The media doesn't ever report the numbers on police violence. They report the emotion.
Including both armed and unarmed people, just over 1000 people were killed by US police in 2019.
What percentage of those were black?
Approximately 24 percent. Did you know that? Did it surprise you? I assumed it was 75 percent. 24 percent is very bad, since black Americans are 13 percent of the population. However, it also indicates that race is one of, not the only, independent variable driving this. The media is deliberately not reporting these numbers. Simultaneously, they trot out chart after chart of covid19 infection statistics.
When I saw the data, I was very angry that my own perception was so skewed due to biased, incomplete reporting in the media.
I was also going through the numbers recently and it does appear that there is no place for contrast in the media, both within the phenomenon of police killings itself as you point out, as well as how it relates to other unfortunate and troubling causes of death.
For example ; ~ 250k people a year die from medical errors in the US [0]. From this one could argue that doctors are far more dangerous than cops, possibly on a per encounter basis as well. Certainly something should be done about this. I don't know if a mega riot will do it though.
Also, just what proportion of those police related deaths were actually justified by any standard ? Like how many of those people actually pointed a gun at the cops before ending up as a stat ? Regardless of race. That would be interesting to know. Obviously some heads have to roll when something like that happens, but maybe we should still keep the baby.
I'm usually not quick to side with the cops on any given day, but I like to side with the actual facts on any given day. Policing is a hard, dangerous and ungrateful job. Certainly it has its ( grave ) problems, but just doing away with the whole thing based on relatively few ( albeit horrible ) incidents, is not a rational reaction to this real issue.
The media doesn't ever report the numbers on police violence. They report the emotion.
Including both armed and unarmed people, just over 1000 people were killed by US police in 2019.
What percentage of those were black?
Approximately 24 percent. Did you know that? Did it surprise you? I assumed it was 75 percent. 24 percent is very bad, since black Americans are 13 percent of the population. However, it also indicates that race is one of, not the only, independent variable driving this. The media is deliberately not reporting these numbers. Simultaneously, they trot out chart after chart of covid19 infection statistics.
When I saw the data, I was very angry that my own perception was so skewed due to biased, incomplete reporting in the media.
Source:
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/