US cops target black men – study

Washington – Black men in the United States are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by the police than their white counterparts, according to a new study published this week that quantified racial disparities in law enforcement violence.

High-profile killings – including those of Michael Brown, Charleena Lyles, Tamir Rice, Stephon Clark and many others – have brought the issue sustained national attention in recent years, but a lack of official data had prevented accurate estimates about the extent of the problem.

The new study relied on data from Fatal Encounters, a journalist-led effort, as well as the National Vital Statistics System, to analyse the period from 2013-2018.

It found African American men and women, American Indian men and women, and Latino men all faced higher lifetime risks than their white peers.

“We think that there’s ample evidence that police are a threat to public health in the United States,” Frank Edwards at Rutgers University, the lead author of the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said.

“They’re a lot more violent in communities of colour than they are in white communities.”

Black men had the highest fatality risk, with the researchers estimating one fatality from police use of force for every 1 000 male births.

“The chances of you being killed by police in this country is higher than winning a lot of scratch off lottery games,” said Edwards.