“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” ― Mark Twain
I would suspect that most of the Western World is aware of gun-crime in the U.S.
Additionally, I would suspect that many of these people are also aware of the reporting by various media outlets of the disproportionate number of black people (and indeed non-white) who are shot and killed by the U.S. Police departments.
I am.
Living in the U.K. with my “middle-class bordering” insular existence, my awareness of the wider world is provided by these higher profile media outlets, all of whom have their own agendas, providing a certain amount of spin to further their own objectives, usually based around the commercial concept upon which our lives today appear to revolve.
I’m also aware that my lack of proximity to these issues sanitizes me from their reality; the regularity of these reports, from these agenda spinning media outlets, serve to make these issues appear so ordinary that we can choose to almost ignore them, leaving them to populate the landscape of “other’s” problems.
I’m sad to say that yesterday’s fatal shooting in Dallas, Texas of 5 U.S. police officers (at the time of writing this, no details have been released regarding the race of said officers nor that of the 7 others injured) by a sniper at the peaceful ‘Black Lives Matter’ rally, actually made me pay more attention.
Sad, because this means it took the shooting of 5 authority figures to make me listen, and not the statistic that black people are 9 times more likely to be shot by police than whites. Sad, because it took this sort of violent protest and not the peaceful one it disrupted to make me pay more attention. Sad, because I realise this was the only way these frustrated gunmen could make their opinions heard. Sad, because, in this sanitized world, these frustrated gunmen thought this was the only way of appealing to other’s empathy and engendering some sort of sympathy for their cause.
Sad, because the loss of life by another can never be condoned. Ever.
Their actions have elicited various headlines and comments, with one media outlet running the headline:
“Dallas shooting: Gunman ‘wanted to kill whites’ says police chief”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36745862
Such “them and us” headlines do not help. They will, however, allow some to justify their continued actions.
The perpetual question: why?
Why is it reported that black people are 9 times more likely to be shot than white people in the U.S.?
Ignoring the statistics, the question is: are U.S. Police targeting, purposefully or unknowingly, black people with lethal force because of their race?
Recently, on Facebook and other media outlets, we have seen the recording of live footage, taken by the girlfriend of Philando Castile, following him being shot by a police officer who had allegedly pulled him over for a broken taillight.
If Philando Castile was a white 32 year old male, driving his family in his car, stopped by police for an alleged broken taillight, responsibly and voluntarily declaring that he was licenced to carry a firearm and that he did indeed have one, would he have been shot whilst retrieving his Driver’s Licence at the request of the police officer?
The question here is not: was the police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile acting within the Minnesota Police Department’s procedures for “reasonableness” in his use of deadly force? As there is a clause that states “police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving – about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation”. Even after the event, the acceptance of “reasonableness” is as assessed by that police officer at the moment he pulls the trigger and not “with the 20/20 vision of hindsight”!
(I have included part of the section from the MPD’s Policy and Procedure Manual, 5–303 Authorized Use of Force, (10/16/02) (08/17/07):
“In addition to Minn. Stat. §609.06 sub. 1, MPD policies shall utilize the United States Supreme Court decision in Graham vs Connor as a guideline for reasonable force.
The Graham vs Connor case references that:
“Because the test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application, its proper application requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including:
The severity of the crime at issue,
Whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and;
Whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.
The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of the reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.
The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving – about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.”
Authorized use of force requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each case. Sworn MPD employees shall write a detailed, comprehensive report for each instance in which force was used”
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/policy/mpdpolicy_5–300_5–300 )
No, the question born from the reported statistic, that black people are 9 times more likely to be shot than white people in the U.S., is: does being black in the U.S. make the use of deadly force, purposefully or unknowingly, by certain members of the U.S. Police Force, “reasonable”?
With my raised attention to this issue, where would I find this information? Where would I find a definitive account of any racism underpinning decisions of the reasonable use of deadly force, after the event, carried out by members of the U.S. Police Force?
Surprisingly, nowhere it seems.
I did find various independent websites with various amounts of information, some very impressive, with an array of graphs and tables. However, upon further investigation, these sites were not shy about referencing their own data to support their claims.
Other higher profile media sites again had a variety of information, but also certainly had their own agendas.
Some U.S. Government sites, both national and local, also had lots of seemingly unsubstantiated information.
The problem with all these was the bias associated with each site. That’s not to say that what they were saying was wrong, just that their source was unreliable.
I also tried the FBI and their ‘Uniform Crime Reporting’ system: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr . This states “18,000 city, university/college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily participating in the program” (at the time of writing the number of non-participating agencies had not been released). I found that the site didn’t seem to contain any official data on the shooting of any members of the public by police officers. When I discovered that this site had recently had an overhaul in order “to improve UCR efficiency, usability, and maintainability while increasing the value to users of UCR products” https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-redevelopment-project it led me to further question the reliability existing data.
It seems that America do not want to know. There appears to be no official figures about fatal shootings by U.S. police officers and the information that there is appears unreliable.
However, I did eventually find “The Counted”, a website by The Guardian newspaper: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
This is a site that has “been recording every death caused by American law enforcement since 2015 – something that no government agency has done”
This is a site sympathetically put together that reports known, verified details of every. fatal shooting by US police officers. No comment is given by the site. It simply states searchable information for every fatality, such as race, age, gender, armed or unarmed etc
This is a site that everyone needs to know about.
Indeed, the current FBI Chief, James Comey said of “The Counted” website “It is unacceptable that the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper from the UK are becoming the lead source of information about violent encounters between [US] police and civilians.”, as reported by The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/08/fbi-chief-says-ridiculous-guardian-washington-post-better-information-police-shootings
The thing that most surprises me about this site, is that I hadn’t heard of it before now.
The world may never get an admission of purposeful or unknowing racism either from an individual or from an institution. All that is left is for people to continue to campaign, non-violently, and for the undiluted, un-spun information to be available for all.