It's not correct. Didn't want to do this because it's probably a waste of time and certainly a pain in the butt, but here goes.
The problem is that "over half were white" became "half were black." There's greater diversity than just white and black. Latinos really have to be included in there some place. And let's not completely erase Asians. Or Native Americans. And that entire "more than half" really shouldn't be chopped down to "half."
I'll go with the Guardian's numbers for police killings. It sources its information and provides search mechanisms. http://killedbypolice.net/ has a higher number, but no search capabilities and it's unclear that they're taking as much care as the Guardian. CNN goes with the Guardian. I suspect the percentages matter more than the absolute #s.
So Guardian's numbers as of 7/8, today, at 4:00 CDST are given. They include the Dallas killer's info. I'm also adding the % of unarmed/total, since they're who we care about.
police-caused deaths
white:
total 279
unarmed 42 .... so 15% of total
armed 212 =254
Of deaths with ethnicity/race specified, whites are 54%. They're 63% of the population.
black:
total 137
unarmed 24 .... so 17.5% of total
armed 102 =216
Of deaths with ethnicity/race specified, blacks are 26%. They're about 13% of the population. (12.1% by a narrow definition, up to 14% if we pitch in multiracial.)
Latino
total 88
unarmed 14 ... so 15.9% of total
armed 65 = 79
Of deaths with ethnicity/race specified, Latinos are 17%. And are 17% of the population, by a reasonable estimate.
Asian/Pacific Islander
total 13
unarmed 0
Note that the difference in unarmed between black and white is 2.5%, or 3-4 people. That can be pretty much ignored not because the people don't matter but because the numbers are fairly small and that variance might be repeated but might be too low or too high. Too small to natter on about very much.
Let's look at demographics and the total killed by cops with race reported: 517 deaths.
If blacks are 13% of the population and whites 63%, we'd expect 67 dead black civilians and 326 dead white civilians. There are 70 excess black deaths that could be attributed to racism. I use 13% because the official number may be 12.1% but Obama might not count as "black"--that 12.1% doesn't include multiracial, and most DUers would include many multiracial, part-black citizens as "black." Include all multiracial citizens that are part black and it's 14%. I went with 13%.
Take a gander at the Latino numbers, though, the people that DUers love to erase from the pages of time when it suits them. Latinos are around 17% of the population--estimates vary a bit. The total deaths, 88, is right at 17% of those for whom race is reported. There should be about 1 unarmed person less killed, but again, that's certainly not a useful number. In any event, "racism" doesn't work in this case. We hear cries about "racism" and the black and brown innocent gunned down, but the numbers for Latinos don't show this unless there's something truly unexpected in the "race/ethnicity unreported" category. (About 8% of the population is left out for my demographics--declined to state, Asian, Native American, multiracial, so don't try to add up the numbers, they won't add up perfectly.)
So whatever it is, it's a police-black thing, not a police-racism thing or a white-black thing. It's not a police-Latino thing. Anecdotes may lead to different perceptions, but the stats are what they are. Any analysis has to account not just for black/police interactions, but also Latino/police and Asian/police. Best to include those from the beginning rather than patch the analysis at the end.
Things affecting this, adding to the "police-black thing", include a lot of factors, racism, to be sure, but also things like education and poverty and unemployment and age. At the same time, this is one of those topics where alerts about. Something as factual as "African-Americans disproportionately ________" can be a defense or an offence, depending on who's writing, who's reading, and what the context is. But this should also take into account Latino data, and that opens up not just a can of worms, but a barrel of worms.
= new reply since forum marked as read
