Study: Officers Are Most Reluctant to Shoot Black Suspects
Race-baiters have conditioned minorities to believe that police officers unfairly target them because, in Barack Obama’s words, blacks in particular still suffer from “deeply rooted” racial animus. That perception was reinforced following the recent deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Some research, however, suggests otherwise. According to former police officer and University of Missouri-St. Louis professor David Klinger, a survey of 300 law enforcement personnel showed that a notable number of them decided against discharging their firearm because the suspect was black. “I have multiple officers telling me that they didn’t shoot only because the suspect was black or the suspect was a woman, or something that would not be consistent with this narrative of cops out there running and gunning,” Klinger revealed. “I’ve had multiple officers tell me they were worried in the wake of a shooting because they shot a black person, and I’ve had multiple officers tell me that they were glad that the person they shot was white. Because then they knew they weren’t going to have to be subject to the racial harangue.” Based on a study by Klinger in collaboration with two Washington State University professors, many non-police participants in a simulation exhibited the same decision-making. According to the Times, “The study found that the 48 participants waited longest before firing on black suspects in ‘shoot’ scenarios, even though the participants exhibited ‘stronger threat responses’ when facing black suspects than with white or Hispanic suspects.” Moreover, statistics for the last 10 years show that the percentage of blacks that make up officer-involved shootings – 90% – is nearly identical to black-on-black criminal fatalities: “Roughly 90 percent of those killed each year in St. Louis are black, and 90 percent of them are shot by other blacks,” the Times noted. Klinger concluded, “Once you start looking at levels of violence, levels of threat, blacks are not shot in manners that are disproportionate to their involvement in illegal activity.” More…
