Several major cities in our country have been rocked by a wave of violence and mayhem on a scale not seen since the 1960s. It began with peaceful protests in commemoration of George Floyd, who was ruthlessly and unnecessarily killed by a Minneapolis police officer early last week. It was a heinous crime that should never have happened in the United States. The video speaks for itself, and nearly everyone who’s seen it is in agreement about the officers involved deserving severe punishment. However, the national “conversation” we are supposed to be having over the so-called systemic issues of black people being killed by white cops is not rooted in statistical reality.
I realize that broaching this subject is like playing with fire right now, but I assure you that the purpose of this piece is not to provoke or offend anyone. I am not naïve enough to believe that there aren’t many abuses and injustices committed by white cop—and white people in general—in a country of 320 million people. Obviously, these injustices still occur, and even infrequent occurrences are still too frequent for a society based on equality and individual rights. When these instances do occur, those offenders should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
However, that doesn’t change the data that overwhelmingly proves that police officers show far more restraint than they are being given credit for. Everyday white citizens also are not mowing down unarmed black people in the streets. If we are going to have a conversation on crime in America—a subject on which I am perfectly happy to keep an open dialogue—it is important that all the facts are put on the table before we have that national conversation.
According to the National Victimization Survey, whites are the overwhelming target of interracial violence. Between 2012 and 2015, blacks committed 85.5 percent of all black-white interracial violent victimizations (excluding interracial homicide, which is also disproportionately black-on-white). That works out to 540,360 felonious assaults on whites. Whites committed 14.4 percent of all interracial violent victimization or 91,470 felonious assaults on blacks. Blacks are less than 13 percent of the national population.
According to the Washington Post crime index, there were 1,000 cop-induced killings last year out of 375 million cop-civilian interactions. Of those, only 25% involved black people. That is far lower than would be expected given that, statistically, minority criminals commit higher rates of violent crime.
In 2019, nine unarmed black people were killed by cops. Let that sink in for a moment.
Again, I’ll reiterate that this loss of life is still tragic. These nine instances all resulted in a death, many of them unjustifiably so. However, this is far from the number you’d expect if the claim that “it’s open season on black men in America” were true.
Our streets are being looted and burned based on a faulty premise, and the statistics PROVE that it’s false.
A 2019 study disproves the prevailing narrative that white police officers disproportionately target African Americans.
Professors Joseph Cesario and David Johnson (University of Michigan and University of Maryland respectively) conducted a study in which they spent over 1,500 hours creating a national database of information about all fatal police shootings in the U.S. in 2015.
They concluded that, contrary to popular belief, white officers were not more likely to fatally shoot minority civilians compared to black or Hispanic officers.
They wrote, “when all the officers that fired at a civilian were black, a person was 2.0 times more likely to be black than when all the officers who fired were white. When all the officers that fired at a civilian were Hispanic, a person was 9.0 times more likely to be Hispanic than when all the officers who fired were white.”
The other big takeaway from the study showed that community violent crime rates were more likely to determine what ethnic group was targeted.
According to the authors, “in counties where whites committed a higher percentage of homicides, a person fatally shot by police was 3.5 times more likely to be white. In counties where blacks committed a higher percentage of violent crime, a person fatally shot by the police was 3.7 times more likely to be black. And in counties where Hispanics committed a higher percentage of violent crime, a person fatally shot by the police was 3.3 times more likely to be Hispanic.”
They concluded by writing, “once crime rates were taken into account, civilians fatally shot by the police were not more likely to be black or Hispanic than white.”
I believe that facts still matter. I don’t judge the majority of these protesters for doing what they’re doing because they have been told a faulty narrative by the media and our public universities. Most of them are unaware of the evidence presented in this piece. If they were, I would hope they would at least reconsider their opinion. That’s all anyone can ask.
Keeping an open mind and seeking out the facts is what these situations are all about. If we can’t work together to find the truth, then we’ll never actually make any changes.
