<story><title>Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police</title><url>https://theundefeated.com/features/lifesaving-advice-from-a-black-woman-held-at-gunpoint-by-police/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>weberc2</author><text>This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn&amp;#x27;t find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn&amp;#x27;t find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between that and all of the bad reporting around the Michael Brown shooting, I&amp;#x27;m beginning to believe that the only disparity is in media coverage... This story and its interest don&amp;#x27;t depend on this (in)accuracy, but it&amp;#x27;s such a common talking point and it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be substantiated.&lt;p&gt;In particular, I was expecting a lot more drama from a story of a black woman &amp;quot;surviving&amp;quot; an encounter with police. Here&amp;#x27;s a similar story about a white man in San Fran: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;indian-thoughts&amp;#x2F;good-samaritan-backfire-9f53ef6a1c10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;indian-thoughts&amp;#x2F;good-samaritan-backfire-9...&lt;/a&gt;. This sort of stuff makes me think that race is perhaps a red herring, and that the quality of police (or police training) simply vary a lot in our country.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DaiPlusPlus</author><text>I understand the issue is the loose definition of &amp;quot;innocent&amp;quot; - if you take it to mean someone shot by police who is absolutely innocent of any charge - or if you define it as someone who was doing something criminal or suspect but the situation did not initially warrant their shooting. Hence the emphasis on deescalation training.&lt;p&gt;Consider a hypothetical: two separate scenarios of kids shoplifting, one white the other black: the white kid gets called out by an officer, is pursued and apprehended without arms drawn, the police officer writes-up a citation and the kid spends the night in jail as a warning before being released. A black kid does the same thing, but the officer decides to draw their sidearm and orders them to freeze - the kid turns around to look and is immediately shot by the officer (search online for &amp;quot;shot for turning around police&amp;quot;). The officer can (at present, justifiably) say they feared for their life because they thought they were about to be charged or expected their target to draw their own firearm. Or take the same scenario but both kids do actually fight back somehow - I believe the average white police officer would still be more hesitant to use lethal force against a white assailant than a black one.&lt;p&gt;I won&amp;#x27;t deny the usual statistics (&amp;quot;blacks commit more crimes per-capita&amp;quot;, etc) but don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s where I believe the problem is. I&amp;#x27;m not content with the sentiment that &amp;quot;black lives matter&amp;quot; - I&amp;#x27;d much rather it be &amp;quot;criminals&amp;#x27; lives matter&amp;quot; (I&amp;#x27;m aware of the straightforward racist implication - that&amp;#x27;s why I dare not say it too loudly).</text></comment>
<story><title>Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police</title><url>https://theundefeated.com/features/lifesaving-advice-from-a-black-woman-held-at-gunpoint-by-police/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>weberc2</author><text>This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn&amp;#x27;t find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn&amp;#x27;t find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between that and all of the bad reporting around the Michael Brown shooting, I&amp;#x27;m beginning to believe that the only disparity is in media coverage... This story and its interest don&amp;#x27;t depend on this (in)accuracy, but it&amp;#x27;s such a common talking point and it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be substantiated.&lt;p&gt;In particular, I was expecting a lot more drama from a story of a black woman &amp;quot;surviving&amp;quot; an encounter with police. Here&amp;#x27;s a similar story about a white man in San Fran: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;indian-thoughts&amp;#x2F;good-samaritan-backfire-9f53ef6a1c10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;indian-thoughts&amp;#x2F;good-samaritan-backfire-9...&lt;/a&gt;. This sort of stuff makes me think that race is perhaps a red herring, and that the quality of police (or police training) simply vary a lot in our country.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>asdfpoiuqwer</author><text>Even if you believe that, the two core points of the experience stand:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; My behavior is how everyone should act in those situations: comply, survive and complain later.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I don’t have de-escalation training. I’m the one being held at gunpoint. I’m the one thinking my life could end if he panics. Yet, I’m the one who must remain calm. The legal system is asking untrained civilians to de-escalate panicky cops.</text></comment>