Are the Police Racist?

Are the police racist?  That's the question explored in a new Prager University video by Heather MacDonald, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute.  The popular narrative being promoted by groups like Black Lives Matter, the left-wing media, actors, politicians, and even NFL quarterbacks is that there is systematic, institutional racism in America's police forces against black people.  But let's take a look at the facts:
  • In simulated threat scenarios, police officers are less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white or Hispanic ones. 
  • In a study of more than 1,000 officer-involved shootings across the country, Harvard Professor Roland Fryer found that there is zero evidence of racial bias.
  • In Houston, a study found that blacks were 24 percent less likely than whites to be shot by officers, even though the suspects were armed or violent.
  • 12 percent of all whites and Hispanics who die of homicide are killed by cops, but only four percent of black homicide victims are killed by cops.
Even though blacks only make up 13 percent of the national population, they make up 26 percent of police shootings.  Is this evidence of racism?  Again, let's look at the facts.  As MacDonald says, "Police shootings occur more frequently where officers confront armed or violently resisting suspects.  Those suspects are disproportionately black."
  • Although blacks are only 15% of the population in the 75 largest counties in the US, they were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of all murders, and 45% of all assaults.
  • In New York City, blacks only make up 23% of the city's population, but they commit over 75% of all shootings.  Whites only commit under 2% of all shootings, though they make up 34% of the population.
Who is the real threat to black people?  It's not the police.  "In fact, a police officer is eighteen and a half times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer," writes MacDonald.  In Chicago, 2,300 people were shot in the first three months of this year.  How many of those were shot by the police?  Only 12, and all were armed and dangerous. 

When we say "Blue Lives Matter," it doesn't mean that we do not care about black people.  And it doesn't deny that sometimes police officers do the wrong thing.  It just means that the real problem in our country are not the police, but criminals.  And the police are a big part of the solution.  It means we support the police and appreciate what they do.  And it means we object to the false narrative that the police are systematically and institutionally racist against blacks.  It just isn't true. 

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