Police killed vs Police killing [View all]

[mnhtnbb]

Just the raw numbers tell a story. And it's tough to find the raw numbers because there is no US database on people killed by police. There is, however, The Counted, which is
maintained by The Guardian (a British publication) and documents the stories of people in the US killed by police and tracks the information by state, gender, age,ethnicity, whether armed
or unarmed.

Young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers in 2015, according to the findings of a Guardian study that recorded a final tally of 1,134 deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers this year.

Despite making up only 2% of the total US population, African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged this year by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age.

Paired with official government mortality data, this new finding indicates that about one in every 65 deaths of a young African American man in the US is a killing by police.

“This epidemic is disproportionately affecting black people,” said Brittany Packnett, an activist and member of the White House taskforce on policing. “We are wasting so many promising young lives by continuing to allow this to happen.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

To date in 2016 there have been 793 people in the US killed by the police. For Black citizens, the number killed by police is 4.86/million; for White citizens the number killed by police is 1.96/million.



How many police have been killed in the line of duty? For 2016 to date, 92 and of those 92, 40 are from gunfire.


https://www.odmp.org/search/year


I think it's important for people to be informed about who is really at risk here. I ran into someone--just out and about here in NC--who thought police were much more likely to be killed
in the line of duty by people than the other way around. I suspect it's not uncommon to find a lot of people in the country who think this way.


I was very happy to see a group of about 75 students at the UNC football game yesterday sit--some with fists raised--during the national anthem.






http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/acc/unc/unc-now/article103999981.html









This 65 year old white woman kept
her seat this past Thursday when the NC Symphony opened its season at Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill with the playing of the national anthem. My husband--a veteran--kept his seat, too,
but I wish there had been more who had joined us.

It's time to do whatever any of us can to raise awareness of the problem. Black Lives Matter.