police misconduct

Police Killings and Race: Afterthoughts

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , ,

The verdict on former officer Chauvin seems extreme to me. I think manslaughter would have been enough. Of course, it’s possible that I don’t understand the legal subtleties. Also, I did not receive all the information the jurors had access to. Also, I didn’t have to make up my mind under the pressure of fearing to trigger a riot in my own city.

As usual, I react to what did not happen. In the sad Floyd case, a bell weather for a new anti-racist movement in the US, the prosecution did not allege anything of a racial nature. Let me say this again: for some reason, the prosecutor did not claim that the victim’s race played a part in his death. Strange abstention because such a claim would have almost automatically brought to bear the enormous weight and power of the Federal Government. (The Feds are explicitly in charge of dealing with suspected violations of civil rights.)

Personally, I think we have a general problem of police brutality in this country. I mean that American cops are entirely too prompt to shoot. I also believe this is largely a result of permissive training on the matter. American police doctrine gives cops too much leeway about when to shoot a suspect. It does not do enough to support alternatives, including less than lethal means of incapacitation. Here is a small piece of supporting evidence: An American is about ten times more likely to be killed by the police than a French person. One can try to claim that French criminals and French suspects are ten times less dangerous than their American counterparts. Read this aloud and think it through. (Of course, there is always the possibility that your average French suspect, with his funny beret and a baguette tucked under his arm, is in a bad position to shoot at police at all.)

As for the widespread claim that American police killings of civilians are racially motivated, a proof of racism- systemic or otherwise – this case has simply not been made. Here are a handful of relevant numbers: In the USA, a black person interacting with the police has no greater chance of being killed than a white person. A black person interacting with a black police officer has the same chance of being killed as one interacting with a white officer. It’s true that a black person, on the average is more likely to be interacting with police than a white person. If racism plays a role in the killing of black people by police, that is where it is lodged. Police, white and black, are more likely to stop blacks than whites. Can you guess any reason why? Can the reason be other than racism? Below is a link to a wider essay on the topic:

Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take

Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 9 of 9)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , ,

Conclusions

Systemic racism is hard to find. Its most obvious and most widespread instance seems to me to be affirmative action in all its forms. It’s a device that discriminates against many to the benefit of others, based on ascribed, unchangeable characteristics such as sex and race. It was originally designed to favor African Americans and it still does, in a proximate fashion. It may be “systemic’ in the sense that it’s largely on automatic except for the details of its application in a particular place and at a particular time. Indeed, much of affirmative action is mandated by law. As I write, the California Assembly just passed a bill re-instating racial preferences that had been eliminated 16 years earlier regarding state employment and admissions to the state’s vast university system. (“A Vote for Discrimination” WSJ, editorial page, 6/26/20). This set of restorative policies has consequences for black lives that are not well understood, I think. It’s not obvious that they do more good than harm to the beneficiaries themselves. It serves to give some white citizens a clear conscience. It stimulates racial resentment in others.

Differential and financially unequal treatment of black children is built into our national system of elementary and secondary education which favors local schools. Perhaps, that is an example of systemic racism. I noted with interest that many years of the wildly unpopular busing children in an attempt to equalize educational resources seem to have accomplished little in this respect.

I pointed out that another force that could be classified as systemic racism impeding the progress of African American children in education. I mean the teachers’ unions unrelenting opposition to charter schools which seem to benefit black students disproportionately.

Briefly and superficially, I looked at possible systemic racism in housing and in employment. Although affirmative action in favor of African Americans is quite common in employment, I allowed how small entities not worth suing might still practice racial discrimination discreetly. The legal barriers to racial discrimination in all phases of housing seem to me to be formidable. My impression may just be naive and fed by ignorance. Also, small entities, towns, banks and real estate companies little worth noticing may still be engaging in redlining under the radar. It would be worth looking for real studies on the subject that, I am fairly sure, must exist.

I looked briefly at access to government. At the federal level, the most visible, I have trouble imagining large scale discrimination against African Americans. I imagine that all kinds of idiosyncratic but relevant behaviors could be observed at the local level starring what elected official think are their crucial voter bases. These behaviors would probably include favoring African Americans as well as treating them shabbily, depending on the place and time. It wouldn’t be surprising if these behaviors included old fashioned racial discrimination in smaller entities also far from the limelight. I stay away from commenting on the practice of racial gerrymandering because I am convinced that Democrats – who represent black voters in most of this country – are as enthusiastic about it as Republicans, whenever they get a chance.

I realize that the American justice system(s) might treat black citizens in ways that differ systematically from the ways they treat white citizens. They might charge, convict, and sentence differently blacks and whites. I chose not to wade in what I suspect is a large empirical literature on the topics. I hope someone else will, looking for systemic racism specifically. I pointed out that justice systems might treat black citizens more leniently than they do white citizens. If they do, and as paradoxical as it seems, this might be a case of systemic racism against blacks because African Americans are the main victims of African American lawlessness. Minimizing the damage done to blacks is racism if it’s done as a matter of course, naturally. It may be even be called “systemic.”

I spent significant time and energy examining the possibility that there exists systemic racism around the issue that triggered both protests and riots in May-June 2020: the killing of black citizens by police. To this effect, I examined what empirical evidence was readily available at the time. I pointed out that if racism is systemic, evidence of its existence should be easy to find. I marveled at my inability to locate serious studies supporting the widespread narrative that police wantonly kill African Americans on a large scale.

I concluded that police probably stop blacks more often than they stop whites and probably treat them more brutally. Police nevertheless do not kill black suspects more readily than they kill white suspects. Also, I noted that black officers kill African Americans as readily as do their white colleagues. I speculated that the differential treatment of black and white citizens may be a rational and competent police response to the fact that blacks are viewed – with reason – as less law abiding or more dangerous overall than whites. Such customs are undoubtedly unfair to the many black citizens who are neither dangerous nor inclined to break the law. Others will see in this unfairness evidence of systemic racism.

I speculated further about a possible cause for the contrast between widely expressed popular beliefs on black deaths at the hands of police and the facts available to all on the topic. I expressed the idea that diffuse and well founded white guilt about the evils of slavery and those of segregation encourages many to confuse the present with the past. I offered a reparative solution to this problem of confusion based on rational analysis and on conservative principles. Briefly, I discounted or mostly discounted the relevance of personal experience.

I offer no solution here to the very real issue of police disproportionate killing of African Americans. We have to remember, perhaps heartlessly, that it’s quite small in the bigger picture. Conservative commentator Heather McDonald pointed out that in 2019 that unarmed black victims of police represented one in one thousand of all African American meeting a violent death. (“The Myth of Systemic Police Racism” WSJ 6/3/20).

Though I offer no solution here, I am astonished by those currently offered on the left, consisting in various degrees of incapacitating of police departments nation-wide. The nefarious results of such measures would be absurdly predictable. Relieved from police pressure, black street gangs would increase their activities and kill even more of one another and of their close neighbors, most of them African Americans. Second, with police response less certain, more citizens, white and black, would arm themselves for self-defense. Many would do so with or without the blessing of local governments eager to undermine the Second Amendment and side-step arms training. As the possession of weapons became more common its combination with lack of preparedness and skill would grow. Criminals and suspected criminals would die in large numbers at the hands of civilians. Many would be black. In short, the remedies being proposed are worse than the ills they are supposed to cure. They are as if designed to raise then number of African Americans dying violently.

As I conclude this essay, I think that systemic racism is largely a deliberate myth constructed to bypass rational inquiry. Many white citizens have accepted the myth because of unresolved collective guilt about America’s offensive racial past. I pointed out myself areas where systemic racism might nevertheless be found by a more thorough inquiry than mine. As I said several times in this essay, a single good study or even a simple reading of existing studies I am not aware of, on social topics I treated superficially, could prove wrong my skeptical perception of systemic racism.

[Editor’s note: you can find Part 8 here, or you can read the whole essay here.]

Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 7 of 9)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , ,

Do blacks have more police encounters than whites?

In 2015, the percentages of whites and blacks who experiences police initiated encounters with the police were equal, a little over 10% each. (Bureau of Justice Statistics.) These rates seem to debunk a popular alternative narrative appearing in the Boston Globe, among other liberal sources, that claims that blacks get killed more often by police than they should (see below) because they have more police encounters, including some prompted by racial profiling. There is also evidence from the Stanford Open Policing Project that police in various places stop black drivers at a higher rate than they do white or Hispanic drivers. The Prison Policy Initiative (a liberal organization) also asserts that African Americans share on average more contacts with police than whites and are stopped proportionately more often than whites, both on foot and in automobile traffic.

This disagreement is important for the following reason: Suppose that the probability of being killed by police depends completely and impartially on the probability of being stopped by police, say, in traffic. Think of a sort of deadly lottery: If you are stopped by police, there is a constant and equal probability of ending up dead. In this case, if police are more likely to stop black citizens than white citizens then, they are automatically more likely to kill black citizens, even for frivolous reasons or, in some other way, unfairly. Imagine further that black citizens are mostly stopped in traffic for having a missing taillight on their car and such, while white citizens are only stopped for such egregious conduct as going through a stoplight at 65 miles an hour. In that hypothetical situation, the killing of black drivers could easily be a result of police animus against them. Remember that this would be true although police would be just as likely to kill the whites as the blacks they stopped.

In the same situation, the killings of whites citizens by police would be more likely to be justified. In the hypothetical situation I describe, some black victims of police would be indirect victims of racism though black and whites would be stopped the ones as often as the others. In this scenario, the possibility of police hostility against African Americans could even remain in a situation where more whites than blacks are killed by police after a traffic stop. An extreme formulation of this perspective would go like this: Police kill whites they encounter as frequently as they kill blacks that they encounter, but all the blacks they kill are completely innocent while all the whites they kill are all guilty of some serious or violent legal trespass.

So, I ask, are there reasons other than racial animus, legitimate reasons, why police would stop black citizens more frequently than they do white citizens? This is a hard thing to figure out but it’s worth trying because the answer contains a potential explanation beyond the simple findings that police kill the whites they stop as much as the blacks they stop.

Is there any reason other than racial prejudice or animus why police would stop African Americans more than they do whites?

Ideally, a detailed study of police stops at every level of seriousness of suspected offense would answer this question. I think such a study does not exist. (I hope it will, soon.) So, I will use a trustworthy proxy for all forms of lawbreaking: murder convictions.

The assumption I make here is that there exists a continuity between such offenses as homicide, armed robbery, DUI, running stoplights, and driving with a broken taillight. Underlying this continuity would be a propensity to break the law. If no such continuity, no such propensity exist, my conclusions at the end of this section are correspondingly in doubt. I already know that my choice of indicator is imperfect in one respect: There is probably no continuity between crimes of passion and other transgressions. However, those are a small number of the total. This scheme also leaves aside whole categories of serious crimes that are almost certainly preponderantly white crimes, such as financial transgressions – because they seldom give rise to impromptu encounters with police.

I choose homicide as a substitute for all lacking measures of lesser categories of law breaking for several reasons. First, homicide is almost always an unambiguous act – as opposed to jumping stop signs, for example. Second homicides are more likely to be scrutinized than other forms of law breaking. Third, the race of homicide perpetrators is more likely to be known than the race of other crime perpetrators. Fourth, homicide is not as likely to be charged frivolously, without reason, as lesser offenses such as jumping stop signs may be.

Tech note: Below, I am dealing in broad orders of magnitude rather than is specific quantities. I mean that if I cut any figure I proffer by one third, the associated reasoning would remain intact.

African Americans regularly account at least for 40% and up of all homicides (“Race, Ethnicity and Sex ….” 2016 Crime in the United States, Table 3, already cited above.). The real situation is worse than this. It turns our that females in general commit ten times fewer homicides than males. So, it would be closer to the truth to state that something like the 6 to 8% of Americans, who are black and male, commit around 70% or more of the homicides in the United States. It matters to my reasoning that this is a long-standing situation. In 1976, a black male was 12 times more likely than a white male to commit homicide; in 2005 however, he was only 9 times more likely ( James Alan Fox, Northeastern University and Marianne W. Zawitz, BJS Statistician; BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics Homicide Trends in the U.S. 2010.)

Why then would police stop African Americans preferentially? The seemingly ingrained current, as well as traditional answer is “racism.” One major objection to this view is that, as we have seen, the same supposedly racist police then and against expectations, are no more likely to kill the blacks they stop than the whites when given the opportunity.

The inference I make above may explain this paradox. Police, being well aware of a higher black propensity to break the law, stop African Americans more frequently that they stop whites. They would do so, perhaps, because stopping black offers a better yield than stopping whites. For the same reason (a speculation), they treat them more brutally, irrespective of degree of compliance (Fryer, Roland G. Jr: “What the Data Say About Police.” WSJ, 6/23/20, already cited). If racism guided their actions rather than a harsh but but basically rational realism, they would also kill the African Americans they stop more often than whites. The fact is that they do not.

Are black police officers as likely to kill black suspects as are white officers? If white officers preferentially killed blacks and black officers did not, or any attenuated version of this divergence would contribute to establish the thesis of systemic racism. So, what are the known facts on this? A 2018 Rutgers University study by Charles E. Menifield, Geiguen Shin, and Logan Strother, based on 2014- 2015 nation-wide data about all police killings answers a with a clear “Yes.”

If black officers kill black suspects as readily as do white officers, it’s unlikely that white officers’ killings of African Americans are generally expressions of any racism while the equal propensity of black officers to do the same is not. It’s more reasonable to suppose that the equal probability of black and white officers to kill blacks is the expression of, or is associated with something other than racism.

While I wish that we had a bigger study covering more years than the study cited above, it is the only systematic treatment of the data we have. For the moment, I would rather go with it rather than with a dozen well documented, dramatic, lamentable episodes spread over five or six years. A principled new study covering more years showing that white officers are more likely than black to kill African Americans could undermine my provisional conclusion below any time. Incidentally, and here again, I am surprised that the many supporters of the thesis of systemic racism in academia have not yet produced such as study. Or, have they?

I am well aware of the adage that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” but it’s only partially correct. If you said that a presumptive wolf got into your house every other night and stole one of your children, and if you did not proceed to study wolves, I would quickly suspect that something was amiss. I would believe in a short time that your narrative is all askew. Or, I would even judge that your lack of due diligence conceals something important

Disposing of a slightly risky inference If the inference I make above about a kind of continuity of lawlessness from homicide to other, milder forms of law breaking is not credible, it can be replaced with the following more basic formulation: Police officers are likely to be aware of the high black homicide rate. As a consequence, they consider black people in general more dangerous than white people. This knowledge is the basis for their stopping black citizens more frequently than white and also for their rougher treatment of black citizens than of white.

In this scenario, police officers are acting in a rational way although it may be objectionable. Again, African American police officers kill blacks as often as white police officers do.

Perhaps these practices amount to systemic racism. I think the case has to be made explicitly and clearly. It should affirm that police officers should not act differently with those they consider dangerous than with those they do not. The explanation should also include an evocation of how police should act differently based on the information available to them.

Unfairness

Here is a detour, an obviously necessary detour. The analysis above does not seem to me to support the concept of systemic racism but it leaves plenty of room for charges of racial unfairness. The legions of African Americans who think of rolling through a stop sign as significant lawbreaking would be, according to the same analysis, possibly, just possibly, at greater risk of being killed by police than their white fellow-citizens just because of some African physical features. The unfairness resides mostly in the fact that such features could not be erased or masked would they wish to do so. (I don’t suggest they would or should.) Yet, differential treatments based on such or similar ascribed characteristics are common in other phases of real life and normally seen only as regrettable but unavoidable facts.

There is a large category of Americans who are systematically required to pay 20% higher premiums for life insurance than the majority of the population, the category of reference. This category is “Men.” It’s unfair because, in general, as a rule, men cannot stop being men. Insurance companies routinely advance the justification that, at every age, men are more likely to die than women thus creating a higher risk of disbursement for the company. Men are also known generally, on the average, to engage in more risky behavior than women. Yet, the premium surcharge imposed on all men is obviously unfair to some male human beings like me who never touch alcohol or any other drug, don’t smoke, exercise two hours of every day, and eat only tofu and kale. It’s even unfair to the probably many less saintly men who do not lead riskier lives than do women in general. Do you see the parallel?

If the police tendency to stop blacks more than whites based on general numbers and an ascribed characteristic constitutes systemic racism, isn’t it true that the absolute preferential treatment insurance companies afford women is “systemic sexism”?

I must add this: African Americans have allowed themselves to be treated as members of a “community” for at least fifty years or more (perhaps, since the Civil Rights Movement.) This makes it difficult to advance claims based on individual traits, like this: “I don’t smoke and I don’t even roll through stop signs.”

Putting all the numbers together, this higher risk for African Americans to die at the hands of the police is compatible with the idea that they are stopped more frequently than are whites although, once stopped – as we have seen – they suffer no greater risk of being killed. Though these figures indicate that African Americans are more likely to die from police action than others, they don’t demonstrate systemic racism in law enforcement. They may be compatible with that concept through some other path I have not discovered. Perhaps, more research is needed. I have trouble believing this. I think that if it were possible, it would have been done by one of the several organizations dedicated to the welfare of black Americans, or by any one team of American liberal academics.

Confusing Yesterday and Today

One must ask why much of the general public, helped by the largely left-leaning media seems to accept a narrative starkly negated by available figures. It seems to me that the explanation resides in a massive confusion in the mind of that fraction of the general public that is intellectually honest about racism.

The confusion concerns the passive collective inheritance of slavery. Those whose ancestors came here in chains and against their will (instead of being highly self-selected like all other immigrants. See my “Why Immigrants are Superior.”), those descendants of slaves who received a systematically inferior education or none at all, those whose grandparents were limited in their occupational choices by legal segregation, such members of American society will do less well economically and socially than those whose antecedents suffered no such limitations on their talent and character. Throw in thousands of lynchings and the occasional deadly race riot and you have a societal design for the failure of some.

If you could conduct an experiment replicating those conditions with people selected at random, marked with a blue tattoo on their left hand, and made to breed among themselves you would certainly observe in them below average rewards of life on any conceivable indicator. This would happen in the absence of any current (current) mistreatment of their descendants. The now vague factor of “racism” would not have to be investigated. The historical explanations above would suffice.

[Editor’s note: Part 6 can be found here, or you can read the whole thing here.]

Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 6 of 9)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , ,

The Justice System; Police Brutality

I will mostly bypass now the important issue of possible systemic racism in the in administration of justice itself. I mean charging, convicting and sentencing, which may or may not each involve a systematic (systematic) racial component. Here again, I think the relevant research exists and it has not caught my attention. (But, I have to wonder why.) It’s possible that black suspects are more likely to be charged, more likely to be convicted and sentenced more heavily that whites suspected of similar trespasses.

If I were to look actively into the matter, however, I would explore the possibility that black suspects are less likely to be charged and convicted than whites, and also receive lighter sentences for equivalent crimes. This hunch is based on the recognition that most black crime is probably black on black. In this scenario lies a possible form of systemic discrimination because it treats crimes against black citizens as less severe or less significant than crimes against whites.

Finally, if I were initiating a research project about this today, I would pay special attention to the formal obstacles, including union rules, that may interfere with the prosecution of police officers suspected of lawbreaking, including homicide. If these obstacles were shown to be erected especially to impede action against white officers, I would consider them instances of systemic racism. If they were not, I would still pay attention because black men (specifically) are more likely than whites to die at the hands of police. Over a lifetime, according to a study recently published in the serious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, black men are about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than are white men in the course of their lifetime. (Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito “Risk of Being Killed by Police Use of Force in the United States, by Age, Race, Ethnicity and Sex” 2019.) The denial of justice implicit in the reluctance to prosecute law breaking members of the police could (could) be an important form of systemic racism.

Racism in Policing

First, a reminder: As I stated above, I believe there exists a high degree of police brutality in America. But, it’s not my topic here. The only questions on my mind now are these: What’s the racial component? Is it “systemic”? If there is no racial component, it’s not likely systemic racism is at work. If there is racism and it’s personal, there is no reason to call is “systemic” racism except falsely and presumptuously to sound scientific.

In May-June 2020, protesters echoed the media (or vice-versa) to give the impression that police shootings of black Americans of holocaust dimensions was taking place. The view seemed to have been widely shared based on (the same) media reports, including interviews of protesters. Some quantitative frameworking is in order here.

Frequency of homicide in general, of African Americans, particularly Homicide is in fact a fairly rare cause of death in America contrary to a widespread impression. In 2018, 14,000 Americans died of homicide. (Number of murder victims in the United States in 2018, by race/ethnicity and gender.) Applied to the whole American population, that’s a death rate so small many phone calculators can hardly handle it. Of 1,000 people who did die in the United States in 2018, only about five died of any kind of homicide. Contrary to a widespread impression, being killed by anyone, for any reason is rare today. This probability has been in decline for fifty years. The decline may be owed to demographics – an aging population – or to more effective policing, or to both. This is all to put any classification of homicides in perspective.

Of these rare homicide deaths, a little over half were of African Americans in 2018. But African Americans make up only about 13 to 16% of the population, maximum (“The Black Alone Population of the US: 2019.” – US Bureau of the Census). Like everyone else, black Americans seldom die of homicide but they die of it disproportionately, about three times more than average.

Who is Killing Black Americans?

There were 8836 homicides in 2016 where race of both first victim and perpetrator were known (This is a smaller number than used above because it’s less inclusive. No big drop in homicides is denoted here) About half were killings of blacks by blacks; about 18 % were killings of whites also by blacks. Whites killed about 80% of white victims. Black victims of white killers accounted for 4% of all homicide victims, and less than 10% of all black victims. Of course, the latter number must include all black victims of white police officers, including legally legitimate homicides. (I am assuming that black victims of black police officers are a small enough number to be ignored here for the moment.) This gives us a first outer limit of police killings of African Americans.

A widespread narrative exists nevertheless that claims an unceasing massacre of black citizens by white policemen. A close relative of the victim George Floyd thus declared on PBS radio on 6/17/20, that there is an “open season killing of black people…” It seems that he meant police killing of black people.

The reality is different. However unpopular in some quarters, however contrary to the visual pseudo-reality on our screens, the answer to the question “Who is killing black Americans?” is: “black Americans.” In 2016, about 90% of black homicide victims where race was known were killed by blacks. If there is a wholesale massacre of African American citizens on our streets, it’s akin to a collective self- massacre. It dwarfs all police killings of African Americans, of course. Anecdotal evidence seldom contradicts this assertion. Thus, black columnist Jason Riley reported in the WSJ of 6/10/20 that there were 492 homicides in Chicago last year (of all by all) of which only three involved police. That last figure did not distinguish between unjustified killings and legally otherwise justified killings.

Such small numbers do not detract from the idea that any police killing of civilians is especially disturbing and worrisome. There is a special reason to be concerned when those who carry the legitimate state monopoly of violence kill those they are sworn to protect. But, again, my topic is not police brutality but systemic racism. In this specific connection, the comparative rarity of police killings does not properly address the possibility that police disproportionately, or preferentially kill African Americans. I deal with this issue below. (Figures from the last four paragraphs except if otherwise specified are from: Easy Access to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports: 1980-2016.)

Are blacks more likely to be shot dead during a police encounter than whites?

The evidence, including a systematic survey by a black Harvard economist as well as a one-city Justice Department study is that police are no more likely to shoot black suspects than white suspects. (Both cited by Heather MacDonald in the WSJ of 6/3/20; those are not controversial studies. For a more recent account, see: Fryer, Roland G. Jr: “What the Data Say About Police.” WSJ, 6/23/20 ) This narrative is contrary to current popular wisdom – or un-wisdom – but it’s the best evidence we have. Everything else is fiction or downright bad reasoning. (“Police hate blacks. Those who kill blacks do so because they hate them. Police must kill blacks more than they kill others.”) Note that it would take only one good study to overturn the assertion that police are not more likely to kill blacks than they are to kill whites. The absence of such a study is evidence of sorts given the interest this question raises in much of the population and in academia. Some argue however that this apparent equality of deadly treatment is the result of a sort of numerical visual illusion. I take up this matter below.

[Editor’s note: you can Part 5 here, or the whole essay here.]

Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 4 of 9)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , ,

A Public Torture-Killing

What directly prompted this essay (actually, several years in gestation) is a barbarous act that took place on May 25th 2020 in Minneapolis, that was thoroughly filmed by bystanders, and that triggered several weeks of peaceful protest nation-wide, but also of arson, of looting, and of other acts of rioting. Here is a brief account of the event.

A white police officer, wantonly and unnecessarily smothers with his knee over eight minutes a black suspect who is already handcuffed. Three other officers – including two members of racial minorities – stand by or lend a hand. The victim is a man with one conviction elsewhere for a violent crime. He has illegal drugs in his system when he is stopped by the police. (The family-ordered autopsy did not negate this information.)

The officer has accumulated seventeen or eighteen misconduct investigations, one of which gave rise to a notice of suspension. (I don’t know whether he was actually suspended.) One non-police source well situated to know describes him as habitually using questionable force (choke-holds) He has been married to an Asian woman. (“George Floyd’s Life and His Killer’s” by Jennifer Levitz, Erin Allworth, and Tawnell d. Hobbs – WSJ 6/22/20.)

The murdering officer’s supervisor is the black chief of police of the city. The chief’s own supervisor is the mayor of the city, a white leftist Democrat. The state governor is a Democrat.

Although, the employer denies they did, it’s difficult to believe that the police officer and the victim did not know each other because they both worked security part-time for the same nightclub for several years. (What often takes place in and outside nightclubs unavoidably rises to my mind, of course.) I am asserting here that it’s not obvious to me that the crime is racially motivated, just because the perpetrator is white and the victim black. It may well be but the fact has to be established separately.

Within days, the officer who did the killing is arrested and charged with second degree murder. The other three officers are also arrested shortly and charged as something like being accessories to the alleged crime. The state prosecutor is a black deputy state attorney general. The federal Justice Department is conducting its own investigation that may result in separate charges and in separate convictions.

Federally mandated rules are such a that in both state juries and in an eventual federal jury, racial representation will reflect the relevant city’s racial composition. For my overseas readers who are addicted to 1960s American movies about racism in America, it means that there is zero chance that the officers will be tried by all-white juries, either state or federal, zero.

Two weeks later, a white Atlanta police officer shoots in the back a black suspect originally stopped for drunkenness who is both fleeing and pointing a weapon at him. This event adds fuel to the nation-wide fire of popular indignation, of course.

There were immediately protest demonstration against the first killing in Minneapolis that quickly spread to the whole country. A leading rallying cry in all was a demand for “justice.” This can be interpreted in different ways. Since the police officers involved were quickly charged and arrested, it must not be justice for George Floyd, the Minneapolis victim, specifically, that was demanded because everything our justice system allows was done promptly. What else can anyone want, Chinese Communist justice? (Charged in the morning, tried in the afternoon, executed the same evening.)

A partial but solid answer to the question, “justice for whom?” is that many claim that Mr Floyd’s death is a symbol, also a sample, of widespread societal violence against African Americans in general. The underlying implication is that in many cases – unlike in the killing of Mr Floyd – this violence is inflicted by parties unknown and probably unknowable (hence, the “systemic” qualifier) but specifically on the basis of race. This is like treating this horrible incident as the tip of an iceberg. Such treatment of course calls for an answer to the question: How big is the rest of the iceberg?

I need to detour here to remind the reader of what this essay is not about. It’s not about police brutality but about the possible victimization of African Americans by all, including the police. The USA has a serious problem of police brutality. I don’t mean the federal government, I mean states, counties and cities. So, in this country and proportionately, about ten times more people are killed by police every year than in France, for example. And, the French police is not especially pacific (as compared to the exemplary English police, for instance), and it frequently faces well armed gangsters, as well as terrorists. (An in-depth investigation of unpunished French police brutality aired by Envoyé Spécial on TV5 5/25/20 indicates that a parlous situation exists in France in that respect.)

Incidentally, most of the police practice reforms proposed by Pres. Trump in June 2020 make sense to me although I don’t understand how any of this is constitutionally any of the federal government’s business. I would wish in addition for an experimental temporary moratorium on the police use of choke-holds and a partial elimination of the qualified immunity police enjoy in most places in the US. In brief, I think that even when police brutality is self-evident -as I think is the case with the Floyd killing – a racial dimension must be demonstrated separately. I will show below with figures how necessary this injunction is.

[Editor’s note: you read Part 3 here, or the whole essay here.]

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Unbundling the police in Venice Beach Conor Friedersdorf, Atlantic
  2. Violent protest and harmful intent Fernando R. Tesón, 200-Proof Liberals
  3. Israeli annexation, Palestinian resistance Tareq Baconi, NY Review of Books
  4. Statues are not history; rather, its opposite Simon Schama, Financial Times

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The least empathic lot Joakim Book, NOL
  2. A note on the police or – “Why I don’t trust the police.” Michelangelo Landgrave, NOL
  3. What sort of “Meritocracy” would a libertarian endorse, if he had to? Federico Sosa Valle, NOL
  4. From the comments: follow on effects of liability rules? Rick Weber, NOL

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Black voters and American demographics Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, New York Times
  2. Imagine no police Scott Sumner, MoneyIllusion
  3. Racist police violence, or just police violence? John McWhorter, Quillette
  4. Now tear down Lincoln, too Nick Martin, New Republic

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The problem of policing and local public economics Peter Boettke, Coordination Problem
  2. The deep roots—and new offshoots—of ‘Abolish the Police’ (no libertarians mentioned) Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna, Politico
  3. Where are the libertarians on police brutality? JD Tuccille, Reason
  4. Intersectionality and classical liberalism Jacob Levy, Cato Unbound

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Second-hand: the new global garage sale Susan Blumberg-Kason, Asian Review of Books
  2. Learning to love America Jacques Delacroix, NOL
  3. “Why I don’t trust the police” Michelangelo Landgrave, NOL
  4. Chicago cops Paul Buhle, Counterpunch

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. What the FBI’s Cohen raid means Ken White, NY Times
  2. Documenting a police detention in New Jersey Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
  3. Why do we have prisons in the United States? Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily
  4. Erdogan refreshed after talks with Putin, Rouhani Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor

BC’s weekend reads

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  1. Smuggling Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs out of the USSR
  2. Are memes disrupting American politics? So asks a Leftist
  3. The 4th Amendment, policing, and pedagogy
  4. At least the end of the War on Drugs is nigh
  5. A new (old) strategy for a polycentric world (but why not federation?)
  6. A simple map of Brazil and its states

Fourteen-Year Old Girl in Bikini Threatens Armed Cop

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , , , , , ,

For those of you, my conservative friends, who believe police brutality is just a collection of deliberate made up tales, there is a video on the major cable networks today I hope you see.

It shows a normal size adult in a blue or black uniform putting his knee in the back of a fourteen-year old girl in a bikini to force her down. The girl is crying out for her Mamma. The same cop then draws his gun on a couple of teenage boys in swim shorts who are trying to help the girl. There are other teenagers around, all in swimming attire where one couldn’t hide a weapon. Does the cop think they are going to gang up on him and beat him to death? It’s difficult to see how his life is threatened. In fact, it’s impossible.

A private person gave a pool party on a hot day. Although I understand it took place in a semi-public pool, it was by invitation only. Predictably, some teenagers tried to crash the party. Someone called the police. At that point no blows had been struck; there may have been no violence. I say “may” because, according to some reports but not all, some girls had been pulling one another’s hair. The horror! Cat fights used to be considered free entertainment. The cops who first arrived felt out of their depth and apparently lost their cool and quickly became the worst threat to citizens‘ safety anywhere around.

This is the point where the media and everyone should ask the obvious question:

Suppose the cop had retreated and done nothing? What would be the worst case scenario. Answer 1: Uninvited teenagers swimming in a public pool that had been reserved. Answer 2: Possibly some hair pulled off. (When was the last time a teenage girl did serious damage to another with her bare hands? The stereotype is right: Girls don’t know how to fight.)

Is there an alternative universe where avoiding these calamities is worth brutalizing a young girl and pulling a gun on boys in bathing suits?

Is it even likely that the use of pepper spray was justified? Yes, I am double-guessing the cops on the scene. It’s becoming easier thanks to amateur video. If the cop who pulled his gun is unable to restrain himself or if he does not have the good judgment to do it, he shouldn’t be in charge of protecting us. Yes, that simple!

Was what I saw on the video a racial incident? I don’t think so although the main cop was white and the teenagers black. Likewise, when I see a white man sell a used tool to a black man at the flea market, I don’t think of it as a “racial transaction.” The assertion that white cops kill black men because white cops (and society in general) are racist is a simplistic idea invented and sustained by the scum sliver fringe of the dying civil rights movement to prolong its unearned privileges (including not paying millions of dollars in owed taxes).

I won’t believe that racial animus presides over the shooting of black men or any other kind of brutalization of black people by police until I see appropriate comparative figures: How many whites shot by white cops, how many blacks killed by black cops, etc. This would have to take into account the superior propensity of black to commit crimes. The number exists; the study is not difficult to do; any sociologist, any statistician could do it. The fact that it has either not been done or not publicized speaks to me of massive censorship, or self-censorship, of paralyzing political correctness.

The cop who put his knee in the middle of the back of a fourteen-year old girl may not be a racist; as I said; I think he is probably not. He just should not be a police officer. Given that he is a veteran, it’s not his training that’s defective, it’s him. Perhaps he should not have ever been on any force to begin with. Perhaps he has been on the job too long. If it’s the latter, I am guessing union rules prevent his superiors from doing anything about it or even from noticing that something is awry with that guy. Whatever is the case, the man is not a protector, he is a public danger.

He does not belong on the street with a gun but working in a church basement at something innocuous. His working buddies could be, for example, young women who think a smile is sexual harassment and a tap on the shoulder, rape. They deserve one another.

And, I can already hear it from my conservative friends: Peace officers have a tough job, blah, blah! You have to understand, blah, blah! Not so; the market tells the truth. There is is no shortage of police recruits nationwide. People are flocking to the job. The California Highway Patrol is currently recruiting young interns. Candidates must have no drug conviction (which does not make much sense if you think about it). They must have at least a 2.00 GPA in high school. Let me think, with grade inflation that would be a D- or an F+?

In the meantime, the Santa Cruz Sheriff is offering $5,200 a month for trainees with an immediate raise following graduation from the police academy. High school diploma required, or an associate degree. (There are also tests but…) Good time to weed out the inept and the used up. Or, the selection standards could be changed: You might go easier on the brawn and become more demanding on self-control and on ordinary common sense.

And, by the way, I hate affirmative action but…. (I hate it because it gave us among other things, the current Fascist-leaning administration that is also inept.) Yet, I don’t have trouble imagining that female cops may possess a superior ability to defuse potentially explosive situations. I believe that, in daily police practice, there are many cases where small physical size and low testosterone are assets.

There is no – I repeat – no reason to tolerate police brutality. Conservatives are morally bound to distrust the government there too. It’s our constitutional tradition.

PS I have no animus against police officers. My father was one, a good one. In my whole life, I have only had two moving violations; one was for driving too slowly.

Creeping illiteracy in the media: I heard with my own auditory ears and saw with my own visualizing eyes an MSNBC commentator refer to a “canine dog.” It makes me hunker for a “feline dog,” or even for an “avian dog.” That would be cool. Fortunately, it was on MSNBC, not on Fox.

Le émeutes de Baltimore en blanc et noir

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , ,

A Baltimore, un homme de vingt-cinq ans interpellé par la police en sort la colonne vertébrale brisée. Il en meure après quelques jours. L’interpellation elle-même était probablement illégale. (Aux Etats-Unis, la police doit avoir de bonnes raisons pour interpeller un citoyen vaquant à ses affaires. Il y a tout un code qui doit être respecté.)

Les résultats de l’enquête interne ne sont pas publiés dans les délais rapides que désire l’opinion publique. Des émeutes éclatent plusieurs soirs de suite, avec pillages et incendies volontaires.

La presse française ne rate pas une occasion de dire des conneries, parce que ses journalistes sont paresseux, et incultes, parce que, souvent, ils ne connaissent même pas l’Anglais. La victime est noire, les policiers interpellateurs sont blancs (ou pas d’ailleurs, on ne le sait toujours pas). Donc, pas de problème, c’est le même film qu’avant, le même depuis trente ans ou plus. Les policiers blancs, racistes bien sur, ont froidement assassiné un jeune noir innocent. Justice ne sera pas faite car “l’Establishment ” est blanc et également raciste, bien sur.

Dans ce cas-ci, la moitié des policiers de Baltimore sont noirs, le directeur de la police municipale est noir. La maire – à qui il aura appartenue d’appeller la garde nationale à la rescousse – est noire, plus de la moitiée de son conseil municipal est noire. La procureur d’état (de l’état du Maryland) chargée de l’affaire est noire. (Il s’agit de l’autorité chargée d’inculper ou pas.) La ministre fédérale de la Justice – qui n ‘a d’ailleurs pas prise directement sur ces évenements locaux – est noire, comme son prédecesseur , d’ailleurs. J’allais presque oublié, le Président des Etats Unis, qui ne perd pas une occasion non plus de réciter des insanités, est aussi noir.

Voici une généralisation valide pour remplacer les clichés usés de la presse française: Partout ou se passe des évènements lamentables, comme celui qu a couté la vie au jeune homme de Baltimore, on trouve un pouvoir installé appartenant fermement au parti Démocrate, le parti du président Obama. Baltimore est au mains des Démocrates depuis quarante ans sauf pour un interlude de quatre (4) ans.

Staten Island and Cleveland: Different from Ferguson

Warren Gibson Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , , , ,

Having argued in a recent piece that the problem with Ferguson was collectivism, as manifest in the notion of collective guilt, I feel obliged to speak out on recent incidents in Cleveland and Staten Island. None of us (presumably) were there so we need to be cautious, but what we see from those unfortunate places strongly suggests police misconduct.

I am a native of Cleveland and it comes as no surprise to me that the police force there is a troubled one. For many years there has been a divide between the central city and suburbs and despite a few encouraging exceptions, things have gone steadily downhill in the central city. The problems are similar to Detroit’s but on a smaller scale. The best Cleveland Police officers would surely aspire to leave the Cleveland PD for one of the suburban forces at the first opportunity. It doesn’t surprise me that the Justice Department claims there has been systematic excessive use of force by the Cleveland police.

I have only been to Staten Island once and cannot add anything to what is generally known. That the unfortunate victim was selling untaxed cigarettes, of all things only adds to the outrage.

The non-violent demonstrators in both cities are right this time.