Most Americans are convinced there is an “epidemic” of police shooting unarmed black males in America. This widespread misperception is reinforced with misreportage, sensationalized reportage, missing context, and the lack of reporting on analogous cases.

In February, a survey was released that showed how many adults overestimate the number of adult unarmed black males were killed by police officers in 2019 (the last year with full data available). The Skeptic Research Center published the results, which were broken down by political ideology. A chart based on these responses is posted below:

The bars are color-coded to reflect the estimation in each political ideology category. Very Liberal respondents were the furthest from reality: 14.29% said ‘about 10,000’ unarmed black males were killed by police, while 31.43% said ‘about 1,000.’ Liberals were slightly closer at 6.67% saying ‘about 10,000’ and 26.67% saying ‘about 1,000.’ According to the database at Mapping Police Violence, this number was actually 27.

The responses get more egregiously off-base when the survey delves into respondents’ estimates of the racial proportion of those killed by police.

“The available data suggest that 24.9% of people killed by police in 2019 were Black,” the Skeptic Research Center states. “However, across the political spectrum, survey participants overestimated this number.”

“Those who reported being ‘liberal’ or ‘very liberal’ were particularly inaccurate, estimating the proportion to be 56% and 60%, respectively,” the survey adds.

In terms of the national trends, the number of fatal police shootings each year has remained fairly constant. A chart by Statista shows the fatal police shootings by racial demographic for the past five years up to current date:

There is a much stronger explanation for fatal police shootings than racial bias: Arrest rates. The FBI’s 2019 Crime in the United States report breaks down arrests by racial demographic.

The proportion of arrests for Black or African American suspects compared to the Total of all arrests: 26.6%. This tracks almost perfectly with the odds that a Black or African American suspect is shot by police.

An analysis performed at DataBricks from 2015-2020 further underscores this proportion of fatal police shootings and provides more context:

51% White, 26% Black, 19% Hispanic, 2% Asian, and 2% Native American victims 23% of victims showed signs of mental illness, indicated by on-scene mental health crises or news reports 91% of victims were determined to be armed, with objects ranging from toy weapons to pepper spray to tasers to guns

The Washington Post’s police shooting database further underscores how rare it is that unarmed black males are shot by police officers. Its reported police killings of unarmed black males in 2019 is far below even the 27 reported by Mapping Police Violence. It is a total of 11 — fewer than a dozen cases.

If one sorts the database for the last six years, one finds a total of 129 people shot and killed by police. This is an average of 21 unarmed black males per year out of a population of approximately 20 million. This is virtually ‘one in a million.’

Poster Comment:

Their graphs are deceptive. Better off without them.