Black Police Are Just as Likely as White Officers to Kill Black Men

by Kenray Sunyaru 

New research shows that Black police are just as likely as white police to kill Black suspects concludes research led by Charles Menifield, dean of the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University–Newark titled "The killing of Black suspects is a police problem, not a white police problem."

Black Police Contribute to Black-on-Black Male Deaths

The research reports that while some officers may by driven by personal prejudice, the bias that can serve as a catalyst for killings is more institutional than individual. Menifield and his colleagues constructed a database of all confirmed incidents in which deadly force was used by police in the United States during 2014 and 2015. 

The research includes detailed information on both the officer and victim. They found a huge racial disparity when it comes to who gets killed by officers. While only about 13 percent of the American population is Black, 28 percent of people killed by police are Black.

The victims were overwhelmingly male (95.5 percent), the majority of officers in these situations were white. They report this reflects the fact that America's police forces are disproportionately made up of whites, who account for approximately three-quarters of all officers.

Crunching the numbers, the researchers report white police officers actually kill Black and other minority suspects at lower rates than we would expect if killings were randomly distributed among officers of all races. 

They found that nonwhite officers kill both Black and Latino suspects at significantly higher rates than white officers. This is likely due to the fact that minority police officers tend to be assigned to minority neighborhoods, and therefore have more contact with minority suspects."

Researchers believes that the disproportionate killing of Black suspects is a downstream effect of institutionalized racism within many police departments. Disproportionate killing is a function of disproportionate police contact among members of the Black community.

According to them if a certain percentage of such encounters between the police and public end in tragedy, and police are more likely to come into contact with Black citizens (for instance, ordering Black drivers to pull over at higher rates than whites), it stands to reason that Black civilians are at greater risk of ending up dead.

From this writer’s angel - perspective it’s not surprising that Black police officers kill Black men more often than white officers; No, it’s not shocking that many Black police officers kill Black men no different than Black overseers killed Black male slaves on the plantation; no different than Black gang-bangers killing each other. Black male victims of racism internalize racial oppression and become Black victimizers. 

Many Black police officers harbor both conscious and unconscious disdain for Black men; Black officers shooting Black men shows white officers they are loyal to ‘Blue over Black’. 

Many Black police officers knows it’s acceptable to kill Black men - it’s an intregal aspect of policing culture in America. Black police officers know Black men’s lives are less valuable because they too face racism on the job; some of them have been killed by their fellow white police officers. 

Black men are a soft target for Black police officers power-tripping superiority (badge and gun), frustration, and stress. These Black officers rarely kill white men because know that’s not acceptable and if they did kill a white man in the line of duty they will be scrutinize more. 

Many Black police officers like many Blacks in general under white supremacy have been programmed as H. Rap Brown said to have an anti-Black attitude of 'Die Nigger Die' toward Black men. 

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“When you are filled with self-hate your mind is reversed. Meaning you will love the things that destroy you, and you will hate the things that advance your growth." – Dr. Amos Wilson