Stop Misusing Data to Justify Police Shootings
Claims that Black folks were armed when shot by cops aren’t as meaningful as you think
When you read or engage in discussions about police shootings of Black folks in America, you’ll eventually encounter those who seek to rationalize these incidents with data indicating that most who end up shot by cops were armed at the time.
According to this narrative, if the decedent was carrying a weapon of some kind, their shooting was acceptable. Only those killed while unarmed can even theoretically have been innocent of wrongdoing, or at least, that’s the implication.
But the problems with this argument are legion.
First, to suggest that people who had a weapon on them at the time they were killed deserved to die, or at the very least can’t be seen as purely innocent, is monstrous in its implications. The data showing that most of those killed were armed — even if we believe those claims, which I’ll discuss below — often indicate the weapon in question to have been an object with limited lethal potential.
These weapons include rocks, baseball bats, scissors, and hammers, along with guns and knives. To believe it necessary to shoot someone pointing a gun at you is one thing. To think it necessary or presumptively…
