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Comment by culot | Hacker News Reader

>A better term for it might be “Police Lynching”.

No, it wouldn't. That is unnecessary hyperbole. Unjustified police killings, instances where the police were at fault, are a rarity. The big problem here is not lack of police training nor overreach, but violent, uncooperative suspects.

>failing to show the correct level of subservience

While there are some grotesque examples of that, like with Daniel Shaver, most police killings, the overwhelming majority of them, are due to them being attacked by someone or being confronted with an armed suspect who refuses to disarm.

>Not saying all of them are racist, but to some police, everyone is the wrong color (not blue).

Are there any actual instances of racism being the driving impetus for police killings at any time in recent decades? I cannot think of any offhand.

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The racial element is very clear, black men are overwhelmingly more likely to be lynched by police than white men: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

The infiltration of polices forces by white supremacist gangs is also well documented: https://www.justsecurity.org/70507/white-supremacist-infiltr...

If you are claiming that these attacks are not racially motivated then to what cause do you assign them? The fact that they sometimes kill white people too doesn’t prove that they aren’t racist, it just shows that they are completely out of control. Half of them belong in jail and the other hal need to undergo dramatic reform.

I would love to read your sources. can you provide them?

I had previously referenced the Washington Post's police shootings database, but that is now paywalled. I was referring to that stats stating that of the roughly 1000 police killings in 2019, something like 50 involved unarmed suspects. Of those 50, almost all of them involved those suspects attacking the police and lethal force being justified.

The Botham Jeans and Daniel Shavers, as horrifically egregious as those cases are, are relatively rare.

The first question I have about this is the evidence. If the police are the only ones giving evidence/testimony, then their findings are suspect, as they have the best incentive in the world to lie and fabricate evidence. And it's not just a theory, as there is actually body cam footage showing police planting evidence and lying.

The second question I have is, why are these incidents happening? What is causing these attacks, and why were they armed or felt the need to use their arms? Especially if they keep happening predominantly to black people? There's quite a bit of evidence that when a white person is armed and attacks the police, the police give the guy a break. Whereas when it's a black person, they're more likely to antagonize the suspect and then shoot first.

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