California Police Killings Database Shows ‘Clear Racial Disparities’
Newly released records show that black men have been killed by police in California at eight times the rate of other residents over the past decade.
Jon Candy / CC BY 2.0
Newly released records show that black men have been killed by police in California at eight times the rate of other residents over the past decade.
The Guardian reports:
Statistics published by the California attorney general, Kamala Harris, stated that about 19% of almost 1,000 homicides by law enforcement recorded between 2005 and 2014 were against African American men, who made up only about 3% of the state’s population.
Harris said last week that “clear racial disparities” had emerged from the figures, which also showed African Americans were arrested and died in custody at disproportionately high rates. …
Since 2005, police and law enforcement agencies in California have been required to submit to state authorities detailed reports about deaths in custody. But the information was made accessible and searchable for the first time last week.
“This is the first initiative of its kind across the US, to our knowledge,” said Kristin Ford, Harris’s press secretary. …
At present the federal government does not publish a comprehensive record of people killed by police forces throughout the US. Instead, the FBI runs a voluntary program whereby law enforcement can choose to submit their count of “justifiable homicides” each year.
Read the statistics here.
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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