A Logical Analysis of Police Shootings

As with most of these political and cultural issues, people rely on emotion far too much. While it should not be completely dismissed, logic and facts should be more important. I've seen so many incomplete and downright senseless responses to the recent police shooting in Sacramento that I felt it necessary to make a detailed, crystal clear analysis of these types of situations.

When confronting a problem, the logical thing to do is to consider all of the possible causes and deal with them one by one. With police shootings, many find only one cause; the police. Falling into this short-sighted, hyper-emotional cycle doesn’t deal with the reality of the problem. Anyone who refuses to consider the events that brought the police to the situation in the first place is being disingenuous and should be ignored.

Let’s assume that many police are biased and much of that bias is negative towards black men. Most of it, however, is not the 'bred as a child' racism against blacks that many say it is. It is a bias based on experience. This means in order to change the bias you have to change the behavior these officers see on a daily basis. No amount of training will change perceptions built on real life experiences. We get more upset when the office is white; so much so, that we completely forget that several of these high-profile shootings were either done by black officers or had black officers involved. Are we now going to say that all of these black cops were raised with self-hatred?

Another argument often heard is, 'doing crime X shouldn't cost you your life'. This is true but which of these people were shot because of the initial crime they committed? They were either shot for resisting arrest or some other move the police deemed a threat. In some of these situations, the police did not use the best judgement and should be held accountable. But the narrative from the left is that police are hunting black men down and shooting them. If this is the case, how do they explain how nearly one million black men are in jail?

I also hear a lot of people saying that white people can talk back and attack the police and not get shot. This is the weakest of arguments. A cursory Google search will find you plenty of black people who attacked police officers without being shot and plenty of whites who have been shot by police. The narrative that they 'get away with it' doesn't hold. This is why the media is part of the problem. They create this belief by only showing the shootings that will increase ratings. In 2017, 24 people were shot and killed by police in Wisconsin; 19 of whom were white. How many of these killings have you seen on CNN?

But even if their argument were true, it would further prove that the perpetrators acted poorly. Black parents constantly say they have to teach their children how to act when confronted by police. We are then told that there is plenty of evidence that police are more aggressive towards blacks. Yet when confronted by the police, these people decided to do the very act that would put them in danger. As I often say being right is not always right. Here’s an example:

You’re waiting to cross the street. You get the walk sign and as you proceed across the street, a car comes speeding towards you. It looked like it’s going to run the light. Would you jump out of the way to see what the car was going to do or would you continue walking saying, “I have the right of away and that driver is wrong?” If you do the latter, you will be as dead as you are right.

Next everyone becomes a forensic pathologist when a police officer shoots a black man. Since most of these people are not doctors and don’t shoot guns, the things that they say aren't practical. Are we to believe that police officers are chasing someone at night, with adrenaline pumping; the suspect who's running is also high on adrenaline with police officers yelling at them and when the police officers open fire the suspect remained still? Multiple officers shooting at someone from different positions yet we believe that they will be hit directly in the chest as if shooting a piece of paper at the range.

Let me end by being clear, every police shooting should be investigated and all officers found in the wrong should be prosecuted. But each situation is different and acting like this is an epidemic or placing all of the blame solely on the police officer it's both foolish and counterproductive.