This is not sixth grade math
The three tragedies (thus far) this week involving the homicide of two civilians at the hands of the police and five police officers by a civilian are a demonstration that the #BlackLivesMatter and the #AllLivesMatter counter hashtag are not equivalent.
Sixth grade math indicates that since Black lives are a subset of the All lives population set, they are equivalent. This is not the case. The numbers tell us this.
In 2015, between January 1st and November 20th, police killed 261 blacks and 508 whites. But that doesn't take into account the make-up of the population. Take that into account and during that period there were 6.2 blacks killed per million while whites were killed at a rate of only 2.1 per million. Put into simple language, during that time blacks were killed by cops at a rate three times that of whites being killed by those police officers. I'll get into more of the math in a moment.
Let's review the first two incidents. First the killing of Alton Sterling.
Mr. Sterling's left arm is clearly pinned by the weight of the officer. His right arm is not easily seen. But from the position of the two officers, it is easy to conclude that unless there was a weapon in his right hand that he could point at either of the cops, he did not present a danger requiring deadly force by the cops.
A larger question is why did the cops not have other means of subduing Mr. Sterling with them? No tasers or stun guns? No mace or pepper spray?
I have no doubt that if this were to be investigated by a local grand jury, local cops and the local district attorney, it is extremely doubtful that there would have been an indictment. That is why the Louisiana governor's immediate call for an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice was the right move. Hopefully their investigation will come to the appropriate conclusion that these cops were completely wrong to take this man's life.
Now the killing of Philando Castile.
We don't see the actual moment of the shooting. We do know certain things. Mr. Castile did not have his weapon in his hands. He did, as required, notify the officer that he was armed and had a CCW permit. The fact that Mr. Castile was reaching for his wallet, as he'd been told to produce his license and vehicle registration, is not in question. The speed with which he was moving and whether or not the officer told him not to move before firing are not shown on the video.
There is no denying the fact that traffic stops can be among the most dangerous things for police officers. That doesn't excuse this. I don't have all of the facts but based on what I've seen this was not a justifiable shooting. To be fair, Mr. Castile was not shot for having had a broken taillight, as some will claim. He was shot by a cop who will claim he was in fear of his own safety.
Falcon Heights, MN, where Mr. Castile was killed, is a predominantly white community, 73.3% identifying as white in the 2010 Census. Was this a case of DWB? We will never know the truth. Jeronimo Yanez, the cop who killed Mr. Castile, had four years on the Falcon Heights police force.
This is a case that should also be investigated by the federal, not state or local governments.
* * *
These two horrific tragedies in no way justify what happened in Dallas. One suspect is dead. Police have other individuals in custody. We don't know how many snipers opened fire but we do know that five police officers are dead and seven others were wounded. The news media is pointing out in great detail that this is the largest single loss of life among cops since the 9/11 attacks.
Shooting cops in response to the deaths of blacks at the hands of cops is not going to make things better. It will worsen the situation. If police officers believe that they are targets they will become hyper-vigilant.
Rioting and destroying property as happened in Baltimore and Ferguson won't change things. It will make them worse.
It is time to realize that the #AllLivesMatter memes and hashtags are not the truth. That's because they do not matter equally. People of color in general and black in particular are killed more frequently by police officers.
Peter Moskos is an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. In a piece in the conservative Washington Times, Professor Moskos' data is used to support the hypothesis that more whites than blacks are killed by cops, but that the minority killings draw more outrage.
"As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police.
Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races.
His results, posted last week on his blog Cop in the Hood, arrived with several caveats, notably that 25 percent of the website’s data, which is drawn largely from news reports, failed to show the race of the person killed."
Making things worse are idiots like Donald Trump who tweeted out the following last November.
Trump's data supposedly came from an organization that doesn't exist. It's very wrong.
In point of fact, from complete FBI data for 2014, whites killed by whites was 82.4%. Blacks killed by blacks was 90%.
So we can conclude that the math shows minorities (especially Blacks) run a higher risk of being killed by cops.
The problem isn't limited to killings either, as I strongly suspect that minorities are also victims of excessive force by cops much more than whites are.
What can we do? First and foremost I repeat my call for investigation of every single officer-involved shooting be done by a disinterested agency. Not the local cops or district attorney's offices.
Secondly we must work to stop violent reactions to these murders under the color of authority.
Thirdly we must work to get the politicians who are willing to whitewash incidents like this.
We also cannot ignore the fact that the ever-growing inequality of income and lack of opportunity in the economically deprived areas of our country is a factor in the crime rate.
I don't normally pray. But today I'm praying. For the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. For the families of the Dallas police officers who have been murdered and those who were wounded. And for a stop to this unnecessary violence, both by cops and those seeking vengeance on them.
Sixth grade math indicates that since Black lives are a subset of the All lives population set, they are equivalent. This is not the case. The numbers tell us this.
In 2015, between January 1st and November 20th, police killed 261 blacks and 508 whites. But that doesn't take into account the make-up of the population. Take that into account and during that period there were 6.2 blacks killed per million while whites were killed at a rate of only 2.1 per million. Put into simple language, during that time blacks were killed by cops at a rate three times that of whites being killed by those police officers. I'll get into more of the math in a moment.
Let's review the first two incidents. First the killing of Alton Sterling.
Mr. Sterling's left arm is clearly pinned by the weight of the officer. His right arm is not easily seen. But from the position of the two officers, it is easy to conclude that unless there was a weapon in his right hand that he could point at either of the cops, he did not present a danger requiring deadly force by the cops.
A larger question is why did the cops not have other means of subduing Mr. Sterling with them? No tasers or stun guns? No mace or pepper spray?
I have no doubt that if this were to be investigated by a local grand jury, local cops and the local district attorney, it is extremely doubtful that there would have been an indictment. That is why the Louisiana governor's immediate call for an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice was the right move. Hopefully their investigation will come to the appropriate conclusion that these cops were completely wrong to take this man's life.
Now the killing of Philando Castile.
We don't see the actual moment of the shooting. We do know certain things. Mr. Castile did not have his weapon in his hands. He did, as required, notify the officer that he was armed and had a CCW permit. The fact that Mr. Castile was reaching for his wallet, as he'd been told to produce his license and vehicle registration, is not in question. The speed with which he was moving and whether or not the officer told him not to move before firing are not shown on the video.
There is no denying the fact that traffic stops can be among the most dangerous things for police officers. That doesn't excuse this. I don't have all of the facts but based on what I've seen this was not a justifiable shooting. To be fair, Mr. Castile was not shot for having had a broken taillight, as some will claim. He was shot by a cop who will claim he was in fear of his own safety.
Falcon Heights, MN, where Mr. Castile was killed, is a predominantly white community, 73.3% identifying as white in the 2010 Census. Was this a case of DWB? We will never know the truth. Jeronimo Yanez, the cop who killed Mr. Castile, had four years on the Falcon Heights police force.
This is a case that should also be investigated by the federal, not state or local governments.
* * *
These two horrific tragedies in no way justify what happened in Dallas. One suspect is dead. Police have other individuals in custody. We don't know how many snipers opened fire but we do know that five police officers are dead and seven others were wounded. The news media is pointing out in great detail that this is the largest single loss of life among cops since the 9/11 attacks.
Shooting cops in response to the deaths of blacks at the hands of cops is not going to make things better. It will worsen the situation. If police officers believe that they are targets they will become hyper-vigilant.
Rioting and destroying property as happened in Baltimore and Ferguson won't change things. It will make them worse.
It is time to realize that the #AllLivesMatter memes and hashtags are not the truth. That's because they do not matter equally. People of color in general and black in particular are killed more frequently by police officers.
Peter Moskos is an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. In a piece in the conservative Washington Times, Professor Moskos' data is used to support the hypothesis that more whites than blacks are killed by cops, but that the minority killings draw more outrage.
"As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police.
Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races.
His results, posted last week on his blog Cop in the Hood, arrived with several caveats, notably that 25 percent of the website’s data, which is drawn largely from news reports, failed to show the race of the person killed."
Making things worse are idiots like Donald Trump who tweeted out the following last November.
In point of fact, from complete FBI data for 2014, whites killed by whites was 82.4%. Blacks killed by blacks was 90%.
So we can conclude that the math shows minorities (especially Blacks) run a higher risk of being killed by cops.
The problem isn't limited to killings either, as I strongly suspect that minorities are also victims of excessive force by cops much more than whites are.
What can we do? First and foremost I repeat my call for investigation of every single officer-involved shooting be done by a disinterested agency. Not the local cops or district attorney's offices.
Secondly we must work to stop violent reactions to these murders under the color of authority.
Thirdly we must work to get the politicians who are willing to whitewash incidents like this.
We also cannot ignore the fact that the ever-growing inequality of income and lack of opportunity in the economically deprived areas of our country is a factor in the crime rate.
I don't normally pray. But today I'm praying. For the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. For the families of the Dallas police officers who have been murdered and those who were wounded. And for a stop to this unnecessary violence, both by cops and those seeking vengeance on them.
posted by me at 11:45 AM
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