Perception vs. Reality

Detailed statistics are kept for all deaths that involve police in this country since roughly 2015, and they are enlightening for anyone willing to actually look at them. This requires shedding preconceived notions and exercising your freedom to open your mind and think for yourself, rather than just parroting what uninformed people are selling you. It might be easier to accept the public narrative, but the facts tell a different story.

Countless studies have been performed on the subject using varied benchmarks and criteria, and have mostly concluded that there is little to no correlation between race and police involved deaths. This contradicts what most of us have been told, but the numbers bear it out. People and groups with an agenda will often spread misinformation as propaganda, and an angry public will absorb and regurgitate such misinformation as the truth without conducting any personal research.

A 2022 report by Robert VerBruggen for the Manhattan Institute analyzed numerous articles and research studies and consolidated their findings into an objective, data-driven whole. The studies viewed these encounters through various different lenses to establish multiple points of view, and while there was some variation (mostly with regard to certain geographical areas displaying degrees of bias not observed in the country overall), they generally concluded that claims of “overt, systemic racism by police” as a whole in this country are simply mistaken.

If you’re a believer in the narrative that this is an inherently racist nation with systemically racist police, and believe what you’re told about police killings of unarmed black men, here’s food for thought about some things many of us have been led to believe, myself included. This is about perception versus reality.

There were 660,288 full-time police officers in the United States as of 2021, from a fluctuation over the last 18 years between a high of 708,569 in 2008 to a low of 626,942 in 2013, according to Statista. The average number of officers during that time has been just over 675,000 per year. There are tens of millions of encounters, varying in severity, between police and the public each year nationwide.

Surveys have found that roughly 80% of African Americans and 50% of white Biden voters believe young black men are more likely to be killed by police than in a car accident (the actual numbers are roughly 220 per year by police in total including the vast majority of “justifiable” incidents, and roughly 7,500 by car accidents in 2021, a difference of more than 34-1 favoring the accidents - not even close).

Other surveys found that about 20% of Conservatives and 35% of Liberals think that the number of unarmed blacks killed by police each year in America is 1,000 or more (the actual number is closer to 20, around 50 times less frequent than many believe). That number of 20 includes some incidents which are deemed justifiable, in that despite being unarmed, the civilian took actions from which the officer felt a reasonable fear for his or her life or the life of another civilian; it also includes incidents involving minority officers.

Even accounting for all 20, however, this means that of the average of over 675,000 police officers nationwide, less than 1 in 33,750 officers (less than three 1,000ths of 1%) are involved in the killing of an unarmed black person each year. These incidents are all tragic, but hardly indicative of an epidemic.

Another survey found the percentage of African Americans who report being “very afraid” of being killed by police outnumbered those who report being “very afraid” of being murdered by a civilian by 40%-20%, or twice as much (the actual numbers are roughly 220 per year by police, and roughly 8,450 by civilians, with over 90% of those from black perpetrators, in 2021).

So rather than a 2-1 greater likelihood that a black person will be killed by a cop, as surveys show is believed by a majority of black people, the real odds are over 35-1 that a murdered black person will have been killed by another black civilian as opposed to having been killed by police. That also means more African Americans are killed by fellow blacks in their own communities than by car accidents and all police shootings combined.

These numbers show the tremendous disparities between perception and reality, which fuel much greater vitriol and feelings of persecution than is warranted.

Of course, none of this is meant to suggest that police brutality and racism do not exist on any level anywhere. Rather, it is to continue to point out that in order to heal our racial wounds and come together as a society of equals, we have to teach ourselves to differentiate between actual racism and perceived racism. So we can weed out the “bad apples” - admittedly an overused term, but it applies here - and prevent further resentment from the majority of non-racist people (police included) who lose sight of the overall struggle in their need to defend themselves.

Exaggerating the numbers fosters deeper hatred and distrust from perceived victims and their supporters, who think things are much worse than they actually are, and causes police and their supporters to rally around a defensive circle of camaraderie, driving a deeper wedge. Most cops have no love for abusive officers and are more than happy to remove them from their ranks, but being looped in with a handful of animals in the public eye causes a circle-the-wagons mentality, which drives the police and the public even further apart.

These causes and effects perpetuate and worsen with each passing generation. It needs to stop. Just as with civilians, bad cops need to be punished while avoiding biased prejudgment of good ones. They are people, not machines, and are influenced by pain, fear, and personal experiences the same as the rest of us. The job doesn’t turn them all brutal and racist the minute they pin on a badge, and it is just another form of prejudice to suggest otherwise.

Adapted from “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism”

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.