The Real Statistics Behind Police Killings, Broken Down by Race

If you have been listening to the mainstream media, which is mostly liberal, since the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown you would think that police in this country wake up every morning saying, “I really hope I get to shoot an unarmed black man today for no reason at all.”

But the fact of the matter is, the majority cops would wish for nothing more than a peaceful, safe day of work without shooting or harming anyone.  Do you think an officer wants to mistakenly kill someone (no matter what race they are) and have their face broadcasted all over the country to be branded a murderer, without a trail and based on bystander video gone viral?  Do they want to destroy their careers, lives and never have a chance to work in law enforcement again, regardless of the outcome?

I don’t think any reasonable officer would want to turn their life upside down just to be able to murder someone in cold blood.

Yes, there are some sick people out there and some of them do end up becoming police officers, but it should not be portrayed by the media to be a nation wide epidemic.  I’ve known some bad cops in my day, just like I’ve known bad people in every profession, but unfortunately they have guns and authority to be abusive.  Like any profession, however, an entire group should not be condemned because of a few who commit vicious acts.  After all, that’s Obama’s argument as to why we should not brand Islam as violent only because a portion of them want to kill infidels, right?

Emotions run high whenever there is lose of life, but in the case of these police shootings the media, and our politicians, have stoked the flames into an inferno of rage and frustration.

To help combat the emotions of individuals who may have become absorbed in the media’s skewed messaging, here are some hard facts to remember before you get overwhelmed by liberal doublespeak. (Source: Washington Post research).

In 2015, there were a total of 990 people shot and killed by law enforcement officers.

75%, or 743, were found to be cases of self-defense.

That leaves 247 cases of police shootings that did not involve self-defense or defense of another party.

Out of the 990 total cases, here is the breakdown by race

So half of the people killed in 2015 by police were white, and 26% were black.  Why aren’t white people taking to the streets to protest this perceived injustice?  A variety of reasons, but a lot of it has to do with the media and politicians.  The national media doesn’t have “breaking news” when an unarmed white man is shot and killed by cop, or even an Asian or Hispanic.  The politicians don’t get in front of the cameras, preaching about equality and telling the country we need to do a better job understanding the hardships of other races.  In fact, unless its on your local news, you probably never even hear about it.

No, there is no uproar because it’s not presented to the American public as a gross injustice.

Instead, the media and politicians capitalize on movements like Black Lives Matter, eager to score political points and voters, at the expense of common sense and the rule of law.

In 2012-2013, the Department of Justice found that blacks were the perpetrators of 24% of all violent crimes where the race of the perpetrator was known (in 7.8% of violent crimes, it was unknown).  So the percentage of blacks killed by police officers (26%), is approximately the same as those who are involved in violent crimes.

One could argue that police target black males more than other races, and thus the higher rate of encounters, but the 24% represents those involved in violent crimes, meaning that a crime had already been committed or was in progress.

Unfortunately, I have found that many people (especially liberals) tend to formulate their decisions based on their emotional reactions to any given scenario.  They see a video posted online of a black man getting shot by a cop, without any other context or prior video evidence, and they immediately assume the cop just pulled out his gun for no reason and shot him.  Judging just by the video, it may look exactly like that, but we cannot have a “trial by Facebook video” mentality in our country.

We have a court of law that examines evidence and a decision is made by a jury of your peers to determine guilt.  It’s not a perfect system, but it supplies structure rather than resorting to “mob rule.”

So the next time you are in a conversation with a emotional left-winger who relies on the mainstream media to tell them what to think and how to feel, try giving them some actual facts or statistics that accurately represent the situation.  It’s unlikely they will be deterred and give the statics any thought.  They will probably resort to yelling and calling you a racist, but don’t be discouraged, because once a liberal resorts to their typical jargon (racist, bigot, xenophobe, Islamophobe, etc…), then that means they’ve already lost the argument.  Just maybe, if people hear from enough people a voice of reason, they will eventually be empowered to seek out knowledge for themselves…although in today’s world I wouldn’t count on that happening too often.

Before jumping to conclusions, do a little research, gather the facts and then come to a logical conclusion for yourself.  It still may not change your mind, but at least you can say you put the effort into discovering the truth for yourself, rather than blindly relying the media to tell you how you should think.

If you want to read an absolutely honest and sobering perspective on the core issue of black violence, read this post by a black police officer responding to the recent Dallas shootings.

-Rufus