Yes, according to this study, there is a racial disparity in regards to how police officers treat black versus white...
Yes, according to this study, there is a racial disparity in regards to how police officers treat black versus white people. Just not in shootings.
Of course, there's nothing in this article about armed or unarmed suspects and police reactions to race.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?referer=https://www.google.com/
Of course, there's nothing in this article about armed or unarmed suspects and police reactions to race.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?referer=https://www.google.com/
Comments
That's a key point. If 10% of police encounters are fatal for whites and 5% of police encounters are fatal for blacks, but 1% of whites have a police encounter while 10% of blacks have a police encounter, the rate of fatal police encounters will be 0.1% for whites and 0.5% for blacks.
In fact if blacks are stopped more often for no good reason, it makes perfect sense that the chance of a single encounter being fatal would be lower. It's less likely that a pointless stop would end in a fatality than one with legitimate suspicion. Unless the officer is going in with intent or a strong inclination to kill.