Is it fake news when on MLK weekend Loretta Lynch issues a scorching 164 page report blasting Chicago police for using force on Blacks 10 times more often then Whites... but nowhere mentioning that Blacks are murdered 15 times more often than Whites, or that Blacks are the murders 20 times more often than Whites, or that Police are 30 times more often to be killed by a Black than by a White? Seems like a shot in the face at Jeff Sessions and a gift to BLM and civil rights leaders, in the final hour...
Statistical Ideas' blog's Salil Mehta exposes the one-sided statistics outgoing AG Loretta Lynch used to villify Chicago Cops...
Outgoing Attorney General for the Department of Justice, Loretta Lynch, has distributed an environmentally-friendly, 164-page report that finds (after a year-long investigation) that my hometown Chicago Police Department "engages in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution."
The longwinded defense glosses over critical statistics to allow any reader to truly understand what is at the nucleus of their most scorching claim against the Chicago Police. That in addition to economic hardships for minorities (and is that 100% essential?), police use excessive force 10 times more often against Blacks as they do against Whites. And that's a deceptive headline shocker, which combined with selective data-mining, simply states what they feel is obvious with their constituents across the country. The leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement joined other civil rights groups in responding lockstep with the findings, demanding "we are not going to take it any more". What does that mean? Are the big concerns in life that (Chicago) police are simply villains? Life would be coziest if they used kids’ gloves? And why were these groups righteously hushed in recent months, as Blacks were multiple times caught on video group-assaulting Whites who "may have voted for Trump"? Look at the top of the chart -below- which shows this 10x rate for Blacks versus Whites, when it comes to use of excessive police force. Now we'll discuss some other self-computed statistics that should be considered, and which were not provided as meaningful background.
“more often”
This naughty expression incorrectly implies that each Black criminal is subject to 10 times as much excessive police force as each White criminal. But that's a false trap. The actual statistics, for the few who cared to look at them, show that simply the overall population of Blacks saw 10 times more excessive use of force versus the overall population of Whites.
Blacks are a small minority
It is true that in the United States there are nearly five times as many Whites as there are Blacks (put differently, there is 0.2 Blacks per White). So it would be arousing to incorrectly deduct that while there is 0.2 Blacks per White, there is nearly 10 times as many Blacks experiencing excessive force versus Whites. Recall we are discussing the U.S. here. Instead we must drill down to just The Windy City: and there we see an equal number of Blacks versus Whites. Blacks are not a small minority at all. And let's hold on to this 1:1 statistic as we go through some other relevant settings information below.
who is getting murdered
Even though there is one Black per White in Chicago, there are nearly 15 murdered Blacks per murdered White. It's not the Chicago Police Department killing these Blacks, and certainly not White civilians. We should note that in 2016 Chicago Mayor Emmanuel, former Obama Chief of Staff, oversaw the largest number of homicides in Chicago, in the past two decades! These murders are one of the primary reasons that Chicago isn't anymore a top 100 places to live, and it sees great emigration of its citizens to other parts of the U.S. Including people who want to be police officers. And with strained municipal and state budgets and fearing their own life, the Chicago Police Department have to bring justice to whoever is killing all of these Blacks (happening at a rate of nearly a dozen weekly). It’s unfortunately a treasured, yet sometimes unappreciated job.
who is doing the murdering
Without surprise but part of the probability data, Blacks are committing these record murders across Chicago (even under a Democratic leader and with their unemployment rate falling to cyclical lows). Butchering at 20 times the rate of Whites! So while the population is equally split between Blacks and Whites, the Department of Justice (DOJ) report chose to fleece us from the fact that Blacks accounts for 20 times as many of the city's slayings (instead only highlighting the policy focus of Blacks experience 10 times as much use of excessive force).
As appalling as these levels of excessive uses of force against Blacks are, we need to also appreciate that the Chicago Police (as a demographic segment) are >30 times more likely to be killed by a Black, then any other demographic segment killing any other (in chart below, see these drivers of the current 5-year national record-slaughtering of police). It should be part of this report and not a random result but from the most statistically significant predictive factors such as:
- the nature of the suspect in relation to others at the scene,
- the age difference between the suspect and police,
- and how this same suspect interacts with police when approached.
Now given all of this context above, wouldn't you precisely conclude that there should be some balanced compassion for the Chicago Police? Even if not, understand that police have their supporters who don’t feel Whites deserve to experience excessive force in equal number as Blacks, even if see less violent crime. This absurd measure of executing violent criminal justice is unhinged, even though we have the same number of brash disparagers against the police, anyway.
Though we should equally note that nothing in here proves that the Chicago Police have executed their public duties in a racially fair way. Minorities deserve to feel more at ease in their own homes and communities. It's just that showcasing one-sided statistics, as the DOJ did here, is clearly more confrontational and less likely to be embraced.
All of this mortality science has been brought up earlier (here, here) and in a couple high-profile, peer-review academic research articles on race within the police ranks (one of which I was the journal editor for). Though it is worth noticing here every time we get untrue violent justice statistics put forward. This final-hour parting gesture by Attorney General Lynch fall squarely into that category, and one the new successor (perhaps President-elect Trump's nominee Jeff Sessions) is entitled to handle differently.
Mortality probability math is very tough, as shown in our calm debunk of an Oxford University research paper, which they then immediately and mortifyingly redacted with Erratas. Though the teachings are often the same and are worth reminding ourselves of, every time the occasion arises.