Friday, July 08, 2016

Numbers don't lie: African-Americans shot by US police

"Young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers in 2015, according to the findings of a Guardian study that recorded a final tally of 1,134 deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers this year.  Despite making up only 2% of the total US population, African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged this year by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age. Paired with official government mortality data, this new finding indicates that about one in every 65 deaths of a young African American man in the US is a killing by police."