Introduction
Male Americans are killed by police at a much higher rate than female Americans. Men comprise less than half of the US population, yet they are killed at 17 times the rate of women (52 per 100,000 versus 3 per 100,000). One look at the above sentence, and one might conclude that there is a bias with police use of deadly force against men.
However, anyone with at least a high school education might expectedly question why such a disparity exists. With a quick search of the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics, one can quickly discover that in the United States, men are arrested for about 80% of violent crimes committed while women only account for 20%. Knowing this, it’s pretty clear that the disparity has little to do with sex and much more with the crimes being committed. In other words, men are not killed by police at a greater rate because of a police bias toward men, but because they commit more violent crime and have more interactions with police as evidenced by arrest statistics. Not to mention the fact that men are typically larger, more aggressive, and likely more imposing and threatening to police officers.
How the Washington Post Misleads its Readers About Police Bias
The Washington Post makes a statement nearly as ridiculous as the one I posed in the first sentence of this article by claiming that “black Americans are killed at a much higher rate than white Americans.” The “newspaper” claims that although black Americans account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, they are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans (31 per million versus 13 per million). People who view this “newspaper” as a trusted source of reality then go on to ignorantly cite it as some authority on the subject of police bias. However, this shoddy interpretation of statistics has nothing to do with bias, but is just BS from The Washington Post.
What the “newspaper” fails to do is consider the ratio of fatal police shootings to the number of crimes committed by the black population. Although blacks comprise 13.4% of the population, they account for 37.5% of violent criminal arrests. Meanwhile, whites comprise 76.5% of the population and account for 58.5% of violent criminal arrests. In fact, with a little sixth grade algebra, we can calculate that blacks commit 3.66X more violent crime than whites and that whites are killed at a higher rate than blacks (0.204% versus 0.167% per violent crime arrest) if you control for population. I’m not going to lay out the math here, because if you cannot do these same calculations that I do, then it’s clear you have a very low IQ and probably hold irrational opinions that cannot be changed.
How the Washington Post Misleads its Readers Again
Furthermore, the Washington Post uses the term “unarmed” to imply “innocent”. They describe Michael Brown, who was shot by police in 2014, as an “unarmed black man,” as if the officer involved, Darren Wilson, just randomly decided to take a man’s life willy-nilly. The use of “unarmed” might lead a reader of the Washington Post to believe that the shooting was “unjustified.” After all, why would the police shoot an unarmed person to death? What The Washington Post fails to mention is that the officer who shot Michael Brown did so in self-defense as the evidence supported the account that Brown assaulted Wilson, attempted to gain control of Wilson’s gun, and was shot because he posed a physical threat to Wilson. This is not me claiming that Wilson acted in self-defense, this is according to a press release from the United States Department of Justice. So, a person can still be “dangerous” even though he is “unarmed.” In fact, many of the so-called “unarmed” victims as categorized by the Washington Post were in possession of a firearm, and/or were involved in some sort of altercation with police. This does not mean that all these shootings were justified, but just goes to show how misleading the term “unarmed” can be.
The Truth According to Statistics
All of this is not to say that police brutality does not exist. What happened to George Floyd was a travesty by all available evidence. Justice is carried out only when the punishment fits the crime. The police brutality and negligence that led to his death should not occur, and those responsible should be held accountable. As evidenced by the fact that all three officers were fired from their jobs and arrested only days after George Floyd died, justice seems to be proceeding swiftly, relatively speaking. The trials for all involved police officers will likely take a long time to proceed to a conclusion. So while the rest of the process might drag, it hopefully will lead to justice. Our system is far from perfect, but so is every single other system ever tried. However, I think it’s the best in the world.
This is to say that while police brutality exists in some cases, it is not systematically directed at people of any particular color. The statistics simply do not support this claim of systematic racism or systematic bias. An argument can be made that police use of force is too frequent or extreme across the board, but this is a stretch given that roughly 1,000 people are shot to death by police out of millions of interactions per year. The vast majority of all interactions end peacefully and of those shot to death, all but a few of these are justified.
Furthermore, police do not get to choose with whom they interact in the majority of cases. Presumably, most police encounters occur because a citizen dials 911 to report crime in progress, possible crime in progress, or possible crime already committed. Police rarely witness crime and then respond to it by happenstance. From what I can find online, there’s no evidence to suggest that police respond to these happenstance crimes with bias. They simply respond because it’s their duty to respond to crime.
Possible Limitations of Data
Now, no data set is perfectly complete. Most shooting statistics that I’ve seen do not consider deaths by other means, such as choking. Indeed, there might be some data out there that brings my claim into doubt, sheds more light on police shootings, or includes other means of police use of deadly force. However, I have not seen it. I believe the correlation between violent crime statistics and police use of force is the best indicator that police far and away respond appropriately to crimes. The fact that there are millions of arrests for violent crimes and only 1,000 fatal shootings actually leads me to believe that the police exercise restraint to an overwhelming degree and, until we have evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that there is systematic bias within the police.
I do think there is an unspoken, or maybe even spoken, bond within certain police departments that discourages some officers from “snitching” on the bad apples. I do think police unions serve to protect bad cops. I cannot find hard data on this other than the occasional news article and general knowledge of how unions operate, but these are problems that should be talked about because there are practical solutions here. Citizens can demand more transparency from their police departments, more structured and severe discipline for police who violate their own rules and ethics, and a much shorter leash for repeat offenders.
The Bottom Line and Closing Thoughts
Police serve the public good. That is, they work for us. We can demand that they do better. However, this whole narrative of police bias is not good. It creates tension and feuds around a problem that simply does not exist according to the statistics. These arguments being had about supposed bias are a waste of energy, time, and resources. Platitudes are being delivered by leaders all over corporate America, even where I work in the field of engineering, a relatively conservative field. I am genuinely shocked at leaders speaking in lockstep about a problem that has supposedly existed for ages, yet for some reason is only now being taken seriously. I am bewildered how companies are claiming they will “do better” to “foster diversity” as if, in the case of my company at least, they already hold diversity as a core value and have programs and systems in place to promote diversity. None of this adds up. I don’t really give a crap about diversity of skin color or any other immutable trait. What I care about is diversity of opinion, thought, background, and lived experience; all of which make for a unique person when analyzed at an individual level.
Until we as a nation start having conversations about and looking for solutions to actual societal problems such as poor education, broken households which produce violent criminals, lack of holding politicians accountable for their actions, lack of a sense of personal responsibility, lack of government transparency, and lack of understanding of personal liberty, I am afraid this country might fracture into pieces. We’re already seeing it in Seattle where you have armed, unelected socialists illegally occupying sixteen square blocks of the city. I am seeing the fracturing all over Facebook. I am seeing people whom I consider to be smart, thoughtful people holding completely irrational opinions based on feelings and biased news coverage while completely ignoring the data. I’m not sure how we can remain a country if this continues and I hope this isn’t a sign of bad things to come.
Liberty Matters 