty of holding anyone accountable. There is actually one detail that both cases have in common too. George Floyd had a drug problem while Randy Weaver apparently had unsympathetic views on race, and in both cases defenders of the police used these facts to effectively imply that they deserved it. The implication is that only “bad people” get lynched by cops, sort of like “why are you worried about surveillance if you have nothing to hide?”
- hirundo 6y ago
  It's a lot easier to get good statistics on police violence than on "excessive" police violence, since that's so open to interpretation. Assuming that association also holds for police violence in general, then we have to ask whether black victims tend to be proportionately more violent or threatening than white victims ... another hard statistic to gather. If not, then there's a good argument that racism is involved.
  - MikeUt 6y ago
    > we have to ask whether black victims tend to be proportionately more violent or threatening than white victims ... another hard statistic to gather. A closely related statistic has been gathered, on violent crime perpetrators. By the police and FBI, as well as through victim surveys, that don't involve law enforcement, so are immune from bias due to over-policing that is frequently used to justify ignoring those statistics.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    > another hard statistic to gather. It's not that hard. Here are the statistics on police feloniously killed, over the past decade. https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42.x...
Finnucane 6y ago
Yes, police violence is a problem for everyone. Having an encounter with a cop is like a game of Russian Roullette—there’s always a chance it will end badly. However, if you are Black, you get many more chances to play. A lot more. And the threshold for violence is lower.
- ordu 6y ago
  Could you link any research supporting your claim? I mean, the article refers to a statistics, which hints that there is no causal link between a race and violence. I didn't dig into statistics, how it was calculated, which data it uses, where that data came from... So I'm reluctant to take that claims as granted, but they seem to me as the author tried at least. I'd be happy to learn about a research coming to the opposite conclusions.
  - airhead969 6y ago
    Black people are more than 250% more likely to be killed by the police than white people. Do you want a peer reviewed study and some autopsies about what's shriekingly-obvious? Officially, 1:137000 per year for African-Americans killed by cops. 1:533333 per year for White Americans. The numbers are likely far higher because of the purposeful LACK of data and the CDC forbids research on all gun violence, not just murders by police in particular. Oh and then there's the fact that America has the highest incarceration rate in the world except for Seychelles, and the vast majority are black and brown people in for nonviolent, petty crimes like weed. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/16/trump-police-abolition-black-americans https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/16/trump-... https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124036/number-people-killed-police-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124036/number-people-ki...
    - MikeUt 6y ago
      > Black people are more than 250% more likely to be killed by the police than white people. Is that compared to their share of the population, or their share of violent crime? If you compare only to population, apply that same logic to gender - how much more likely are men to be killed by police than women?

11 points by hirundo 6y ago

api 6y ago

Statistically you are more likely to be the victim of excessive police violence if you are black. That being said, we may get further with this issue if we broaden it and point out that it’s a general problem that affects everyone. I won over a few more right wing people on the George Floyd case by reminding them of the Ruby Ridge case. The circumstances are very different but in the end both cases are about not just unnecessary but seemingly malicious police violence and the difficulty of holding anyone accountable. There is actually one detail that both cases have in common too. George Floyd had a drug problem while Randy Weaver apparently had unsympathetic views on race, and in both cases defenders of the police used these facts to effectively imply that they deserved it. The implication is that only “bad people” get lynched by cops, sort of like “why are you worried about surveillance if you have nothing to hide?”

hirundo 6y ago
It's a lot easier to get good statistics on police violence than on "excessive" police violence, since that's so open to interpretation. Assuming that association also holds for police violence in general, then we have to ask whether black victims tend to be proportionately more violent or threatening than white victims ... another hard statistic to gather. If not, then there's a good argument that racism is involved.
- MikeUt 6y ago
  > we have to ask whether black victims tend to be proportionately more violent or threatening than white victims ... another hard statistic to gather. A closely related statistic has been gathered, on violent crime perpetrators. By the police and FBI, as well as through victim surveys, that don't involve law enforcement, so are immune from bias due to over-policing that is frequently used to justify ignoring those statistics.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  > another hard statistic to gather. It's not that hard. Here are the statistics on police feloniously killed, over the past decade. https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42.x...

Finnucane 6y ago

Yes, police violence is a problem for everyone. Having an encounter with a cop is like a game of Russian Roullette—there’s always a chance it will end badly. However, if you are Black, you get many more chances to play. A lot more. And the threshold for violence is lower.

ordu 6y ago
Could you link any research supporting your claim? I mean, the article refers to a statistics, which hints that there is no causal link between a race and violence. I didn't dig into statistics, how it was calculated, which data it uses, where that data came from... So I'm reluctant to take that claims as granted, but they seem to me as the author tried at least. I'd be happy to learn about a research coming to the opposite conclusions.
- airhead969 6y ago
  Black people are more than 250% more likely to be killed by the police than white people. Do you want a peer reviewed study and some autopsies about what's shriekingly-obvious? Officially, 1:137000 per year for African-Americans killed by cops. 1:533333 per year for White Americans. The numbers are likely far higher because of the purposeful LACK of data and the CDC forbids research on all gun violence, not just murders by police in particular. Oh and then there's the fact that America has the highest incarceration rate in the world except for Seychelles, and the vast majority are black and brown people in for nonviolent, petty crimes like weed. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/16/trump-police-abolition-black-americans https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/16/trump-... https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124036/number-people-killed-police-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124036/number-people-ki...
  - MikeUt 6y ago
    > Black people are more than 250% more likely to be killed by the police than white people. Is that compared to their share of the population, or their share of violent crime? If you compare only to population, apply that same logic to gender - how much more likely are men to be killed by police than women?