Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture - I

It is time to take a break from the discussion of Israel and to turn to other pressing issues. I intend to return to the subject of Israel, if for no other reason, to give Albert Nekimken an opportunity to complete his rebuttals. But now onto other issues!

There have been many unfortunate deaths in the United States lately.

“Each year, nearly 900,000 Americans die prematurely from the five leading causes of death – yet 20% to 40 % of the deaths from each cause could be prevented according to the CDC. Allow me to stress that these are pre-mature deaths, and at least 20% of those, or 20,000, and possibly as many as 40%, or 40,000, of those are preventable. More than 39,000 people died by suicide in the United States in 2011, more than twice as many who died as a result of homicide, (17,000). See here. How many die at the hands of police officers is difficult to determine.

As these figures show, homicide is far down on the scale among the causes of death. Yet our fear of homicide and our fascination with it is insatiable. Murder mysteries are a genre that has, always had, and continues to have endless fascination for us.

It apparently matters how and why we die.

The idea that we could be in danger from the police, the very people we depend on to protect us, is unacceptable and horrendous. Is it something we need to worry about? Do African Americans need to fear the police more than other races?

These questions have been forcefully brought into our consciousness by the police killings of Eric Garner in New York resulting from a chokehold, and of Michael Brown in Missouri, by the use of a gun that has led to demonstrations, which have become an increasing source of friction, and to some extent a political football.

Fox News ran a clip, widely viewed on YouTube, where the demonstrators appeared to chant: “we won't stop, we can't stop, so kill a cop", when they actually chanted: "we won't stop, we can't stop, 'til killer cops, are in cell blocks,"

This was quickly picked up by many in the press, particularly on the Right, and even a faux apology by Fox (See here) that it was all a mistake, when in fact the recording had been doctored, (See here) did not catch up even with the so-called liberal media. Thus Nicholas Kristof writing in the New York Times, after Fox had already disavowed the video, stated: “Some extremist protesters turned to the slogan ‘arms up, shoot back,’ or to chants of ‘What do we want? Dead cops.’ That was inexcusable”, showing how even well intentioned media get taken in.

But in all this heat has anybody checked the facts?

CNN had a very interesting analysis from which I quote:

Syndicated columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote this week that young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than young white men. Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly had a much different take on his show Monday night, offering that more whites are killed by police than blacks.

In 2012, 123 African-Americans were shot dead by police. There are currently more than 43 million blacks living in the U.S.A.," O'Reilly said on his program.

"Same year, 326 whites were killed by police bullets. Those are the latest stats available.

 Two dramatically different statistics -- and they could both be right. 

But CNN didn’t bother to do the arithmetic. I did!

I focused on the O’Reilly figures. He gives the number of “blacks” in the total population but doesn’t give us a figure for the number of “Whites” in the total population. According to the Census Bureau the figures are about 198 million “Whites” in the US to about 42 million “Blacks”. That is a ratio of about 4.74 or about 5 times as many “Whites” as “Blacks”.  The killed by police ratio according to O’Reilly is 2.65 as many Whites as Blacks, so that using O’Reilly’s own figures, Blacks are killed by police as a ratio of their presence in the population at a far higher rate than Whites.

Of course, O’Reilly could have argued that this is because Blacks are more crime prone, or more given to resisting arrest, but he didn’t. His own figures seem to show that police are much more likely to kill a Black person than a White person by far.

CNN goes into a lengthy discussion as to why Kristof and O’Reilly came up with such different figures, but they miss the point. O’Reilly’s own figures show a huge discrepancy between the rate at which police kill between the races.

Does that mean that the police like killing Blacks or that Blacks are more violent and more crime prone? That there is more crime in Black communities than in White ones, there can be no doubt.

But I think the problem may lie more in police perception, than in any reality.

The North Jersey media published an interesting article entitled "Something good coming out of Ferguson" from which I quote:

Several months ago, I was struck by another incident, this one in Columbia, S.C. A young black man was pulled over by a white officer. In complying, the young man pulled into a gas station and got out of his car. He learned he was stopped for a "possible seat belt infraction."

The officer asks for the driver’s license and car registration. The driver opens the car door and reaches in to get his wallet from the front seat. As he does that, the officer starts screaming at him to get out of the car, to put his hands up, to get down on the ground. And while yelling, in an almost hysterical tone, he starts shooting at the man.  

The young man was shocked. He yelled, "You told me to get my wallet. I was just getting my wallet. Why are you shooting at me?"

Then a touch of humanity entered the conversation. The officer said, quietly and with some concern, "Were you hit?" The young man said, also quietly, "Yes, I think I feel blood running down my leg," or something to that effect.

The officer kept his gun aimed at the man, but called for help.

It’s easy to brand this cop as a violent man, intent on creating a situation in which it would be reasonable to shoot a young black man.

However, what became clear to me in watching the video was that the cop was terrified. You could hear it in his voice. You could see it in the way he moved, the way he held the gun, the way he shouted at the man.

Returning to the CNN article, CNN reports

That reality, (unreliable statistics) in part a result of weak local reporting and national data gathering efforts on police homicides, has long frustrated researchers and analysts who say they need to know more about those shootings…

 The problem, experts say, is that the United States doesn't collect accurate statistics and verify nearly enough information to show definitive trends in police shootings.

 There isn't a mandatory reporting. It is a self-reporting. Almost on the honor system," Sunny Hostin, a CNN legal analyst, said on CNN's "The Situation Room" on Tuesday.

 Although the FBI does have some statistics, most people know that those statistics can't even be counted upon, because they are self-reported," Hostin said. "So my suggestion has been all along that we need mandatory reporting from our law enforcement agencies around the country and I think that the number of officer shootings involving young black males is actually much higher than is even self-reported. That's something that needs to be part of the conversation.

 "We've been trying for years, but nobody wanted to fund it and the (police) departments didn't want it. They were concerned with their image and liability. They don't want to bother with it.''

But it may be that we have become too obsessed by the race issue. It is real, and much of what is happening in this country is dictated by race, but there is an even more fundamental problem.

CNN has an interesting commentary on the broader aspect. Again allow me to quote from its web site.

The difference in the number of killings in the U.S. and the rest of the world is startling. While police in other major countries typically kill a few people every year, the numbers here are enormous….
 How many people are shot by police every year? Nobody seems to know the exact number (something that is itself disturbing -- no official government agency tracks the full data for the entire country)
 On average, at least one person is killed by a cop every day in the U.S. In contrast, not a single one was killed in Britain last year, where police fired their guns a grand total of three times, according to The Economist. In 2011, when the FBI reported 404 justifiable law enforcement homicides in the U.S., police killed six people in Australia, two in England, six in Germany.

Whether one is of white, black, brown, or of yellow complexion, these are very disturbing facts and figures.

I have long been disturbed by the behavior of some who wear the police uniform and a badge and carry a gun. I am of white or rather pink complexion, but I have had my own experiences.

I will always remember when as a teen, (or maybe it was in my early twenties) I was in the resort town of Greenwoodlake, NY, a summer vacation community straddling New York and NJ, but with the town itself in NY. I had gone into town to buy something and had parked my car legally. When I came back I found that my car was wedged between two cars so that there was very little maneuvering space for me to get out. Backing up to the maximum possible, I touched the bumper of the car behind me, and then started to move out of the space, when a police officer accosted me and accused me of trying to leave the scene of an accident. I tried to explain that I had barely touched the bumper of the car behind me and that there was no damage, where upon the officer, who appeared to also be in his early twenties, suggested that I should put up my fists, and we would duke it out. I declined, and the officer relented. But it left a lasting impression on me, that, particularly in small towns, the kids that get a uniform, a badge and a gun, may be no different from the local hoodlum, without one.

This was not the last time I discovered that police officers are not always paragons of virtue.

More next time!

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