Sociology Professor Alex Vitale Says Police 'Reform' Won't Work

The date cited in the video is flawed because there is factual data and the data is clear: There is no epidemic of racist police officers shooting and killing black Americans.

While every life is valuable, the number of blacks unjustifiably shot and killed by police is microscopic. Numerous scientific studies have proven that when behavioral, demographic, and other contextual factors are controlled, the racial disparity in police shootings disappears.

Despite these facts, politicians, activists, and the media continue to misrepresent the facts.

It’s time to stop the lying and set the record straight.

The Numbers

It’s rare for police to kill anyone. A black man is more likely to be killed by lightning than by a police officer. In 2019, police shot and killed 1,003 people in the US, according to the Washington Post’s Fatal Force database. Of those, 250 were black and 405 white. Police shot and killed 55 unarmed suspects, including 25 whites and 14 blacks.

Shooting an unarmed suspect can be justified if a suspect makes a furtive movement, attacks an officer, or tries to take the officer’s firearm.

Of the 14 incidents of unarmed black men shot and killed by police in 2019, several involved high-speed car chases, fights with officers or had weapons recovered at the scene.

Every shooting needs to be evaluated on its own merits, and only one of the involved officers has been charged with murder, but for this analysis, assume all involved excessive use of force.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), there were 686,665 sworn police officers in the United States in 2018. That’s one unarmed black male shot and killed for every 49,047 sworn police officers.

In 2018, police made 10,310,960 arrests, according to the FBI, and the race was known for 5.6 million offenders.

Of them, 1,548,690 (27.4%) were black. There were 229 black males shot and killed by police that year, according to the Washington Post, for a ratio of one out of every 6,762 black offenders. The ratio of unarmed black men shot and killed (23) in 2018 it was one out of 67,334 black men arrested. can this number come down yes but it requires that people cooperate and agree to follow instructions and stop resisting? if the police are wrong, you can address that at a later date. There are organizations that will help you no matter your skin color to fight for your legal rights. Complying is not giving up your legal rights, it is working with the legal system to assure that your legal rights are protected. Why provide criminals cover to continue to wreck communities with everything from petty crimes to murders, how does that help you and your neighbors to protect the community you and your children live in. how does non-cooperation make your town safer?