If you seek truly to highlight injustice, that is where to start. It is also important to note that the WaPo’s study selects only those who were shot and killed by police, not all those who died after a confrontation with police. In the StreetCred Police Killings in Context database, an open data set, we can see that, in the first eight months of 2015 there were 125 killings by police of unarmed people—including 69 who were shot. However, Mr. Friedersdorf conflates “unarmed” with “not dangerous.” As we will see below, it is flatly incorrect for him to state that “many police killings have little if anything to do with violent crimes.”

There were 53 unarmed black people, 45 white people and 20 Hispanic people who died after encounters with police (and yes, based on the national census figures, that would seem to be a statistically high sampling of black people even if they are not in the majority of all cases in the database). The issue, however, is in the concept of selection. The accusation is that police are systematically selecting black people to harass and confront. Yet, in fully 75 percent of the cases in the StreetCred Police Killings in Context database, officers arrived after a citizen-initiated call for service.

How could the police target these black people if the police are responding to calls from someone else? They cannot be.

Of 125 incidents in which police killed an unarmed civilian, 25 percent (31) began on traffic stops, but 65 percent (81) began as a response to a 911 call about a violent-crime (robbery, carjacking, domestic violence or assault) or property crime (burglary, car theft or vandalism) in progress. There were 9 people (7 percent) whom 911 callers described as being “crazy,” or “on drugs,” “covered with blood,” and “yelling,” or threatening people. Three people (2 percent) were  wanted fugitives in the act of escape — and one was unarmed when he died but was acting as part of a gang of three who were wanted in a recent homicide and were at the time of the incident in the progress of a kidnapping a woman.

There were 26 incidents that involved an assault against another civilian before police arrived, and in two cases, the murder of other civilians, by the decedent. So for Mr. Friedersdorf to portray these decedents as the innocent victims of police violence against black people, or to presume that they had no process, is a grotesque reading of the facts.

Let’s add to this the fact—and our methodology and sources are all available online, as is our data—that in general, in the 51 percent of cases in which there were witnesses, they generally sided with the police’s account. Specifically, in 60 cases (48 percent) within the StreetCred PKIC dataset, some or all witnesses supported the police account of events.

Witnesses exclusively supported the police account in 40 cases (32 percent), and some witnesses supported, and some disputed, the police account in 20 cases (16 percent).

Witnesses disputed the police in a total of 24 cases (19 percent). Witnesses exclusively disputed the police account in just 4 cases (3 percent). And some witnesses disputed, while others supported the police account, in 20 of the cases (16 percent).

Which means that when people see these incidents—as they do in a majority of the cases—they tend to side with the police’s version of events.

None of the people who die without cause or justification at the hands of police should die. The idea that officers are not punished is absurd. This year to date there have been indictments of ten officers in the killing of four black people, and one officer in the killing of a white person.

Perhaps the problem is that the police are being looked at as the cause of problems that are broadly societal and systemic in nature? Whatever is true, I say this: we stand at the greatest opportunity in my lifetime to positively change how police and communities interact. To waste it pointing fingers would be a true tragedy.  

* An unarmed person in our database is one who is not holding something that a reasonable person would perceive as a deadly weapon, including toy or replica guns. This would mean that the case this week in Baltimore County, in which a man overtly reached behind his back and snapped his hand forward in the same manner as one would use to “quick-draw” a concealed weapon would be considered, for the purposes of our research, armed.  It is important, too, to recognize that ‘unarmed’ does not mean, ‘Not deadly.’

Details on that shooting here. The following video of the fatal encounter is from surveillance footage taken from a local business, posted by the police department on Facebook:

Moskos, Verbruggen, and Hassert have all done simple analyses that are slightly different, and they tend to show that blacks are killed by police a little less than expected, given their higher rates of violent crime.

Certainly, more sophisticated research could be done and may reveal a more nuanced story. But much of the alarmist rhetoric from activists and much media appears to be unfounded: We may have a police brutality problem, but the police are applying it “equitably” in response to crime—so the best evidence suggests.

I don’t deny that African Americans continue to be discriminated against in many areas of American society. I even think that the evidence shows that police discriminate against blacks for smaller offenses. But the assertion that blacks are being discriminated against in the application of deadly force by police doesn’t have much to stand on at present.

So to some extent, Conor Friedersdorf is wrong when he writes that “blacks are disproportionately victimized.” And obviously if “the problem of violent crime is longstanding and universally acknowledged,” as he claims, then media wouldn’t repeatedly release articles talking about racial disparities in killings by police, never mentioning the large gap in violent crime rates. Such an omission misleads the public.

I’m guessing this issue is too taboo for The Atlantic to take on directly—even if you are of no party or clique:)  But I would love to see some debate on this issue—perhaps in the new Notes section?

Conor’s response:

The reader refers to my claim that black Americans are disproportionately victimized by “deadly abuses and incompetence.” He counters that “blacks are killed by police a little less than expected, given their higher rates of violent crime.” I don’t share his expectations.

If all abusive or incompetent police killings occurred while officers were responding to violent crimes or arresting violent criminals his intuition would make more sense. But many police killings have little if anything to do with violent crimes––and this is even more true of abusive or incompetent police killings, which I focus on in my work and are the subject of my claim. Think of all the violent crimes that take place without any police intervention. Now think of all the mentally ill people who are killed by the police and every officer-involved killing you’ve seen or read about that began during a routine traffic stop when the only crime was a minor infraction. What have those killings to do with the racial breakdown of violent criminals? And yet the reader doesn’t adjust for them.

It’s telling, in my view, that racial disparities in police killings seem to exist not just for the total number people killed, but also the subcategory of unarmed people killed by police. Consider 2015. The Washington Post reports that police have killed 60 unarmed people so far this year––and that 40 percent of them were black men, “even though they make up just 6 percent of the U.S. population… black men were seven times more likely than white men to die by police gunfire while unarmed.”

Not all shootings of unarmed people are unjustified.

Still, it would seem difficult to explain away the fact that unarmed black men are killed at 7 times the rate of unarmed white men by pointing to higher violent crime rates. And the difficulty is underscored by recalling specific cases. Freddie Gray was not a violent criminal. He was stopped illegally by Baltimore police. And he was killed while handcuffed and in custody, not in a violent altercation. Officer Michael Slager shot an unarmed black motorist in the back as he ran away during a routine traffic stop for a non-functioning brake light. Tamir Rice, a black child in a park with a toy gun, was killed the instant police arrived on the scene. Eric Garner was killed in a choke-hold after being caught selling loose cigarettes. Ray Tensing is facing murder charges for shooting an unarmed black motorist during a traffic stop. Those black individuals shouldn’t have been more likely to be killed by police while unarmed because other black individuals are committing violent crimes–– they had a Constitutional right and moral claim to be treated as individuals.

What would it take for me to peg my expectations about police killings to the violent crime rates of different racial groups? Persuasive evidence that the violent criminals and the people that police officers kill are the same people. As best I can tell, assuming that sameness is unfounded.

Your thoughts? Email hello@theatlantic.com, especially if you have empirical data to point to.