Considering there ARE more white people in America than black (70+/-% white vs 13+/-% black) , that's not surprising. But, when more police encounters with a black man ends in a shooting than police encounters with white men, then it's not rhetoric.
police do take down black men without shooting them! It happens on a nearly daily basis in Augusta Georgia. I'm sure Augusta isn't the only city where this occurs. Are you aware that you can research the subject yourself? I would say about an hour of serious googling arrest reports or The Jail Report or whatever version you have in your city will give you plenty of real life examples of the police getting physical with suspects of all colors without shooting them.
Currently the lifetime odds are 1 in 1,000 of a black man getting killed by a cop. That said perhaps (I could be wrong) more black people are shot by cops because they have a higher overall crime * rate as a percentage of the population than do whites. This data will take you about 15 seconds to google BTW. Or you can buy a Jail Report and look at the pictures of suspects and bounce that against the demographics of that location. Logic would dictate committing more crimes will result in more encounters with police which will inevitably result in more encounters going south. It's basic math. * by "crime" I am taking all drug crimes, shoplifting, etc. off the table and considering violent/serious crimes such as rape, assault, armed robbery, etc etc. As a percentage of the population as a whole blacks commit more violent crimes. Do black suspects physically resist arrest (to include physically fighting the cops) at a higher rate than white suspects? I bet you could google that, but it might take a while because the crime data might not be broken down to that level of detail.
Doesn't matter. All those crimes are committed by white people as well. Yet, overwhelmingly, when a black man commits a crime, his odds of being shot increase dramatically than if he was white.
It is probably not worth either of our time to track examples down, but it's a fairly safe bet that sometimes cops have subdued black people who have knives without resorting to shooting them and sometimes cops have shot white people with knives instead of trying to disarm them. Even though implicit and explicit bias are real things, there are going to be lots of variables beyond skin color that might make one cop shoot a person in one situation and another cop use a different tactic in another.
For what it's worth...if I were called as an "expert" (that's a stretch, but go with me) I would have to say that I consider a knife a deadly threat, in some cases more dangerous than a gun. In a hypothetical three on one in close quarters and a gun wielding suspect, he can only get a bead on one of them and there's no way to disguise that target and most likely he can only get off one shot. Not a good situation to be sure. On the other hand, a knife attack puts any of the three at risk from any direction. If the person with the knife has any skill at all, it's easy to hide the knife and all three are at risk without any warning. Please note, I'm speaking in general terms, not about this particular incident about which I know next to nothing. I just want to reinforce the point Elwood made and to add my own opinion that knives are a much greater threat than many people appreciate.
A reasonable and factual statement! I couldn't agree more. Please pass it along to Jenee. If I said the exact same thing you just said it would be considered racist rhetoric to Jenee. Coming from you it will be a reasonable and factual statement.
You are correct. At close quarters - within arm’s reach - a knife is much more dangerous than a gun.
What part of your point do you think it does not address? I'd be happy to address it more directly. Although he didn't specifically talk about the race of the people who confronted him with knives, I think Elwood probably said it more articulately than I could: I presume Elwood is as bias-free as anybody can reasonably be. But he shows a couple of things that you should take to heart, IMO: 1. Every situation is different. So there's not a one-size-fits-all solution 2. Even the same officer will handle knife situations different ways. 3. There is real danger involved with someone using a knife which justifies using a gun to defend oneself.
No. I am saying: 1. We do know that police sometimes shoot white people with knives, and refrain from shooting black people with knives. 2. We do not know how many black people with knives police officers shoot as opposed to how many white people, what percentages of black pepole with knives get shot versus white people, etc. 3. Even assuming for argument's sake that police are disproportionately likely to shoot black people with knives than white people, that isn't necessarily because of skin color. But enough about what I am saying. What point were you trying to make that you think I did not address?
My point was that of the US population, 70+/-% is white and 13+/-% is black. and that while more white criminals are shot than black criminals, the percentage of black criminals shot vs the percentage of white criminals that are shot is disproportionate.
What's the percentage of unarmed white criminals shot vs. unarmed black criminals shot? What's the percentage of knife-wielding white criminals shot vs. knife wielding black criminals shot?
Why would I even respond to you? You think George Zimmerman was justified in murdering Trayvon Martin. If someone else would like to ask ...
What is your proof that the percentage of white suspects with a knife who get shot is higher than the percentage of black suspects with a knife who get shot? Or that of criminals who get shot with a knife, that the percentage of them who are black is disproportionate? And like I said, even assuming that, what is the evidence that this is because of either intentional or implicit bias, as opposed to class, the indiidual circumstances of the cases, coincidence, or numerous other possible factors? By way of analogy, pro sports like baseball, football and basketball are disproportionately black.Meanwhile, pro sports like NASCAR, golf and hockey are disproportionately white. This does not mean that the people running or playing those sports are intentionally discriminating in favor of blacks in the first set and against blacks in the second set. (Although, to be sure, there is some discrimination).
Specific to knife wielding criminals? I don't know that there ever has been a study. However, the disproportionate shooting of black suspects to white suspects is not undocumented. There are numerous reports out there on studies documenting the disproportionate shooting of black suspects to white suspects, including this study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6080222/
OK, but the relevant thing here is about armed people. Because your hypothesis here is that cops are more likely to shoot black people with knives than they are willing to shoot white people with knives. Beyond that, this source only looks at fatal shootings by police officers. Presumably, there are a bunch of shootings in which no one died or even was wounded that aren't reflected in this data. And beyond that, you run into the issue of disproprtionality along racial lines does not necessarily mean disproportionality because of racial lines.
I really do not know what it is you are arguing for or against. Blake could have been taken down without being shot. Had the police officers involved had more training or even training specific to taking down knife-wielding suspects, this could have been avoided. And do not even attempt to argue that police should not have to have that training because they have guns. Hell, send them to a women's defense course. They're taught how to escape knife-wielding attackers.
in 2015, it was about 2:7 overall about 1:8 for Natives 2:5 for Latinos and somewhat slightly higher than for Asians, like 5:4 type of thing...
What I am saying should be pretty clear. But let's give it another try. Hypothetically, Blake or anyone with a knife can be taken into custody without use of a gun. We agree there. A knife is a deadly threat. Hopefully we agree there. However, circumstances can make an attempt to take down a man with a gun more difficult or less difficult. This should be obvious. Mike and Elwood both have confirmed this in this thread. You have made a series of claims that police are more likely to shoot black people with knives than they are to shoot white people with knives. You don't have evidence of this. The best evidence you have put forth so far is that police disproportionately shoot black people in general. That doesn't speak to your point. In the specific case of Blake, the officers used several means to try to take him down without shooting him, and those means did not work. So if I were to concede the unproven point that cops disproportionately shoot armed black people versus armed white people generally, the facts of the Blake case make it questionable to think that it turned on race. If you can come up with a case involves a white suspect that even comes close to the facts of the Blake case and the officers did not shoot, I would be shocked.
I think you're arguing just to argue. It matters not if the armed person had a knife or a gun. The point is about the disproportionate shooting of black men. If you don't agree with that, fine. I've provided a study. There are more out there.
But the study doesn't show the relevant info. The relevant info would be how often cops shoot at armed black people versus how often they shoot at armed white people. If there were proof that they shoot more frequently at armed black people while letting armed white people skate, that would justify the statements you've been making. At best, you can say something like, because prejudice exists and we know that cops shoot at unarmed black people disproportionately to unarmed white people, it's a fair assumption that they shoot armed black people disproportionately to white people. I don't think that is a fair assumption.
