Dangerous distortions about cops shooting black men: Oft-cited figure based on questionable math

New York Daily News ^ | Tuesday, December 2, 2014 | John R. Lott Jr.

[richardb72]

Exaggerations have poisoned discussions about relations between blacks and the police.

“Black men between the ages of 15 and 19 are 21 times as likely as whites to be killed by a police officer,” said Chuck Todd on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.”

Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree echoed Todd. “The data is clear, that black boys are being killed by white police officers around the country.” The claim was repeated frequently on other shows.

But those numbers aren’t entirely accurate, and they are far from the whole truth. . . .

Todd and Ogletree relied on an analysis of FBI data by ProPublica and Slate. Slate’s headline read, “Black Teens Vastly More Likely to Be Killed by Police Than Whites Even After Adjusting for Crime Rates.”

If their claim is right — if police do unjustly shoot blacks at vastly higher rates — it is a serious indictment of the police. But, fortunately, these allegations are false.

One allegation is that 15-to-19-year-old black males die at the hands of the police 21 times as often as do white males of the same age. Another claim is that blacks commit violent crimes no more than two to three times as often as whites do.

By combining these two claims, some journalists conclude that police still kill young blacks at least seven to 10.5 times as often as they kill young whites.

But the original 21-fold claim is based on worse than unreliable data. . . .

[anton]

Good math. Black men that age are 13 to 16 times more likely to commit a murder or a robbery where the victim is injured. No surprise that they should be caught every now and then.

[PapaNew]

Don’t worry, Common Core math will fix it.

[icwhatudo]

Black are 12% of population but:

40% of all murdered cops are murdered by blacks.
52% of all murders are commited by blacks.

Is this racist or the truth?

[TigersEye]

Why would blacks be more likely to get shot in encounters with police?

Here's a video of a police officer fighting for his life with an "unarmed" man approx. the same size as Michael Brown.

Caught on tape.Cop fights for his life. Youtube 1:48

[lulu16]

I heard that black perps are more likely to attack a police officer, and that is why the numbers of black deaths by police are so high.

[Redbob]

"Screaming “racism!” may attract a TV audience. But uncritically spreading bad information is downright dangerous."

Or as Mark Twain said, "There's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics.

But where's the data on huge men attacking cops and trying to wrest their guns away from them?

[Wuli]

GIGO - garbage [data] in, garbage out - must always be questioned as a factor with ANY statistics.

But if your job in academia or research IS not the real facts but selling a political meme, then no concern about the data will get in your way.

[Bob]

Black are 12% of population but:

While technically that's true, even that 12% figure is deceiving.

Most of the crimes are committed by men, few by women. That drops the percentage to around 6%.

Children (real children, not teenaged gangbangers) and the elderly aren't committing many crimes either.

Factoring out those groups further reduces the young black male percentage to something closer to 3 or 4% of the population.

[RWGinger]

I am sure you are right
but do you have a report or link that shows that?

I get so angry that somehow it I white officer’s fault blacks are angry

[GOPJ]

This video SHOWS the math in simple graph formats behind black crime and violence. It’s amazing... Start at the 2:07 spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGTUcS-yQtQ

[Inyo-Mono]

Bookmarked.

[TigersEye]

Nothing beats the stark truth. Ultimately the liars will fail.

[Bullish]

The head in the sand mentality that leads liberals to believe this bogus garbage is really quite amazing.

Blacks are far more criminally violent than any other demographic. so it’s a no Brainer that they would meet more violent ends.

DUH you stupid liberals.

[icwhatudo]

Actually 13% of population

40% of COP killers are black

52% of all murders commited by blacks

[RightGeek]

[TigersEye]

Is the sign in the middle photo-shopped? It’s just not safe to assume that.

[GOPJ]

LOL - if that's NOT photo-shopped it's one for the history books..

[Jack Hammer]

Questionable math???

Nothing will stop the perpetually aggrieved from p*ssing themselves.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Thanks for the link www.fbi.gov Officers Feloniously Killed

I could not find any mention of the sources with links in the article. Here is FBI Arrest Related Death (ARD) statistics covering a few years ago that covers race and age but not race + age.

The FBI and other sources of homicide by law enforcement figures below include the majority of all police departments.

The point of this reply is to point out that whites are the most likely to die while being arrested.

The Obama-Holder U.S. Dept. Just Us and the race-grievance industry will of course exploit all shootings to the max vis-a-vis race more than any concern for the poor victim.

The ARD data show that whites are more likely to die while being arrested and IMO there is no doubt that some of those deaths were the intention of the police.

But the main point is I bet that policemen don't care about race compared to protecting themselves from being killed or maimed.

Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003-2009 - Statistical Tables

"From 2003 through 2009, a total of 4,813 deaths were reported to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program."

Of these, about 6 in 10 deaths (2,931) were classified as homicide by law enforcement personnel, and 4 in 10 (1,882) were attributed to other manners of death.

Table 1 Number of reported arrest-related deaths, by manner of death, 2003-2009

Manner of death	2003-2009	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
All manners	4,813	627	673	689	721	745	629	729
Homicide —by law enforcement	2,931	376	375	377	447	455	404	497
by other persons	27	3	4	4	2	7	3	4
Suicide	541	60	84	82	67	78	76	94
Intoxication	525	83	83	90	76	89	54	50
Accidental injury	272	53	41	47	39	35	28	29
Natural causes	244	26	46	32	34	42	33	31
Unknown	273	26	40	57	56	39	31	24

Note: Due to variation in reporting, caution should be used in comparing counts from year to year. See Methodology for information on missing data by state for each year. Counts may differ from previous publication due to additional information.

Table 5 Number of reported arrest-related deaths, by manner of death and demographic characteristics, 2003-2009

Demographic characteristics	All manners	Homicide	Suicide	Intoxication	Accident	Natural causes	Unknown
Total	4,813	2,958	541	525	272	244	273
Sex
Male	4,594	2,851	517	490	259	218	259
Female	218	107	24	35	13	26	13
Unknown	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Race/Hispanic origin
White, non-Hispanic	2,026	1,233	327	178	95	110	83
Black, non-Hispanic	1,529	937	80	217	111	85	99
Hispanic	949	599	110	109	55	29	47
Other*	150	107	12	17	4	4	6
Unknown	159	82	12	4	7	16	38
Age
17 or younger	127	99	6	5	13	0	4
18-24	909	685	80	53	54	10	27
25-34	1,391	893	140	177	65	41	75
35-44	1,238	658	159	190	78	66	87
45-54	752	390	105	84	45	75	53
55 or older	317	188	44	11	12	52	10
Unknown	79	45	7	5	5	0	17

*Includes American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islanders, and persons of two or more races.

Some rightly point out that whites outnumber blacks.. true. I also post FBI homicide victim-offender data covering several years and blacks murder whites by more than 2-to-1. I will post it again with links if anyone does not believe it.