If police shootings were systemic, we should see similar rates (i.e. Average police killing per 1M) across multiple jurisdictions. This does not
occur.
What explains the difference? Racial composition, and subsequent racial bias?
The highest rate of killings occur in St. Loui at 17.9 police killing per 1M.
St. Louis Demographics:
Black or African American: 46.92%
White: 46.25%
Asian: 3.24%
Two or more races: 2.27%
The Demographics of Detroit (Which has the highest ratio of black people):
Black or African American: 78.64%
White: 14.55%
Other race: 2.92%
Two or more races: 1.95%
Asian: 1.57%
Detroit PD has a really low number of 2.6 police killing per 1M. So, the city with the nation's highest ratio of black people have one of the lowest police killinger per million out of the top 100 cities in the US.
Maybe higher concentration of black people actually lowers any sort of racial bias. So, let's check the city that has the most black people. The Big Apple:
White alone, percent: 42.7%
Hispanic or Latino, percent: 29.1%
Black or African American alone, percent: 24.3%
NYC does really good, relative to the top 100 cities, with a 1.3 police killing per 1 million (they are number 3, in fact).
Maybe NYC does not have a big racial bias problem. Let's check out Chicago (the second largest amount of black people):
45.3% white
32% black
28% Hispanic
They come in at 4.0 police killing per one million.
For context, big city average (top 100 cities) is 4.6.
I don't think systemic racial bias can explain the disparate outcome in police shootings per one million between the top 100 cities. There has to be a reason why one PD does better than another. This also does not lend to the idea that police shootings are a systemic issue, but rather how specific police departments are policing (which those worse performing police departments could have a racial bias). I think a reasonable goal is to get the worse performing police departments down to the average of 4.6.
Last edited by itshotinvegas; 07-11-2020 at 05:57 AM.