With the riots in Charlotte occurring this week due to another fatal police shooting, it makes one wonder; what is going to happen next?
There have been numerous shootings across the country that have gained national media attention over the past few years; it seems like they are occurring now more than ever. However, this is false; in fact comparing the previous years, fatal police shootings are around nearly the same. Then there must be more black people dying, which is why there is an increased media attention, right? Also wrong, according to the Washington Post, the statistics gathered from the FBI's Universal Crime Report (UCR) says that a majority of people who die in police shootings are white. As of July 9th, 54% of 440 fatal shooting victims were white; while blacks were at 28% and Hispanics were 18% (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspir...). This is similar to the 50% white majority of the previous year. In this aspect, the media is quite misleading in their fatal shooting reports.
Of course these numbers must be taken with a grain of salt; blacks make up only 13% of our population, which is the counter argument for the previous percentages. Yes 28% is quite disproportionate, however that is where the argument stops, which is also misleading. What this argument fails to address is the policing style our country has used over the last 20 years. Now, largely because of the advancing technological capabilities of computers, policing has become much more effective. Now the police are much more data driven; police focus on high crime areas of a populace. A majority of these areas are inherently where the minority live. This is where the disproportion begins.
What people must realize is that an overwhelming majority of police officers do not wake up every day, looking to kill another human being. At the end of the day, they are human beings, like the rest of us. They have families that they are fighting to go home to; they have a favorite football team, they're saving up for their kids future tuition, they are just like the rest of us.
There are two terms that define a fatal shooting; 'good' and 'bad' shoots. If it is a 'good shoot' it means that at the moment of firing at the suspect, the officer had a justifiable reason to do so. If an individual is disobeying the officers orders and is aggressive, then moves to pull an object from his pocket; that is a 'good shoot.' A 'bad shoot' is when an individual did not give the officer sufficient reason to use deadly force and the officer used it anyway. This is settled in a court hearing, where all the evidence is laid out for the jury to decide upon. The public cannot be outraged simply because a minority has been shot. The public should not take matters into their own hands either. These riots are ridiculous; small acts of violence should not be repaid with larger acts of uncontrolled violence. Let justice run its course and it will prevail.
As a country, we often forget how to peacefully protest because we were born from fire. However, if we were to really analyze our history, we would see that we made every attempt to be peaceful first. Violence was a last resort for us. How did women gain their suffrage, how did black people gain their equality, how did India gain their independence from Britain? Through peaceful protest they achieved this. People demand change and expect it to occur overnight. The events previously mentioned took decades to achieve. Yet in the end it was worth it, the right side won. If people want to be heard, come up with a reason to be heard; back up that reason with fact. The moment a group resorts to violence, they justify the opposition in the minds of the masses.
