Statistics and perspective.

[craig11152]

By way of full disclosure my oldest daughter is a cop, a former son in law is a cop, and a sister of a son-in-law is a cop.
So I won't deny I have a pro-cop leaning in general.

Here are some numbers I crunched. My sources are the Washington Post, Statista, the US Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI data and my calculator.

1004 citizens were killed by cops in 2019.....sum total justified or not
235 of those were black.

There are about 214,000,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 65. For sake of convince I will assume a vast majority of the 1004 killings fell in that age range.
About 27,178,000 of that 214 million are black if we assume 12.7% of the total population.
So per 1 million people people cops killed 4.49 citizens
Per 1 million black people cops killed 8.64 citizens
Again those numbers don't differentiate between justified and unjustified.

Last year according to the BLS there were about 716,000 gun toting police with arrest powers. 48 of them were shot dead by citizens. That 48 is gun shot deaths only.
That works out to about 67 per million cops.

so to summarize
cops kill 4.69 citizens per million (between ages of 15-65)
cops kill 8.64 black citizens per million in that same age range
citizens kill 67 cops per million.

So if citizens are afraid of cops imagine what cops might feel. They are human and just because they "signed up for a dangerous job" doesn't mean they don't have the same fears anybody else might have.

[Bryce]

By way of full disclosure my oldest daughter is a cop, a former son in law is a cop, and a sister of a son-in-law is a cop.
So I won't deny I have a pro-cop leaning in general.

Here are some numbers I crunched. My sources are the Washington Post, Statista, the US Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI data and my calculator.

1004 citizens were killed by cops in 2019.....sum total justified or not
235 of those were black.

There are about 214,000,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 65. For sake of convince I will assume a vast majority of the 1004 killings fell in that age range.
About 27,178,000 of that 214 million are black if we assume 12.7% of the total population.
So per 1 million people people cops killed 4.49 citizens
Per 1 million black people cops killed 8.64 citizens
Again those numbers don't differentiate between justified and unjustified.

Last year according to the BLS there were about 716,000 gun toting police with arrest powers. 48 of them were shot dead by citizens. That 48 is gun shot deaths only.
That works out to about 67 per million cops.

so to summarize
cops kill 4.69 citizens per million (between ages of 15-65)
cops kill 8.64 black citizens per million in that same age range
citizens kill 67 cops per million.

So if citizens are afraid of cops imagine what cops might feel. They are human and just because they "signed up for a dangerous job" doesn't mean they don't have the same fears anybody else might have.

+1

[bmw]

One thing to add to this. Of all arrests in the US in 2017, 27.2% were black, while blacks only make up 13% of the population. As such, per arrest, cops are not killing blacks at any higher rate than they are any other race.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/20 ... s/table-43

Of particular relevance here is looking specifically at VIOLENT crime. Per that table, blacks commit 37.5% of all violent crimes. That is nearly 3x their proportion of the population. As such, blacks are actually being killed by cops at a LOWER rate than are other races relative to the violent crimes they commit.

[screen glare]

Cell phone video/audio. Security cam video. Police car/body cam video/audio.

More powerful, moving, and motivating than stats. And never forget - stats can be manipulated. Or used to emphasize or deemphasize talking points. For example the word commit/committed interchanged with the word convict/convicted. We all know how many black, poor defendants are unjustly convicted of crimes. There is massive institutional racism throughout our criminal justice system.

George Floyd is the final straw for objective observers.

Decades of the same old “white cop vs. unarmed black man, murdered motorist” crimes - with cops usually acquitted - has finally resulted in a national revolt.

No justice No peace - it seems - is finally true.

[km1125]

Cell phone video/audio. Security cam video. Police car/body cam video.

More powerful, moving, and motivating than stats. And never forget - stats can be manipulated. Or used to emphasize or deemphasize talking points. For example the word commit/committed interchanged with the word convict/convicted. We all know how many black, poor defendants are unjustly convicted of crimes. Not even a question
That there’s massive institutional racism throughout our criminal justice system.

George Floyd is the final straw for objective observers.

Decades of same old “white cop vs. unarmed black man, murdered motorist” crimes - with cops usually acquitted - has finally resulted in a national revolt.

No justice No peace - it seems - is finally true.

Video can be manipulated too, has been in a lot of cases and was in this case too. Editing clips and not showing entire clips or entire angles and making decisions and judgement based on only limited video is a disservice to truth and justice.

[Rate This]

Cell phone video/audio. Security cam video. Police car/body cam video.

More powerful, moving, and motivating than stats. And never forget - stats can be manipulated. Or used to emphasize or deemphasize talking points. For example the word commit/committed interchanged with the word convict/convicted. We all know how many black, poor defendants are unjustly convicted of crimes. Not even a question
That there’s massive institutional racism throughout our criminal justice system.

George Floyd is the final straw for objective observers.

Decades of same old “white cop vs. unarmed black man, murdered motorist” crimes - with cops usually acquitted - has finally resulted in a national revolt.

No justice No peace - it seems - is finally true.

Video can be manipulated too, has been in a lot of cases and was in this case too. Editing clips and not showing entire clips or entire angles and making decisions and judgement based on only limited video is a disservice to truth and justice.

What exactly was manipulated?

[bmw]

Video footage of single incidents does not necessarily represent the whole. You would have to record literally every single interaction between police and citizens and sift through that information to reach accurate conclusions as to what kinds of systemic problems exist nationwide.