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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.

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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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