Excerpt from the "Cop in the Hood" web site"
by Peter Moskos
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February 25, 2008[/h] [h=3]Police kill white people, too[/h]
But you usually don't hear about it. I call this the Al Sharpton effect. There is no white version of Al Sharpton.
As the trial of the officers involved in the Sean Bell killing begins, I've been thinking more about police-involved shootings and race. Given media reports, it certainly seems like police only kill black people. But I know this isn't true.
I did a little research. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports from 2000 to 2004, police-involved “justifiable homicides” kill about 350 people a year, 99 percent by shooting. [
Update: see below for 2014 links.] Virtually all police-involved killings, most for good reason, are categorized as justifiable. Of those killed by police, 32 percent are black and 64 percent are white. While the percentage of blacks killed is high compared with the black percentage in America (13%), it is low compared with other indicators of violence, such as the percentage of homicide victims and offenders believed to be African American (both 48%).
(just FYI)