Race and the police

Daniel Choi
Laguna Hills High School 10th Grade

Many believe that police brutality has no relevance with racism. Others think the opposite. However, in some circumstances the latter may be true, but most of the time, race is involved behind these shootings. Now it is definitely true that white people are actually killed more than black people and that data proves that cops killed nearly twice as whites than blacks in 2015. Moreover, it is also evident that blacks commit more crimes, by percentage, in categories such as: 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders, and 45 percent of assaults in the largest 75 counties in the U.S, according to the 2009 Bureau of Justice statistics.

While these are all valid points, the bigger picture says otherwise. For starters, a study from a U.C Davis professor reveals that unarmed black men are 3.49 times more likely to be shot than white men. This statistic points out that because a person is African American, they have a higher probability of being killed by an officer than another white. Furthermore, statistics find that there is no correlation between the level of violent crime in an area and that area’s police killing rates. Mapping Police Violence, an organization connected with the Black Lives Matter movement, argue that fewer than one in three blacks killed by police in 2016 were suspected by a violent crime or armed. In addition, African Americans were more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched, even though blacks are found to be 26 percent less when involving the possession of contrabands compared to whites. With regards to driving, Hispanics and African Americans were searched four times as much as white drivers.

There are definitely more statistics to bolster this side of the argument but we must analyze the logistics behind these facts. America is so divided currently with the end of the election and a lot of the issues addressed previously have been ignored. Clearly, there is a racial relevance to these police prejudices. All data previously mentioned support the assertion that African Americans and Hispanics in particular are treated very differently by police officers, which is obviously shocking to see such injustice occur in 2016. Racism occurs everywhere around the world, and is especially disheartening to witness such events in America, where values are based on equality. Thus, it is crucial and necessary for citizens to address this issue in a time of distraught like this.

One Comment

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