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Tag: police-involved shooting

  • How to reduce police-involved shootings?

    I’m not certain what this actually means, but it seems to be working:

    In a wide-ranging interview this week, [Philadelphia] Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said he hoped that the trend reflected the department’s shake-up in training and tactics, which range from adopting a “statement on the sanctity of human life” to emphasizing “reality-based” weapons training for officers.

    Fatal police-involved shootings are down 75 percent. It could be a statistical fluke, but going from 16 to 12 to 3 (in 2010, 2011, & 2012) after actually doing something makes me think the drop is real.

    It’s the “reality-based training for officers” that intrigues me. Anybody know what it is? I suspect it does not start with the assumption that police officers set out to kill black people. I don’t mean that glibly. I mean that in the way there are ways to reduce officer-involved shootings. And it comes through training that focuses on tactics and danger, not race.

    Update: Another good story, this one about Richmond, CA (thanks to Campbell).

  • Who do you believe?

    Let me start by saying we’ll never know for certain what happened when Officer Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown.

    [Update: but we not do have a much better idea based on a DOJ report.]

    No. Seriously. Think about it. You don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened. So whatever you think, whatever I think… the only thing I can guarantee is that it’s probably not true.

    And this is the problem I have with these situations. Nobody knows what happened, but everybody fills in their ideological world view. “Racist cop shot a black kid down for no reason” vs. “cop attacked by vicious criminal defends himself.”

    Now there are other issues, very real and serious issues related to injustice in America in general. I’m talking about 2.3 million prisoners. And in suburban St. Louis in particular I’m talking about towns that seem to exist largely for the feudal financial purpose of exploiting the residents who live there. I’m talking about towns — majority black, mostly — that bring in 30, 50, 70 percent of their budged on municipal and police issued fines. This is wrong. But those issues don’t actually directly concern the reality of what happened with Police Officer Darren Wilson killed Michael “Big Mike” Brown.

    [But boy would it be nice if we could seriously address and rectify the problems in America without some violent spark? But we as a country don’t seem capable of that.]

    Back to the shooting. Now that we’ve admitted that we don’t know exactly what happened and we never will, let’s stop being so righteous, smug, or disparaging of those who don’t have your same world-view.

    So now let’s get to what we do know.

    When the shooting first happened, I was presented a liberal narrative by a TV producer who stated that an “another innocent black kid, college bound, was walking down the street when he was stopped by police and shot while he was surrendering while his hands were in the air.”

    I responded, “I don’t believe that, but go on.”

    Today we know that narrative I was first presented with wasn’t true. Some say that doesn’t matter. I think it does. If you want a martyred victim, pick a better martyr (and I hate to say it, but there are plenty: Ayers and Diallo jump to mind.)

    Dorian Johnson wasn’t the only witness, but he was there. And since Michael Brown is dead, he’s the only one with a front row seat other than the cop who killed Brown. So Johnson is a pretty good source to have. But Dorian’s version of what happened has changed. I think that matters. If you don’t tell the truth the first time, I’m much less willing to believe you the second time.

    When I was a cop and would ask somebody’s name and date of birth after I pulled them over for some traffic violation, often they would have no ID. Maybe, just maybe, they actually did just forget their valid license. Maybe. Once in a blue moon it happened. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. So I would call in their name and date of birth. And wait. And then nothing would come back. They were not in Maryland’s DMV system. So then they would try again and tell me a second name and/or date of birth. Like I was supposed to believe them the second time? Moskos don’t play that game.

    Anyway, they would get locked up for a violation and failure to have ID. But they were really locked up because they committed a traffic violation, and I couldn’t write them a ticket because I had no idea who they were. And they lied to me about that. CBIF (jail) could sort out their ID. Not my problem. I had other calls to answer.

    Anyway, when Brown was killed many people bought the only narrative then at first presented: college-bound angel shot by racist cop for no reason. Many still do. And it might be true… but it probably isn’t. There actually is evidence that shows this narrative isn’t true. And then of course the narrative changes to match the new evidence. But, like I said, Moskos don’t play that game.

    So we have two narratives. And for the record I have not yet read all the testimony, but I have read all the testimony of Officer Darren Wilson and Dorian Johnson. Have you?

    So here is what they agree on.

    [Before I get into all of this let me say that we also know that the Ferguson Police Department handled this and pretty much everything after this just about as horribly as as police department could. Why didn’t they say anything? Why didn’t they make any attempt to control the narrative? Even if they don’t have a PR person, don’t they at least have friggin’ lawyer?! Why couldn’t they get a crime lab there faster? Why didn’t they handle the valid feelings of outrage more responsibly? Why didn’t they do anything right?! But that is all for another post.]

    1) Johnson and Michael Brown go to a corner store and Brown steals a bunch of 79-cent Cigarillos. These are “blunts” used to smoke marijuana in. This is an unarmed robbery. A yoking, as they say in Baltimore. Now Brown is dead so we don’t actually know this, but Johnson claims he wasn’t expecting this. Maybe he wasn’t. But he doesn’t seem to think it’s a huge deal. He stays with Brown as they walk away.

    2) Walking in the middle of the street, they get stopped by Officer Wilson. By all accounts he curses at the two of them. (Though Johnson says Wilson starts with saying “fuck” and Wilson says he doesn’t till “fuck” till a bit later. Whatever. I’ve seen a lot of cops yell at people in the ghetto walking in the street, and it often involves the police cursing.)

    Officer Wilson tells them to get on the sidewalk. They don’t. For some weird reason they ignore the police officer’s request to not walk in the middle of the street.

    3) Wilson backs up his police vehicle to block/confront them. This quickly escalates into a struggle between Wilson and Brown. But the nature of this struggle is in dispute. Johnson says Brown is trying to get away and being held by Wilson. Wilson says Brown is attacking him in his police car.

    4) Brown, for some reason, is still holding the stolen Cigarillos in his hand and passes them to Johnson.

    5) Brown gets shot at by Wilson while Brown is still at the car.

    6) Brown and Johnson run away, Wilson pursues. Brown gets shot at again.

    7) Brown is shot many times and dies. His body lays in the street far too long.

    Those facts are not in dispute. Much of the rest is. Johnson says Wilson treated them disrespectfully by almost backing into them with Wilson’s marked police vehicle after Johnson and Brown disobeyed Wilson’s order to get on the sidewalk. (Though like Rashomon, much of their seemingly contradictory views can actually be mutually possible… but now I’m getting too deep).

    So now it comes down to who you believe. Yes, I tend to believe police officers because I worked with police officers who told the truth (“within the bounds of reason,” as H.L. Mencken said). This is hard for many people to believe. It’s like people project their own shadiness on police. Lying gets you fired (if you get caught). But the average cop is more honest than the average student or professor.

    So I basically believe Officer Wilson because based on my experience, my training, and my having been a police officer, what he says basically rings true. Now you may think he’s a lying bastard — and you may be right — but, well, I doubt it.

    I’m going to tell you why you should believe Officer Wilson over Dorian Johnson. And yes, this involves relativism, character judgment, moral subjectivity, and all that. But seriously, we’re talking about trust and honesty.

    Here’s what we know about Dorian Johnson, based on his own testimony.

    Dorian grew up around violence and has been shot. I don’t know why. That’s neither here nor there. I’m just putting it out there because that’s a major life event.

    Now he’s got a serious girlfriend and a kid and shares a two bedroom apartment. He wakes up around 7 – 7:30am (much earlier than I do, I should add).

    This is his typical morning:

    I start my morning, I wake up, I take a shower, and ask my girl does she like breakfast, what would she like for breakfast. I head out to go get it. Upon getting breakfast I get me some Cigarillos. I smoke marijuana in my morning when I start my day off, so I was going headed to the store.

    Dorian, to put it mildly, is “not real pressed on time.” “Because like I said, I was still on the verge of looking for new work.”

    So he’s like a Shaggywho can’t cook. I’m not judging. I have no problem with that lifestyle. Seriously. Honestly I’m kind of jealous. To each his own.

    So he goes out in his pajama shorts to buy his girl breakfast and meets up with Big Mike. They decide to “match” (“it is just smoking together basically”). OK.

    They got to a store and Big Mike, to Dorian’s surprise, robs the store. By now it’s close to noon and, can I just mention it’s five hours later and while he says he’s still not stoned he still hasn’t gotten his girlfriend’s breakfast!

    Here’s an interesting exchange with the grand jury:

    Q: Again, I’m not judging you, but somebody just stole something?

    A: Right.

    Q: On the video that we watched, he grabbed ahold of the man?

    A: Right.

    Q: He said something to him and he lunged at him, OK, you are walking down the street?

    A: Yes, Ma’am.

    Q: The police tell you to “get the fuck on the sidewalk”?

    A: Correct.

    Q: And you say “I’m almost home.” You are thinking to yourself we are not doing anything wrong, didn’t you? Somebody did just do something wrong, so that still begs the question why you did not listen to the police?

    Dorian doesn’t really answer that one, but goes on to say they weren’t stressed because he didn’t think they were being stopped for the robbery. See in the criminal’s mind, you’re only dirty while committing the criminal act. In the cop’s mind, the criminal is always dirty.

    So on one hand we have a police officer with a good record and a believable story. He also has evidence of being attacked that fully supports his version of the story .

    On the other hand we have a stoned if charming unemployed slacker who willingly hangs out with a guy who just robbed a store and then ignore a reasonably lawful order from a police officer. Also, he told his girl he’s getting breakfast but failed at this rather simple goal. Also, he seems to see nothing particularly odd with his life style choices.

    Look there is a chance that Johnson’s version of events is true. But really? Odds are slim. There is contradictory evidence. There is strong evidence that Michael Brown did punch Officer Wilson. There is strong evidence that Michael Brown was partially in the police car when Wilson shot him. There is strong evidence that Brown’s hands were not hands-up in surrender when he was shot. Now you can believe what you want. But the factual evidence we have really is, as they say, “consistent with” Wilson’s testimony.

    So no, I don’t believe Johnson’s version that Officer Wilson — unthreatened except for his ego — fought to hold Brown close to himself, and then shot Brown for no reason, and then chased Brown down and killed him.

    Why would you think that is true unless your world view that says society is unjust and all cops are cold-blooded racists?

    I think it’s much more likely that, as Wilson testified, Wilson realized he was dealing with a guy who just robbed a store, Wilson was attacked by said robber, Wilson fought for his life, and Wilson won. It’s happened before.

    So what I’m saying is I don’t know what happened, but it is totally possible that Officer Wilson is a good police officer who, while doing his job, was threatened by a man who did indeed attack him, and reacted accordingly. Why is it so inconceivable that a criminal who just committed a crime would attack a police officer? Is that less likely that a cop killing a black man for no reason? If so, the world really has gone mad.

    Who do you believe?

    I remember late one night I pulled over a respectable middle-aged black woman over because her head lights were not on. She called me racist and then called 911 saying she was being harassed and threatened by a cop: me. She was convinced her head lights were on (her parking lights were on). But they weren’t. Had they been, I wouldn’t have pulled her over. I wasn’t even planning on giving her a ticket (but I had to once she complained, which is a whole other story). Anyway, the call comes out for a cop harassing a driver on Broadway. My sergeant comes over to figure things out. He deals with the situation.

    So it goes to traffic court. I’m there. She’s there. And she’s looking as middle-class church-going 50-year-old hat-wearing respectable as any woman can. I give the boilerplate summary of a traffic stop. She calmly tells a story about how her lights were on and she knew it and she has no idea why she was pulled over by a racist cop. The judge wakes up, because this isn’t normal for traffic court. He asks if I have anything to add. I do. I tell him this was the oddest traffic stop I even had. I go on a bit more, but it comes down to this: I say her headlights were not on; she says they were. I’m sure as snow that that woman believed she was right (after all, she could see the lights on her dashboard). But her headlights were not on.

    It was literally he-said she-said. Now the judge wasn’t there when I stopped her. He couldn’t know for sure. But he believed me. He paused for a moment and actually banged his gavel (not well used in traffic court) and said, “guilty.” I thanked him. She huffed off.

    This is the way our justice system works. We need to believe the word of police officers over the word of criminals. (Or else we need to get rid of police). My word as a police officer was trusted over an honest woman because I was a paid civil servant sworn under oath to uphold the law and constitution. Now you may not believe me. But the judge did. As he should.

    So in the Darren Wilson case the grand jury did not believe there was probably cause to indict the officer. And they were right. Or at least read more testimony than I did before you disagree.

    [Admittedly, the questioning in the testimony wasn’t very aggressive. But then while it may be rare a grand jury doesn’t indict, it’s also even rarer that a grand jury deals with an innocent person! So despite the softball nature of the grand jury, evidence was presented. And, unlike at a trial, and you only needed 9 of 12 to bring charges. They didn’t get that. Why? Because and — do consider at least this possibility that this may be true — Darren Wilson might, just might be a police officer who was doing his job and had to protect his own life.]

    This is where cops and conservatives think Ferguson protesters are crazy. Now *I* don’t think that. Because I think there are lots things worth protesting about in this country. It’s how we make a better country. And there is injustice in America! I even wrote a book about racial injustice and incarceration (no, not Cop in the Hood. In Defense of Flogging is the one you didn’t buy)!

    But none of that means Darren Wilson is guilty of anything. As I said, we don’t know for sure what happened and we probably never will. But do we as society — or do you, individually — really believe Dorian Johnson’s version more than Police Officer Darren Wilson’s?

  • *Let’s* Monday Morning Quarterback

    *Let’s* Monday Morning Quarterback

    Imagine, say, you get a call for an armed person waving a gun in a park.

    Here’s what you don’t do: drive right up to that person on muddy slippery ground to put your partner in an unprotected and defenseless position a few feet from the suspect.

    I feel sad for the officer involved. He does have to live with shooting what turned out to be a non-lethally armed 12-year-old boy in Cleveland, Tamir Rice.

    The problems here abound. The dispatcher didn’t relay information that the caller said the gun was “probably fake.” That could have have changed things. By my main problem with the police here is driving right up to an armed suspect. The only reason to do that is to drive into the armed suspect.

    Why would you drive in a snowy park to put yourself on slippery turf within feet of an armed suspect?! It makes no sense. You should do everything you can so you do not put yourself in what James Fyfe called a “split-second decision.” Because that is when mistakes are made.

    So you park your friggin’ car half a block away and approach on foot. Why? Because your aim is probably better than his. Why? Because you can suss the situation. Why? Because you can issue commands with distance on your side. Why? Because you might notice that it is a 12-year-old kid. And while that may mean nothing, it increases the chance you notice it’s a fake gun. Why? Because you shouldn’t be a lazy f*ck, you lazy f*ck!

    So this was bad policing. But that doesn’t make it a bad shooting.

    You wave a gun, you get shot. That is the way it works. Because you can’t — or at least I wouldn’t — roll the dice with your own life. You can’t give the person a chance to shoot you because then it’s too late.

    Also, what the hell is a 12-year-old doing out alone on a cold day pointing an illegal fake gun at people?! (It’s illegal because the orange “safety” tip has been stripped off)?! Where did he get this gun? Could it be from his wife-beating father or drug-dealing mother? I don’t know. Hey, didn’t somebody ask: where’s junior?

    Oh, he’s playing in the park.

    I know it’s not politically correct to blame parents. But seriously, shouldn’t we blame these parents who did a lethally bad job supervising their son? Instead we blame the cop who had the bad luck to get a bad call and be riding shotgun with a another cop, the driver, who was pretty effing stupid. But the parents had far more time to make far different choices, you know, so their 12-year-old son wouldn’t be out in public on a cold day waving a gun around. Shame shame shame.

    Some have criticized the officer for saying the guy he shot was around 20. It’s interesting to me that the 911 caller also never mentioned that the suspect was a kid. Here’s the 911 call.

    The video can be seen here.

    What the video won’t do is convince you how real a fake gun can look. But if it looks real. It needs to be treated as real. Not convinced, take a look at this gun. Real or toy?

    Why it’s a plastic toy. Can’t you tell? No? Well, neither can cops.

    That’s a replica of my service weapon. It’s probably pretty similar to what the kid had. And here’s real Glock 17.

    Can’t tell the difference? Well, neither can cops!

    So please do correct anybody who says this kid was shot while holding a “toy gun.” This is a toy gun.

    Update: from Campbell’s comment, this is the gun that the kid had:

    Except that keep in mind that part sticking up in back would be in the gun.

    [Update: here’s a later poston this subject]

  • Unarmed man kills police officer

    This happened back in March, so it’s not news. But still, the number of similarities between this case and the killing of Michael Brown are interesting, especially if you are one of those who think that “unarmed” suspects cannot ever really threaten police officers to the point where lethal force might be necessary.

    Here’s gist: An unarmed man attacks Johnson City, NY, police officer Dave Smith when Officer Smith is still in his a police car. This guy, Clark, gets control of the officer’s gun and kills the cop. Then the killer gets shot six times by another cop. Then, after being shot six times by another cop, the killer fights that second cop, who shoots him two more times. Now, after being hit by eight .40-caliber rounds, the cop killer grabs the second’s cops gun, rendering it inoperable after another bullet flies into a church parking lot. Two civilians help the cop and three of them manage, with difficulty, to handcuff Clark. Clark fought and ranted all the way to the hospital.

    From the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin:

    When [Officer} Smith arrived, witnesses said, Clark rushed out to the police cruiser, approaching it from behind. It was unclear who opened the door, but Clark began fighting with Smith as soon as the patrolman exited his vehicle, witnesses said.

    One witness told police Smith was still sitting in the car and just starting to get out when Clark punched him in the head. Smith tried to push the door open in an attempt to get out, and the two began to struggle.

    Within seconds, Clark was on top of Smith, holding his service weapon.

    “I saw the man practically inside the cop car driver’s door — on top of the cop,” a witness who was leaving work nearby about 7 a.m. that morning wrote in a deposition. “It looked like he was punching and swinging at the cop.”

    [Officer] Smith weighed 205 pounds and was 6 feet 2 inches tall, according to reports, while Clark weighed 225 pounds and stood 5 feet 10 inches.

    Clark fired two shots at [Officer] Smith’s head, killing him instantly.

    …

    Once Officer Cioci could take a clear shot, he fired 10 shots at Clark, striking him six times in the torso, leg and face.

    Clark fell to the ground. Then he climbed back to his knees, ranting.

    When [Officer] Cioci approached Clark, [Clark] grabbed the officer by the leg and pulled him face-down to the pavement where the two began to wrestle.

    Clark climbed onto Cioci’s back, reaching around to his front in an attempt to grab the service weapon, police reports state. The officer pushed himself off the ground with one arm while using the other to fire at Clark, striking him a seventh and eighth time, both in the torso.

    After he was struck the eighth time, reports state, Clark inserted a finger into the trigger guard of Cioci’s weapon, sending a bullet into a nearby church parking lot but rendering the gun inoperable because his hold of the weapon interfered with the recoil action.

    …

    “It took all three people to handcuff Clark, who was still fighting, eyes open and ranting the entire time.” [Even as he went into the ER.]

    The entire incident took place in less than five minutes, according to police reports.

    In a great understatement, Chief Zikuski added that Clark’s behavior “after being hit by eight shots from a .40-caliber weapon is also unusual.”

    Had Officer Smith managed to maintain control of his gun and had he shot and killed Clark, would the headlines have said, “Cop Kills Unarmed Man”? This is pretty similar to what happened to Darren Wilson, except, according to Wilson’s testimony, Wilson managed to retake control of his gun and shoot the suspect. Officer Smith, rest in peace, wasn’t so lucky. He was killed by an unarmed man.

  • Racial disparity in police-involved homicides: 4:1

    Trying to set the record straight is a bit like pissing into the wind. The substantively wrong pro-publica story has now been repeated by every news source I can find.

    I suspect that over time the idea that from 2010-2012, blacks males 15-19 years-old were 21 times more likely than non-hispanic-whites males to be killed by police will simply become remembered as: police are 21 times more likely to shoot black people. But it’s not true! (There I am again, getting spattered by my own pee.)

    The real figure they’re talking about — not just the numbers from 2010 to 2012 — the real figure is not 21 to 1 but 9 to 1. And when one includes hispanics in the count, the black-to-white ratio goes down to 5.5 to 1. If one looks at black and white men of all ages killed by police, the ratio is (just?) 4 to 1. (Ed note: based on later better data, the ratio is actually closer to 3 to 1.)

    Now you may wonder why I’m quibbling. What’s my point? Well, it’s important to base opinions and public policy on fact. And for starters, 4 to 1 versus 21 to 1 is a huge difference.

    One could also argue that even a disparity of 4:1 is unacceptable. And it is, on some level. But in the population examined by ProPublica — the same subset in which blacks are 9 times (not 21 times) as likely as whites to be killed by police — the black-to-white homicide ratio is 15:1. We know police-involved homicides correlate with homicide and violence in the community they police. So what rate of disparity would one expect in police-involved homicides? Certainly not 1 to 1.

    If you’re going to honestly talk about racial disparities in police-involved shootings, you need to discuss levels of violence among those with whom police interact. If one thinks police shootings are primarily an issue of racist police — if one thinks police only shoot black people, if one thinks white people are never stopped by police for minor offenses — one is not only wrong, but one won’t come up with any effective solutions. The vast majority of police-involved shootings are justified. That said, there are bad shootings. But this is more a police problem more than a race problem.

    If one wishes — as one should — to reduce the racial disparity of police-involved shootings, one needs to focus on racial disparities in crime and violence in general. If one wishes — as one should — to reduce the incidences of unjustified police shootings and improper police use-of-force, one needs to improve police training and reduce police militarization.

    To replicate the pro-publica study, here are the numbers for the past 15 years (15-19 year-old black and non-hispanic-white men, shot and killed by police and reported to the Uniform Crime Reports). This is the black-to-white ratio for police-involved homicides. All are based on population rates per 100,000 (using constant 2010 census figures, not adjusted for year):

    Past 1 year (2012, n = 24): 13 to 1

    Past 2 years (2011-2012, n = 45): 16 to 1

    Past 3 years (2010-2012, n = 62): 21 to 1

    Past 4 years (2009-2012, n = 92): 17 to 1

    Past 5 years (2008-2012, n = 110): 17 to 1

    Past 6 years (2007-2012, n = 140): 15 to 1

    Past 7 years (2006-2012, n = 162): 12 to 1

    Past 8 years (2005-2012, n = 183): 10 to 1

    Past 9 years (2004-2012, n = 209): 9 to 1

    Past 10 years (2003-2012, n = 226): 10 to 1

    Past 11 years (2002-2012, n = 249): 9 to 1

    Past 12 years (2001-2012, n = 262): 9 to 1

    Past 13 years (2000-2012, n = 286): 9 to 1

    Past 14 years (1999-2012, n = 312): 9 to 1

    Past 15 years (1998-2012, n = 339): 9 to 1

    With the above data, you can’t say anything conclusive from just the first few years of data. Certainly the group that I would least want to pick and highlight is the three-year (2010-2012) statistical outlier. Cherry-picking the highest number would be dishonest, but even assuming it’s just accidental is still shoddy research. One would expect the results to bounce around for the first few years and then settle down. Only then can one find validity — the idea that the number has any meaning.

    Why pick the past three years instead of the past 2, 4, or 15 years? One key to analyzing statistics is skepticism of “amazing” anomalies, especially from a small group. Something can be (in fact, will be 1 in 20 times) statistically significant but substantively irrelevant.

    But why is the 3-year cumulative number so high? Because only one non-hispanic white teen got shot and killed by police in 2010. Since the sample is so small, one strange year can screw up the data. But over more years the numbers settle down. Here one needs to go back maybe 8 to 10 years to find any substantive meaning. (And even then all this UCR data on police-involved homicides should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt.)

    [Also, there’s a bit more rambling detail, in less coherent form, in one and two previous posts. Here’s a follow-up post.]

  • Won’t be national news

    I’m going to wait till more is known before saying more. But here is yet another — I won’t say “common” but I will say “too common” — shootings that perhaps should but won’t become big national news. There probably won’t be protests. There won’t be unrest.

    But did police really break into the house of Jack Jacquez and shoot him? I don’t know what happened, but I do know there’s a lot here that doesn’t sound good.

  • Black are 4 times more likely than whites to be killed by police

    [Update: Cut to the chase. You might just want to read my summary post.]

    Related to the “not 21 times” previous post, I received a tweet from one of the authors: “Differences in our methodologies: you count Hispanic homicides as white… deflate the results.”

    So back to running stats for me. But there’s a problem in that the UCR homicide data does a particularly poor job in counting hispanics. Most cities simply do not record hispanic data.

    As a result, 56% of homicide data has nothing for “hispanic or not.” I would guess that most of this 56% is non-hispanic, since cities without many hispanics are less likely to care about counting hispanics, but we do not know. In general, you really shouldn’t use data when half is missing.

    [The UCR would like police departments to do like the census: record race and then overlay hispanic-or-not on top of that. (If you’re a cop, this is probably how you record domestics.) But I don’t think any police department does this. So what the UCR seems to do, for the departments that list hispanic at all, is just call them all white hispanics.]

    But if one does exclude hispanic whites from the count of whites over the past three years, one finds all of 9 young white males shot by police over the past three years. If one then uses non-hispanic white for the population denominator, I get a black-to-white ratio of 21:1 [replicated! And updated from the original post].

    But what I will quibble about is the validity of that number. It means very little because there’s just not enough data.

    I mean, one could look at just one year. The last available year, 2012, has a black-to-white ratio for teen males killed by police a less headline worthy 7:1 [13:1 if you exclude hispanic whites]. But you can’t just look at one year — or three. Put bluntly, police don’t kill enough teens each year to be statistically useful (which is good news, I suppose).

    And since we can look at more years, we should. So if one wants to only look at 15-19 year-olds males shot by police, let’s look at the past 15 years. The most shocking result I discover is that a majority of “whites” killed by police are listed as hispanic. (109 versus 95. And overall there are 6.3 million non-hispanic whites and 2.1 million hispanic white males 15-19.)

    The overall black-to-white ratio (15-19 year-old males) is 5.5:1. If one removes white hispanics from the sample (I’m not sure you should), the black-to-white killed-by-police ratio goes up 9:1. Though if one removes white hispanics for the overall homicide rate, the overall black-to-white homicide ratio in society goes from 9:1 to 15:1. All this gets a bit silly.

    So let’s include everybody.

    The overall racial disparity in homicides — and presumably other violent crimes as well (but they’re not counted as reliably) — is 6:1. The racial disparity among police-involved killings is about 4:1 (3.8:1, to be exact). Given the former, I don’t find the latter disturbing high (though I suppose reasonable people could disagree).

    Here’s the thing. We should focus on bad police-involved shootings. And also we should focus on overly aggressive use of less-lethal force. These are issues of training, issues of a relaxing a paranoid “warrior” mindset. Sure, race matters, but if you want to improve policing, you need to move past the idea that police only do bad things to black people. This isn’t a black and white issue. It’s a police issue.

    [It’s always good to put a disclaimer in any post related to police-involved shooting. The data, in general, is very limited. That said, some of the UCR data on police-involved homicides is good. While one cannot infer absolute numbers, looking at ratio of included data, such as race, presents much less of a problem, since one is looking a ratio within the data.

    [Update: Also, some of the numbers have changed as I’ve updated and corrected and double-checked figures. Nothing substantively major. But you’re not going crazy if you think the actual headline used to 3 times and now it says 4 times (the actual number is 3.8. Using different population figures and/or just making a mistake, I first came up with 3.3).]

  • Black teens are not 21 times more likely than whites to be shot and killed by police

    [Update: Cut to the chase. You might just want to read my summary post.]

    One of my liberal de Blasio-loving not-so-fond-of-cops friend send me an email with the subject “you gotta check yo facts” and a link to ProPublica: “Young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts – 21 times greater.”

    “Well, that’s interesting,” I thought, “It also can’t be true.” Since I kind of know these numbers (and had discussed them with my friend). So I guess I do have to check my facts. I then wasted a half day running the numbers myself (when I could have been giving my undivided attention to the Orioles’ loss).

    Now it’s always dangerous to say my numbers are right and theirs are wrong. But I trust my numbers, because I just ran them. And I’m good at this. And then I ran them again. I’d like to see their numbers because, well, I think they’re wrong. But clearly one of us is wrong. I hope it’s not me.

    In the past three years (2010-2012) among those 15-19 year old, 54 blacks and 36 have been shot and killed by police. This is according to the UCR stats that are not perfect. But while the data here are not complete, they’re OK in many ways. And the black-white ratio should hold-up just fine.

    If my data are wrong, please do correct me.

    In the 15-19 population population, there are 8,728,271 white males. (Click through to: “Annual Estimates … by Sex, Age, Race, and Hispanic Origin”) There are 1,978,081 black males, 15-19 years-old (2010 census).

    Per year, for the past 3 years, this is a police-involved homicide rate of 0.14 per 100,000 for whites and 0.99 for blacks. 0.91 divided by 0.14 is 6.5, not 21. For the past three years black males 15-19 are 6 or 7 times more likely than white males to be shot and killed by police, not 21 times.

    From ProPublica:

    The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.

    Now even if one takes a 3-year rate per million (which is statistically odd for two italicized reasons), the rate for blacks is 30 (close to 31 but not replicated). Where I think the error lies is that the rate for whites is not 1.47 but rather 4.3. That’s a big difference.

    My numbers are based on the years 2010-2012: 36 whites shot and killed. 8.7 million white males 15-19.

    [Their 95% confidence interval is vast: “between 10 and 40 times greater risk.” This, leaving aside the wrong number, seems to me to be a gross misuderstanding of confidence interval. The overall number (the “n,” in stat terminology) of young people killed by police over the past three years is not large. But there’s a difference between a small “population” and a small “sample” size.

    A confidence interval tells you the odds your sample reflects the total population. Say you ask 100 potential voters if they would vote for Obama. Four or 40% say yes. So what are the odds that Obama would win 40% of the vote? Well you don’t know for sure because you didn’t ask everybody. But based on those 100 you did ask, you can come up with a range, say 35-45 percent, at which you can say there is 19 in 20 chance that if we did ask everybody, it would be in this range. That’s a confidence interval.

    Again, if I’m wrong here, correct me! It’s been 18 years since I took a statistics class in graduate school. And I wasn’t even good at it.

    If you poll everybody — if you have an election — you don’t have a confidence interval. You have a result! Even with its flaws, the UCR is pretty complete. If blacks are X-times more likely to be killed, that’s that! There is not a sample but a population. You don’t have a confidence interval if you sample everybody in a population. You have a number. But it is a small population.

    I also wonder why they only picked people shot and killed, rather than all persons killed. It’s a minor difference, but why make more work when you don’t have to? 99.2 percent of people killed by cops are killed with a gun.)]

    Well conveniently you can just add more years to get a larger population. I don’t know why they didn’t. (Well, I suspect because it’s work. It’s a bit of a pain to download and select from each year’s UCR sample. But that is what researchers do. I mean, I just happen to have the last 15 years compiled and ready to use because, well, that’s what researchers do. On a Saturday night. While watching baseball.)

    So instead of looking at the past three years, let’s increase the population by looking at the past 15 years. From 1998-2012, 210 white and 242 black male 15-19 year-olds have been shot and killed by police. This comes out to an annual rate of 0.16 (per 100,000) for white males and 0.82 for black males.

    So over the past 15 years black male teens are 5.1 times more likely — five times more likely — than whites to be shot and killed by police. Five times; not 21.

    Now maybe 21 and 7 and 5 are close enough for you. Or maybe you think 5 times more is 5 times too many. But what number would be OK? Given ration disparities in violent crime, one shouldn’t expect 1:1. One might expect police to be more likely to shoot and kill people who shoot and kill other people. (Remember that we’re using rates here, which take into account the population difference, that there are 7 whites for every black in America.)

    The homicide rate for black men 15-19 is 9 times the rate for white men. (From 2010 to 2012, looking at men 15-19, 2,382 blacks and 1,209 whites have been murdered by criminals. The homicide rate for these young white men is 4.6 per 100,000. For these young black men, the homicide rate is 40.7.)

    So given the 9:1 racial disparity in the homicide rate among young men, what racial disparity would one expect in police-involved shootings? There’s no right answer to this question. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the racial disparity of those young men shot and killed by police to be reflective of the racial disparity in violence and homicides among young men. And in fact, the police-involved ratio, at 5:1 (not 21:1 or even 9:1), is much less.

    [Updated to reflect population data from 2010 census rather than ACS estimate. It doesn’t change much. Also, see next post and my summary.]

  • Police-involved shootings and hispanics

    I asked Jim, my Dominican-born Austin-raised San Francisco-living white friend, why he thought so many Californian cities were high on my PIHN list. He thought for a very few short seconds and answered, “because hispanics aren’t violent but police think they are.”

    I love over-generalizations and stereotypes that could very well be true.

    So I got black and hispanic percentages for my 40 cities and ran correlations to see if there was anything related with race, hispanic, the city’s homicide rate, the police-involved homicide rate, and PIHN.

    More blacks in a city correlates with a higher homicide rate but not significantly with the rate of police-involved homicides. That last part is surprising.

    A higher hispanic percentage in a city correlates with a lower homicide rate (which shouldn’t be surprisingly, unless you only listen to Fox News) and is also not related to the rate of police-involved shootings. OK.

    Of course a high homicide rate correlates very much more police-involved shootings (that I knew, and is the whole reason behind this PIHN idea).

    And black and hispanic percentages in cities both correlate with PIHN, and in opposite directions. More hispanics mean a higher PIHN. More blacks a lower PIHN. Another way to look at this is to say that hispanics live in less violent cities, but those cities do not see the expected correlated decrease in police-involved shootings.

    Now this might be counterintuitive to some, but it makes sense if once thinks of all the flack police can get when they shoot a black person (even an armed person who shot at police). For better and for worse, perhaps cities with more blacks are better organized to complain about police-involved shootings. Sure, these protests piss off police, but they could also lead to better training, fewer police-involved shootings, and police less likely to pull the trigger.

    How often do whites or hispanics complain after a questionable shooting? Not so much.

    So could police be disproportionately killing hispanics? Seems possible… but turns out not really.

    In trigger-happy Riverside, which is 52 percent hispanic and 6 percent black — if the data is accurate — hispanics are not overrepresented in police-involved shootings (68 over 15 years). Other than the massive number of police-involved homicides, nothing jumps out at me. When hispanic-or-not is listed (80 percent of the time), 36 percent of those killed by police are listed as hispanic. 13 of the 68 were black (disproportionately but not unexpectedly high).

    In Mesa, which is 28 percent hispanic and has only 3 blacks (just kidding, Mesa is 3 percent black), police killed 40 people over 15 years. Only one of the 40 was black. When ethnicity was listed, about one-third of those killed were hispanic.

    I also looked at San Diego and Dallas, and could find nothing that stood out. So this seems to be a bit of a dead end. It’s also entirely possible that hispanics are listed as non-hispanic for whatever reason. I don’t know.

    Basically, if there’s any conclusion to be reached, it seems that in cities with a lot of Mexicans, whites are more likely to get shot and killed by police. This isn’t what I really expected. Though it’s not hard to imagine a lot of poor messed-up whites living in trailer parks in the desert, maybe I watched too much Breaking Bad.

    Any ideas? (Especially ones that aren’t particularly statistically advanced.)

  • What’s up, Riverside?

    What’s up, Riverside?

    The city of Riverside, California appears to be, by far, the city in which police are most likely to commit justifiable homicide. I listed a rough rank order of cities in my previous post. Riverside is almost 50 percent higher than the next highest cities, St. Louis and Baltimore. (Even more so if one takes into account Riverside’s population gains over the past decade.)

    Riverside police kill an average of 4.5 people a year. This is very high for a city with about 300,000 people. New York police kill about 13 people per year. But NYC has 8 million friggin’ people!

    Other cities with a lot of police-involved homicides, like St. Louis and Baltimore, have a lot of crime. Not Riverside. Over the past decade (2003-2012) there have been 14.6 homicides per year in Riverside. This is on par with about the national average of 5 per 100,000. St. Louis, by comparison, about the same size as Riverside, sees about 126 murders annually. Baltimore, twice as large, has averaged 248 murders. Baltimore and St. Louis have a lot of murders. Since there are more murderers, one would expect police to shoot more of them.

    But Riverside?

    I’ve invented an acronym called PIHN. It stands for “Police-Involved Homicide Number.” I’ve also decided it’s pronounced “pin.”

    PIHN takes a city’s violence into account and assumes a direct relationship between homicides in a city and police-involved shootings in that city. A higher PIHN means that there are more police-involved homicides for a given level of violence (presumably a poorly trained more trigger-happy police department). A low PIHN means fewer police-involved homicides (a better trained and less trigger-happy police department).

    I applied PIHN to the 10 cities with the highest rate of justifiable police-involved homicides in America and also to the 10 largest American cities. First the cities in which police kill a lot of people, per capita.

    Notice the cities ranked 2, 3, 4 (St. Louis, Baltimore, and Newark) in police-involved homicides drop way down if one takes the homicide rate into consideration.

    Here are the 10 biggest cities. New York, even with a low crime rate, has a low PIHN. Not surprising to me, because the NYPD is very restrained in shooting (despite what you may read). And there’s a general clustering between 2 and 4 for the top five.

    (Note the scale on this figure is half of the other one)

    San Diego is interesting because it doesn’t even rank in the top 25 for the overall rate of police-involved homicides. But San Diego is a safe city, overall. Given the low number of homicides in San Diego, the high number of police-involved homicides — a PIHN close to 12 — is unexpected and striking.

    Among the 20 cities I looked at, there’s a cluster of PIHNs between 2 and 3: Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Newark, New York, Baltimore, Dallas, and New Orleans. There’s variance, to be sure, but they’re all kind of in the same ballpark.

    And then you go west of the Mississippi and the PIHNs skyrocket, particularly in California. Tulsa’s PIHN is 5.4. Sacramento is 8.9. And Riverside, California? Riverside’s PIHN is 31.1! That’s crazy high. Here are the highest PIHNs:

    (Keep in mind this top-ten list comes only from the 20 cities I calculated, which are the 10 largest cities and the 10 cities with the highest police-involved homicide rate, based on URC data.)

    Riverside, California. What is up with Riverside?

    [You too can calculate PIHN! Divide the police-involved homicide rate or number by the average overall homicide rate or number. I used 2003-2012 homicide data from city-data). And then multiply by 100 to get a PIHN greater than 1. Or I’ll do it for you if you do some of the grunt work. Go to city-data, enter the city of your choice, scroll down to crime, add up the homicides numbers from 2003 to 2012.]

    [Data for San Antonio police-involved homicides are averaged from just the past six year, since they didn’t report to the UCR before then.]