police shot 15 unarmed black men last year
They shoot about 1000 people of all races per year, 250 black.
In 2019 it was 1004 people, 249 black. (references in References for Police shoot 15 unarmed black men per year )
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.
Police shootings database 2015-2020 - Washington Post (Subscription needed)
https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings (Free download, raw data)
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).
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 not heard of them.
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. The total number is about equal to whites. (This is a tragedy, but it's true, no one denies it).
Should police, investigating murder by a black man (usually of another black man), question and arrest equal number of whites and blacks? Shootings happen when police question and arrest people.
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.
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.
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