References to "Police shot 15 unarmed black men in 2019"
2020 June 10
My original article in blue, references in black and indented.
Of those 15, 4 were attacking the officer. 11 were not.
They shoot about 1000 people of all races per year, 250 black.
In 2019 it was 1004 people, 249 black.
Police shootings database 2015-2020 - Washington Post (Subscription needed)
https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings (Free download)
I wanted to get the real data, not depend on some journalist who might twist the facts (or who you might think twisted facts). I got a subscription to the Washington Post so I could access this database of police shootings. (see end for how you can access for free). I checked the FBI Uniform Crime Reports and other sources. I spent days on this, way too much time.
You can get numbers of people that match categories like Black, White, Unarmed.
The number of blacks shot by police 2019:
Police shootings and race washington post, volokh-conspiracy
The Myth of Systemic Police Racism - WSJ Heather Mac Donald
In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015....
94% of them were armed, 67% were attacking (directly threatening the life of) the officer. Some of the rest also "posed a significant threat".
56 were unarmed, 25 white and 15 black.
37 were unarmed and not attacking the officer. 19 of them were attacking.
Of those 37, 11 were black, 13 were white (rest Hispanic or Other).
Attacking/Not Attacking the officer is not available in the web page above. So I downloaded the whole database into Excel and used it to count Attacking/Not Attacking.
Some of those shootings are very questionable and all should be investigated. Even one unnecessary shooting is a tragedy and a crime (literally).
But there are not thousands or hundreds of unarmed black men being shot by police, that you never hear of.
There are also 25 shootings of unarmed whites, and you have probably not heard of them.
There have been very questionable police shootings of unarmed whites, where nothing happened to the policemen:
Police Kill Too Many Innocent People—White and Black | Time
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/18/police-shootings-and-race/
For Example: According to the press accounts, only one unarmed white victim attempted to grab the officer’s gun
1. In Tuscaloosa, Ala., a 50-year-old white suspect in a domestic assault call ran at the officer with a spoon; he was Tased and then shot.
2. A 28-year-old driver in Des Moines led police on a chase, then got out of his car and walked quickly toward the officer, and was shot.
List of unarmed whites killed 2019:
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Shawn Joseph Billinger |
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Matthew Neil Tuhkanen |
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Preston Oszust |
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Katlyn Alix |
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Rhogena Nicholas |
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Morgan Shane West |
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Aaron Allen Przekop |
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Eric Young |
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Tyler J. Meier |
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Andrew John Mason |
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Donnell James Lang |
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Thomas Verile |
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David Wayne West |
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Ethan Austin Murray |
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Luke H. Patterson |
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Joshua Ortiz |
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Margarita Victoria Brooks |
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David Ingle |
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Riley Eugene Peay |
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Chad Michael Breinholt |
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John Carras |
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Dewayne Morgan |
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Cameron Ely |
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Robert Sikon |
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Matthew Jonathan Krupar |
You don't hear about every killing of unarmed blacks, either.
List of unarmed blacks killed 2019:
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Jimmy Atchison |
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Gregory Griffin |
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Kevin Bruce Mason |
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Marzeus Scott |
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Marcus McVae |
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Isaiah Lewis |
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Kevin Pudlik |
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Ryan Twyman |
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Josef Delon Richardson |
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De'Von Bailey |
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Channara Tom Pheap |
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Melvin Watkins |
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Atatiana Jefferson |
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Christopher Whitfield |
|
Michael Dean |
from the downloaded WaPo database
Cause for anger, outrage? Sure, even for one shooting, when you look at the details of some of the cases.
Cause for looting and burning a city? You decide.
So--the overall number of shootings of unarmed people is small.
But- "A black man is three/five times more likely to be shot by police (adjusting for population)"
That is true.
Of the unarmed and not attacking 11 black and 13 white are almost equal numbers, but there are 6 times as many whites in the US.
So unarmed and not attacking blacks are shot at 5 times the rate of whites.
True.
But blacks also commit murder with a rate 5 times higher than whites. (mostly killing other blacks) The total number of murders committed is about equal to whites. (This is a tragedy, but it's true, no one denies it).
The Myth of Systemic Police Racism - WSJ Heather Mac Donald
In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/18/police-shootings-and-race/
Homicide in Black and White, O'Flaherty & Sethi - Columbia U
Murder in the U.S.: victims by race/ethnicity and gender 2018 | Statista
FBI — Expanded Homicide Data Table 3 2016
from https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/murder
There are a lot of numbers in the table. Here are the key ones:
Shootings happen when police question and arrest people. Should police, investigating murder by black men (usually of other black men), question and arrest equal number of whites and blacks?
But- am I questioning the many black people who are sure they are stopped more often, roughed up more often than whites?
No I am not. Studies show that blacks are stopped more often and more force is used on them, short of lethal force, even after adjusting for crime rate. This is harder to get numbers on because there are a lot of gray areas.
Policing and race - Quantifying Black Lives Matter | United States | The Economist
Even if police stopped blacks exactly in proportion to black crime, that would mean blacks would be stopped 5 times more than whites. I'm sure I wouldn't like that, I hope I would understand.
Police are probably stopping well dressed law abiding blacks more than they should, or showing attitude toward them... these things should be stopped, no doubt. They are the hardest to prove and will take a change of culture of the police. I have some ideas about that I will put in my next post.
Caveats:
The Washington Post database covers only police shootings, not other deaths including chokeholds and dying in custody. (I don't see any good reason for this.)
It does not cover non-fatal actions by police, even severe beating. It does not cover being stopped by police excessively. But the current debate and outrage is about deaths of blacks, and there is also better data on deaths.
It does not cover deaths caused civilians e.g. Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery.
"Attacking" may depend only on the officer's statement.
"Armed" - not clear to me if they had a gun out or if they just had it on them.
"Armed" doesn't always mean armed with a gun; 1/3 were armed with something else, usually a knife (but including everything from pens to barstools).
I think my data covers most cases. The Washington Post has been keeping and publicizing its database for 5 years. If there were a lot of other deaths not covered, it would be news.
Most police work is not investigating murders--do blacks commit all crimes at 5 times the rate of whites? It's harder to get good info on. Murder leaves a body, it's almost always reported. Many victims and offenders of other crimes are 'unknown' race. Race reported depends on witness testimony, and many crimes may not be reported, because victims feel nothing will be done.
The arrest rate of blacks for violent crime is only about 2 times higher than for whites in FBI UCR FBI UCR 2016 Table 21. It seems to be worse in some big cities https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/18/police-shootings-and-race/. It depends on police decisions, could be affected by prejudice and priority.
Accessing Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc for free:
Many public libraries have a subscription to Proquest which you can use to read these newspapers.
For LA County Library Publication Search - U.S. Newsstream - ProQuest and put in your library card number.
Sometimes after searching in Google you can read the article for free. (This would not allow you to access the database).
The Washington Post database itself is a free download from github (.csv file). If you know Excel you can analyze it yourself with Filters or Pivot Tables. I plan to put such a spreadsheet on the web soon.
Sometimes you can find the same article reprinted in another newspaper for free, if you search for the title or some phrases.
Paid subscriptions are not too expensive in the introductory period. Washington Post: $10/month or $29/year for first year.
Wall Street Journal: $1 for 2 months, $19.50/mo for 6 months (cancellable any time).
Why did I spend so much time on this?
(Way too much time.) Was I obsessed? Maybe. It makes me angry when facts are selectively disclosed to mislead people. It's worse than flat out lying, to me, because it has the appearance of truth with exact numbers and references.