# Is there a racial disparity in police shootings in America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 6, 2020, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150 "2020-06-06T12:25:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/122 "2020-06-13T06:49:27Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > What you don’t seem to get is that I don’t care what that ratio is, if it’s unequal (and that is what the data shows us) then it needs to be equal. > > If it’s unequal for different reasons, like multiple arrests, multiple infractions, then I can see why sentencing could vary. But if it’s unequal simply because one is prevalent in the black community and one is prevalent in the white communities, then we are in agreement. > > The problems come into play when we start conflating differing cases, ones that are multiple offenders with one time offenders and seeing a different sentence being handed down and then complaining it isn’t equal. > > This also something iiandyiii refuses to see, if black people commit more crimes, a lot more crimes, then they will be more represented in prison. It doesn’t default to “racism”. > > Now there may very well BE racism in police forces across the nation, but finding it isn’t going to be as simple as pointing to incarceration rates. > > When it is found, it needs to be burned, tarred, feathered and tossed in the garbage disposal. > > But all I’ve seen so far is a big ass broad brush with calls for disbanding and defunding the very people who are supposed to be protecting us, and for a very large percentage DO IT WELL. > > This problem is multifaceted and will require both the community AND the police forces to work together but so far all I have seen is blame on the policing and little to no introspection as to the WHY black people commit a ,very much so larger, crime footprint than any other “race” > > Except for iiandyiii of course blaming it all on the white mans actions 200 years ago , along with random other acts of racism or police brutality since then. > > Stop committing crimes is the FIRST STEP in a nation of laws. Let me see if I got this all straight: You wasted my time tracking down cites for the sentencing difference between crack and powder, and then tell us “I don’t care what that ratio is.” What is very VERY clear from your post here is that _ **your mind is made up.** _ Presenting facts to you is a complete waste of time. Did you read any of the cites I presented? _Did you Google “mandatory minimum sentence” to find out what that phrase means?_ **Evidently not** , because your “If it’s unequal for different reasons, like multiple arrests, multiple infractions, then I can see why sentencing could vary” is a non sequitur in context — proof that you either didn’t read, or didn’t understand the articles I wasted my time Googling up for you. > [@](#): > > Stop committing crimes is the FIRST STEP in a nation of laws. A black locked up for five years for personal crack use while a white cocaine dealer goes free is OK because, after all, crack smoking is illegal. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/123 "2020-06-13T11:04:37Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Stop committing crimes Like eating ice cream in your own home, or sleeping in your own bed. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/124 "2020-06-13T14:42:28Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > so far all I have seen is blame on the policing and little to no introspection as to the WHY black people commit a ,very much so larger, crime footprint than any other “race” You’re apparently entirely ignoring the posts pointing out that WE DO NOT KNOW whether black people are committing proportionately more crimes than white people. What we know is that proportionately more black people than white people are arrested, tried, and convicted for crimes. That is not the same thing; and racism, both in police forces and in other forms, is very likely to be affecting arrest rates, prosecution rates, and conviction rates. I expect you’re going to ignore this again; but I thought I’d give it one more try. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/125 "2020-06-13T16:11:48Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > You’re apparently entirely ignoring the posts pointing out that WE DO NOT KNOW whether black people are committing proportionately more crimes than white people. This might be the case for some pettier crimes. Officer ‘discretion’ may have racial bias, as may sentencing. Poverty probably doesn’t help when picking out someone to defend you in a court of law either. But according to [this article](https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime) blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes. The relevant parts… > [@](#): > > In 2013, the FBI has black criminals carrying out 38 per cent of murders, compared to 31.1 per cent for whites. The offender’s race was “unknown” in 29.1 per cent of cases. > [@](#): > > What about violent crime more generally? FBI arrest rates are one way into this. Over the last three years of data – 2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. > > Clearly, these figures are problematic. We’re talking about arrests not convictions, and high black arrest rates could be taken as evidence that the police are racist. > > But academics have noted that the proportion of black suspects arrested by the police tends to match closely the proportion of offenders identified as black by victims in the National Crime Victimization Survey. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/126 "2020-06-13T16:43:08Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Let me see if I got this all straight: > > You wasted my time tracking down cites for the sentencing difference between crack and powder, and then tell us “I don’t care what that ratio is.” > > … > > A black locked up for five years for personal crack use while a white cocaine dealer goes free is OK because, after all, crack smoking is illegal. > > Got it. Just so you don’t feel like you entirely wasted your time, I did find those cites to be informative. Thank you for them, even if they were wasted on your intended audience. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/127 "2020-06-13T16:44:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This “nation of laws” has been brutalizing and oppressing black people for centuries. The first step is for that oppression and brutalization to stop. If you do not have the consent of the governed, then “Law and Order” is just oppression. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/128 "2020-06-13T16:49:53Z")
A question- is there anything at all that indicates Chauvin is a racist or that his murder of Floyd was racially motivated? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/129 "2020-06-13T17:30:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > A question- is there anything at all that indicates Chauvin is a racist or that his murder of Floyd was racially motivated? You are right. Officer POS never went onto a public stage and announced that he was a racist. And I never saw him state unequivocally that he planned to kill Floyd because he hated black people. You are right, this could not have possibly had anything to do with racial bias or discrimination. While I’ve got you, someone said that there is a forest around here, but all I see are all these trees. Odd that. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/130 "2020-06-14T16:17:11Z")
> [@Bruce\_Wayne](#): > > This might be the case for some pettier crimes. Officer ‘discretion’ may have racial bias, as may sentencing. Poverty probably doesn’t help when picking out someone to defend you in a court of law either. But according to [this article](https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime) blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes. The relevant parts… So you’re going to respond to my post (more of it quoted below): > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > You’re apparently entirely ignoring the posts pointing out that WE DO NOT KNOW whether black people are committing proportionately more crimes than white people. > > What we know is that proportionately more black people than white people are arrested, tried, and convicted for crimes. That is not the same thing; and racism, both in police forces and in other forms, is very likely to be affecting arrest rates, prosecution rates, and conviction rates. by saying that the statistics show that “proportionately more black people than white people are arrested, tried, and convicted for crimes”? The FBI statistics are not magically exempt from the factors that are likely to be affecting other statistics. Even individuals’ descriptions of the person who attacked them aren’t exempt from those factors. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/131 "2020-06-14T17:18:59Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You are right. Officer POS never went onto a public stage and announced that he was a racist. > > And I never saw him state unequivocally that he planned to kill Floyd because he hated black people. > > You are right, this could not have possibly had anything to do with racial bias or discrimination. > … Maybe he had a personal grudge. Maybe he lost his temper, went into a fit of rage- his complaints show he has a deep-seated anger problem.What the complaints _dont_ show is any racial issues. Are you saying every time a black man kills a white man or a white man kills a black- it has to be racist based? Why assume that? Look, Chauvin straight up murdered Floyd, of that there is no doubt. But we dont know why. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/132 "2020-06-15T13:56:33Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Let me see if I got this all straight: > > You wasted my time tracking down cites for the sentencing difference between crack and powder, and then tell us “I don’t care what that ratio is.” > > What is very VERY clear from your post here is that _ **your mind is made up.** _ Presenting facts to you is a complete waste of time. > > Did you read any of the cites I presented? _Did you Google “mandatory minimum sentence” to find out what that phrase means?_ **Evidently not** , because your “If it’s unequal for different reasons, like multiple arrests, multiple infractions, then I can see why sentencing could vary” is a non sequitur in context — proof that you either didn’t read, or didn’t understand the articles I wasted my time Googling up for you. > A black locked up for five years for personal crack use while a white cocaine dealer goes free is OK because, after all, crack smoking is illegal. > > Got it. You didn’t necessarily waste your time, simply because I already agreed with you. If everything else was equal, the sentencing needed to be equal too. Why was that so hard to grasp (and evidently not just by you) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/133 "2020-06-15T15:22:26Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > You’re apparently entirely ignoring the posts pointing out that WE DO NOT KNOW whether black people are committing proportionately more crimes than white people. > > What we know is that proportionately more black people than white people are arrested, tried, and convicted for crimes. That is not the same thing; and racism, both in police forces and in other forms, is very likely to be affecting arrest rates, prosecution rates, and conviction rates. The suggestion that the discrepancy in crime rate was caused by police being more inclined to arrest blacks would make sense if the majority of crimes reported consisted of people being caught in the act by police. But this is not the case. The vast, vast majority of crimes are reported to the police by victims and witnesses, and police only show up when they’re called. And they are called most often by black victims in black neighborhoods. And since most crime is committed within communities and intra-racially, that means mostly black criminals. (If you look at crime stats by race, you’ll note a surprisingly large number committed by “unknown race.” This isn’t usually because cops arrest the guy and can’t figure out his ethnicity; it’s because those crimes are unsolved.) In order to think the reported crime figures are significantly out of whack with actual crimes committed, you have to presume either a large number of nonblack crime victims, who, having been robbed/raped/assulted/etc. just decline to call the cops. Or else a large number of black people calling in to the police and making formal reports of crimes that in fact never happened. Neither of those seem plausible. If fact, to the extent that some black crime victims don’t want to call the police, as some in this thread have suggested, that would mean the disparity in the true crime rate would be _greater_, not less. The same goes for the suggestion that"officer discretion" is racially biased. To the extent any cops are hostile or indifferent to blacks, we would expect them to vigorously pursue crimes in white neighborhoods while ignoring/downplaying/declining to take reports in black neighborhoods (and if you listen to black crime victims, this does in fact sometimes happen). But if that’s the case, that means the disparity in the true crime rate would again be _greater_, not less. In general, issues of crime start looking a lot different when you start thinking from the victim’s POV. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150/134 "2020-06-15T18:06:00Z")
> [@furt](#): > > The suggestion that the discrepancy in crime rate was caused by police being more inclined to arrest blacks would make sense if the majority of crimes reported consisted of people being caught in the act by police. But this is not the case. > > The vast, vast majority of crimes are reported to the police by victims and witnesses, and police only show up when they’re called. And they are called most often by black victims in black neighborhoods. > . Do you have cites a) that the majority of arrests are based on victim complaints rather than on a combination of police patrols, traffic stops, etc. and b) that police are called most often by black victims in black neighborhoods? I’m not saying that it isn’t so; but I’d like to see the studies. In any case, police might still be more inclined to make actual arrests if the person accused, or the person they suspect, is black than if that person’s white; and/or there might be more likely to be convictions. It might be useful to see statistics of the percentage of cases in which an arrest / conviction is made if a white person accuses a white person, a white person accuses a black person, a black person accuses a white person, or a black person accuses a black person. – googling that brings up mostly individual cases, not statistics, and I haven’t got much time to put into the search right now; but this article and study seem applicable: > **[Race\_and\_Wrongful\_Convictions.pdf](https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf)** > > 781.91 KB > **[Black People Are Charged at a Higher Rate Than Whites. What if Prosecutors...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/prosecutor-race-blind-charging.html)** > > Prosecutors in San Francisco, concerned about the disproportionate number of African-Americans in jail, are trying to reduce the potential role of race in charging decisions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-racial-disparity-in-police-shootings-in-america/855150.md?page=6)