Police Shootings & Race, in an Age of Lies

police-badgeIn an era where public debate is replete with Big Lies, we are routinely treated to examples of shallow, insipid journalism dedicated to propping up the most nonsensical fictions imaginable. A case in point is a piece that appeared in the far-left periodical Mother Jones, titled “Exactly How Often Do Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men?” Purporting to explain the root causes of the racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, the article’s author, Mother Jones editorial coordinator Jaeah Lee, presents a smattering of statistics—utterly devoid of context or analysis—as evidence that “the killing of Michael Brown by police … was no anomaly.”

For instance, Lee cites a 2007 study which found that in ten major cities “there were a disproportionately high number of African Americans among police shooting victims,” and another which concluded that “black people are more likely than whites or Hispanics to experience a police officer’s threat or use of force.” To buttress these allegations, the author quotes Missouri ACLU official Jeffrey Mittman’s lamentation that “unarmed African-American men are shot and killed by police at an alarming rate,” and NAACP president Cornell Williams Brooks’ claim that a destructive “culture of policing” is “rubbing salt into longstanding racial wounds” by targeting black people with “overwhelmingly major, often lethal … force.”

Apparently it never occurred to Ms. Lee, or to these other voices in her echo chamber, that there might be some significance in the fact that blacks, who are 13% of the U.S. population, themselves commit many more homicides than white and Hispanic perpetrators—combined. Young black males in particular commit homicide at nearly ten times the combined rate of their white and Hispanic counterparts. As Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald explains, “That astronomically higher homicide-commission rate means that police officers are going to be disproportionately in black neighborhoods to fight crime, where they will more likely encounter armed shooting suspects.” Blacks nationwide are also dramatically overrepresented in the commission of other serious crimes such as rape, robbery, and assault—precisely the types of offenses most likely to trigger a confrontation with police that could result in a fatality.

In her Mother Jones piece, Ms. Lee devotes considerable attention to New York City, where “more black people have been shot by NYPD officers … than have Hispanics or whites.” But this begs an obvious question: “So what?” The same principle that applies to the United States as a whole, applies also to New York: While blacks constitute 23% of the city’s population, they commit two-thirds of all its violent crimes, including nearly 70% of all robberies and 80% of all shootings. And whites, who are 35% of the city’s population, commit just 5% of its violent crimes and a mere 1.8% of its shootings. Thus, blacks are statistically far more likely to be involved in volatile situations demanding police intervention. It’s really not very complicated.

The Mother Jones article also presents a chart with a racial breakdown of those who were shot and killed by New York City police between 2000 and 2011. Yet remarkably, the author makes no mention of the glaring fact that instances of police-on-Asian shootings are nearly invisible in this chart—indeed, blacks, Hispanics, and whites alike are far more likely than Asians to be shot in police encounters. What could explain this? If we were to apply Ms. Lee’s line of reasoning, we’d have no choice but to conclude that New York police officers, for some reason, feel less racial animus against Asians than they feel against everyone else. A more realistic explanation is that Asians in the city have very low crime rates and thus have comparatively little contact with police.

The most comprehensive information we have on the issue of police shootings and race in recent years comes from a 2011 Bureau of Justice Statistics study that covers the period from 2003 to 2009. Of all suspects who are known to have been killed by law-enforcement officers during that time frame, 41.7% were white, 31.7% were black, and 20.3% were Hispanic. Also during that period, blacks accounted for about 38.5% of all arrests for violent crimes—i.e., the types of crimes most likely to lead to a potentially fatal confrontation with police. These numbers do not in any way suggest a lack of restraint by police in their dealings with black suspects. On the contrary, they suggest the exact opposite.

Funny how the real world rarely conforms to the certainties of the race-obsessed Left, isn’t it?

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook.

  • Yehuda Levi

    I have never found that facts mean anything to leftists. They are only concerned with anything that supports their agenda and will close their ears to anything that does not.

    These people do not use reason, they use emotion and obfuscation to try to push their agenda forward.

    • Larry Larkin

      First Commandment of the Left – Do not let the facts get in the way of The Narrative.

    • Bamaguje

      Indeed if Black lives really matters to race hustling lefties as they hypocritically claim, they’d address the number one cause of death among young Black males – Black-on-Black violence.

      But leftists are only interested in exploiting the issue for political gain, rather than really helping Blacks deal with the Black criminality that underlie clashes with law enforcement.

      It kind of like the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which leftists wail loudly against Israeli responses to Palestinian terror, instead of addressing the root cause of the conflict – Islamic Jew hatred.

      • punditwannabe

        They do address the Black on Black violence……and they blame it on Whitey (slavery, racism, crime, etc. all caused by Whitey)

        • Armond

          97% of black American citizens will commit no violent crimes this year…yet you speak to black Americans…as if they are all criminals

          98.5% of white Americans will commit no violent crimes this year…yet you claim…they are all innocent

      • Armond

        the term race hustler…is from 1867…wonder why that term was invented then

    • Nanook8

      Hatred and three or four letter chants are all leftists can assimilate.

  • dwayne roberson

    A statistic can’t be a racist because it is a statistic.

    • Sheik Yerbouti

      Unless it’s about blacks. For them stats only tell terrible tales, so they must be racist.

    • tagalog

      You’re forgetting the doctrine of disparate impact. What a thing actually IS, is less important than what it means to protected classes.

  • samnigromd

    Liberals innate racism must be hidden by reaction formation of over-compensating and exalting themselves by finding racism everywhere so they can pretend to “expose and correct” it. That liberal leftists sees “racism” as they do is more projected self-identification than anything. They “need” to act out “stop racism” antics because they sense it in themselves. Sort of pathetic. And it is easily sensationalized so our incompetent liberal press can sell more crap.

    • Mads

      I like this.

  • tagalog

    “(B)lack people are more likely than whites or Hispanics to experience a police officer’s threat or use of force.”

    Black people also think the word “niggardly” and the term “black hole” are racist slurs.

    The likelihood of hearing a policeman’s words as threats instead of something else seems greater for black Americans than non-blacks.

    • Armond

      and some people…just can’t help being a-holes…while thinking…the “a” means…their holes are the best

      ang ilang mga pangit ng mga tao kapag tumingin sila sa salamin … naniniwala sila ang fairest sa lupa

  • sallyedelstein

    The all American-all-white school book of my own 1960s childhood served as nothing less than a primer on white privilege. White children learn early on the policeman is your friend. He keeps us safe. It is their truth but the truth is often skewed as simplistic as the vintage schoolbook illustrations I grew up with . If racial identity shapes the way people are treated by police it also shapes the way we are likely to view them.
    Take a look http://wp.me/p2qifI-2yI

    • Headed4TheHills

      Sally, answer me a simple question, if you will. Do you have something against Caucasians? Having read several of your posts, I truly must know.

    • johninohio1

      Perhaps, but we all grow up and what we learned or were impressed by in school fades as new information and experiences take their proper place along side them. If black families had not been broken up and corrupted by leftist attempts at ‘doing good’, black behavior today would more closely resemble white behavior. The result would be that whites and blacks would get along much more harmoniously than we do.
      By the way. Did you actually read the article? Do you not understand that the behavior of a relative minority of blacks has poisoned white opinion and respect for blacks at large?

    • Drunk_by_Noon

      Any relation to the Edelsteins from the Bay Area featured in that Atlantic piece?
      http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/03/six-degrees-of-sally-oren/309230/

    • nomoretraitors

      No, what “shapes” the way we view a group is by their BEHAVIOR. If one group is over-represented in crime stats, then that group is perpetuating the negative perception people have of them.
      The biggest problems in the black community are dysfunctional behavior and no respect for the rule of law. Check out “Lessons from Ferguson” on truth revolt and wordpressdotcom

  • kiwi41

    Eugenics, an old idea, overdue for reintroduction, is the only answer.

    http://www.cnsnews.com/video/national/oreilly-americas-race-problem

  • El Cid

    From the leftist point of view, statistics was invented by white males, hence it doesn’t apply to the Black experience.

    Cheers :)

  • punditwannabe

    You know what would be an interesting statistic to see is how many Blacks are actually helped/saved by “white” cops. That would be a great story. Many times I see stories of cops helping people out of dangerous situations, and many many times it’s white cops helping Blacks. I don’t think, for the most part anyways, cops necessarily see color. They are there to help or arrest people, any people, I think.

  • http://www.chaverimisrael.org Norbert Haag

    Rather than making claims that are debunked by facts, you should start reading and stop parroting.

    • Drunk_by_Noon

      .

  • johninohio1

    By reaching back centuries, you’re pretending that whites have not changed. And that is a lie. To say that it’s virtually impossible to indict a white man for killing a black man is a lie. It does not address the reasons for those deaths, but a grand jury’s job is to address reasons, and not skin color. You are much too quick to make glib, self righteous and uninformed claims about other people, their motives, and their actions.

  • johninohio1

    I think it’s interesting that Mrunitus1 has not weighed in on these statistics. Too many inconvenient facts to deal with, I suppose.

  • DennisMets

    This is the sad bottom line, a few ruthless whites bought and sold black slaves here in the United States, and now it is not safe for all the whites to live around the blacks. Of course blacks have taken over all sports but the worst is the blacks that run around knocking out whites the black leaders that promote hate and ask their followers to hate the devil whties.

    • Armond

      dude…the White League disbanded…back in 1877

      but if it helps…FBI Stats show…a black is 2.5 times more likely to be murdered by a white person…than a white person is to be murdered by a black

      but then to you that does not matter…because of your deep concern…with all them damn…black hockey players…and just look at how they have taken over NASCAR…and all that fighting

  • DennisMets

    the part about Asians is so true, this is none reason I do not mind being around Asians or for the most part Hispanics. for them it is not all about making everything about race. I as a white person get sick and tired of the constant whining by fn blacks about how much white people have done them wrong, I and most whites would like to live in a raceless colorless world but can not because blacks keep the hate for us alive and want us to feel guilty about our race while they are encouraged to feel good about theirs.

    • Armond

      please read the White League Agenda from 1871…and see how closely your words match…to the words spoken then

  • DennisMets

    Bottom line is whites are not safe to raise a family around blacks, and blacks will blame ALL whites for the rest of eternity for slavery and their problems, that will never change black leaders will not ever let blacks forget the hate for the devil whites. Your going to see blacks target whites even more, funny how blacks demand respect yet they give no respect as a race to anyone. Blacks will back a thug like Martin and Brown that love to rob stores and bully innocetn store clerks. Problem is blacks see nothing wrong with burning down the stores of people and killing innocent people over one thug

    • Armond

      a black is 2.5 times more likely to be murder by a white…using those same FBI stats

  • kasandra

    Nonsense.

  • Murray D. Michael

    Facts and statistics for the progressive leftist are understandable given their secret theme song “Bend me, shape me any way you want me”

  • joe kulak

    “I can’t think”.

  • joe kulak

    A convenient excuse to ignore the facts.

  • http://islamsfatalflaw.blogspot.com/ BobSmith101

    Is Jesse Jackson a racist? He knows the facts about black men.

    He profiles black men.

    He is quoted “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

  • ABCClub

    I think this article hits the nail on the head. The Police have a more
    aggressive stance when dealing with black individuals due to the fact
    they are more likely to be violent, disrespectful, and unreasonable than
    a person of any other race. The numbers don’t lie. It is about time
    black communities started to identify and take responsibility, then come
    together and fix these attitudes. But they don’t want to do that, they
    want to blame everyone else and take zero responsibility for their
    actions a la ‘din do nuffins’.

    • Armond

      aggressively policing the 97% of black American citizens…who commit no violent crimes…treating them as criminals…or as the responsible party for the 3% who are criminal…will only create problems…as we see today

      yet not once…do you speak to the 98.5% of white Americans…who will commit no crimes…to hold them responsible and accountable…for the 1.5% of white Americans…who are criminal

      2013 FBI Criminal Arrest:

      Whites….6.8 million arrest

      Black…2.6 million arrest

      but then…we as a nation…support laws…that seem to be designed…to punish blacks more

      http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/08/08/study-whites-told-criminal-justice-system-unfair-blacks-like/

  • Lanna

    I have known some very well educated blacks who don’t expect handouts from the government, they are educated and intelligent, they earn their own way. They don’t go along with the entitlement redistribution of wealth mentality, and they are good citizens raising their children to be lawful and also going to church. The police when called try to stop violence, but its not always preventable, especially when there are a lot of blacks in gangs who are on drugs, or resist arrest. Intelligent people don’t want to live their lives in drugs, gangs, and robbing or looting….that’s why the crime rate on blacks is so high, they spend a lot of time in jail, take a tour or visit your local jail, get the statistics, they are right in front of you. White people are a small amount of arrests and violence, they prefer to educate their children, attend social events at school, church, and help their community….What you see now with these riots is being ignored, this is the Christmas season, people care about the welfare of their children and worshipping God, trying to serve mankind, not tear them down and create divisions. Obama, Holder, and Sharpton has produced a lot of total hopelessness and anger in their own race!