While I agree in general with the numbers and the concept, I just wanted, in fairness, to point out that there is one flaw in these numbers. There is no absolute database of people killed by police. As an example, Texas requires every police agency to report all "in-custody" deaths to the Attorney General's office. In-custody death is defined in the law as including all people who are in custody for any reason and anyone the police are attempting to arrest. The last includes people resisting arrest and people fleeing from being arrested. The database in Texas is therefore fairly complete. But Texas is unusual in having these requirements and definitions. Some states require only the deaths of those actually in-custody, not including those resisting or fleeing. And some states have no reporting requirement whatsoever.Jusme wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:48 pm Let’s look at the numbers, shall we? In 2020, there were 27 black men killed by police. Of those only 6 were unarmed. Only 4 of them were killed by white police officers. White police officers make up 78% of all officers, which is consistent with overall demographics of the population. If there were rampant racism, whereby white police officers were on a mission to kill people of color, wouldn’t those numbers be a lot higher? Every year, police shoot and kill, many more white people than people of color. The difference is, those stories, never get mentioned by the media.
Even worse for accurate statistics, there is no federal requirement to report anything. There is actually no requirement to report crimes using to the FBI UCR statistics either. While I like the lack of federal interference in local police, I really wish we had a better system for crime statistics, especially anything involving police and them investigating themselves. That is one flaw in our system that could be improved.