Police 20% Less Likely To Shoot Black Suspect

A new study found that while there is evidence police officers are more likely to use force against minorities, there is no evidence that they are more likely to shoot black suspects than white suspects. “The cities Mr. Fryer used to examine officer-involved shootings make up only about 4 percent of the population of the United States, and serve more black citizens than average”. Ten areas – Austin, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Orlando, plus four other metro areas in Florida – were the focus of the study.

The researchers cautioned against overgeneralizing their results “because we do not know very much about what residents did during the interactions that turned forceful”.

The study also looked closer at 507 police-involved shootings that occurred in Houston, Texas, between 2000 and 2015, to try and answer the question of whether officers are more likely to shoot African-Americans.

The study found that while police may show racial bias in terms of other types of force – such as the use of hands, pushing a suspect to the ground or against a wall and pointing a weapon – there was no indication of racial bias when it comes to firing a gun. But the study, and the New York Times’ reporting, uses a small sample of data that leads to simplistic conclusions.

He looked closely at the more than 1,300 encounters that involved the use of lethal force and found that police officers were more likely to fire their weapons when the suspects were white, not black.

But at a time when the nation’s debate on racial bias in police shootings is virtually data-free, these findings challenge the “us vs them” narrative underwriting arguments for police reform.

Blacks are 20% less likely to be shot in a tense confrontation with police. This is not due to a disproportionate affinity for speeding among the black community – whites are actually more likely to be pulled over for exceeding the speed limit, while black drivers are flagged at a higher rate for vehicle defects and record checks. In New York City, blacks were about 17 percent more likely to experience use of force.

Fryer’s research on shootings involved any situation in which police discharged their weapons. It found that 732 of the victims shot and killed by police were white, 381 were black and 382 were of another or unknown race. Such reports have been contradicted by video recordings in some of the highest-profile fatal police shootings of the last few years.

Fryer thinks one possible reason the data isn’t reflective of what we might expect is a simple factor: cost. But excessive use of lesser force is rarely tracked or punished. “But data is my thing”. The detailed report tried to take into account for how, where and when the suspects encounter the police, The New York Times explains. “It’s an terrible experience”, he tells the Times. “I’ve had it multiple, multiple times”.

“It’s just a bunch of numbers put together by a bunch of eggheads who have no idea what’s going on in the streets”, Muhammad said, adding unarmed black men are killed by unaccountable cops in Houston, too.

Of the four suspects killed by HPD so far this year, one was killed by a SWAT officer after opening fire at a auto wash on Memorial Drive, killing one man and wounding six other bystanders; two other suspects were committing armed robbery at a shopping center in North Houston when they were shot and killed by responding officers. It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment.

Racial discrepancies in the use of force were considerably starker in the reports of civilians rather than officers.