Current Events > Killings of Blacks by Whites Are Far More Likely to Be Ruled Justifiable

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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/upshot/killings-of-blacks-by-whites-are-far-more-likely-to-be-ruled-justifiable.html

When a white person kills a black man in America, the killer often faces no legal consequences.

In one in six of these killings, there is no criminal sanction, according to a new Marshall Project examination of 400,000 homicides committed by civilians between 1980 and 2014. That rate is far higher than ones for homicides involving other combinations of races.

In almost 17 percent of cases when a black man was killed by a non-Hispanic white civilian over the last three decades, the killing was categorized as justifiable, which is the term used when a police officer or a civilian kills someone committing a crime or in self-defense. Over all, the police classify fewer than 2 percent of homicides committed by civilians as justifiable.

The disparity persists across different cities, ages, weapons and relationships between killer and victim.

To understand the gaps, The Marshall Project obtained dozens of data sets from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and examined various combinations of killer and victim. Two types of “justifiable homicide” are noted: “felon killed by private citizen” or “felon killed by police officer.” (In a bit of circular logic, the person killed is presumptively classified as a felon, since the homicide could be justified only if a life was threatened, which is a crime.)

The data were processed to standardize key variables and exclude more than 200,000 cases that lacked essential information or were homicides by the police. The resulting data detail the circumstances of each death: any weapons used; information on the killer’s and victim’s race, age, ethnicity and sex; and how police investigators classify each type of killing (“brawl due to the influence of alcohol,” “sniper attack” or “lover’s triangle,” for example).

Little large-scale research has examined the role of race in “justifiable” homicides that do not involve the police. The data examined by The Marshall Project are more comprehensive and cover a longer time period than other research into the question, much of which has focused on controversial Stand Your Ground laws.

In the United States, the law of self-defense allows civilians to use deadly force in cases where they have a reasonable belief force is necessary to defend themselves or others. How that is construed varies from state to state, but the question often depends on what the killer believed when pulling the trigger.

“If there are factors — even if they’re stereotypes — that lead the defender to believe he’s in danger, that factors in, whether it’s a righteous cause or not,” said Mitch Vilos, a Utah defense lawyer, gun rights advocate and the author of “Self-Defense Laws of All 50 States.”

Self-defense decisions by regular people, much like those involving the police, are made quickly and with imperfect information. As a result, a homicide can be ruled self-defense when the killer faced no actual threat but had a reasonable belief he or she did.

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The vast majority of killings of whites are committed by other whites, contrary to some folk wisdom, and the overwhelming majority of killings of blacks is by other blacks.

But killings of black males by whites are more than eight times as likely as all others combined to be labeled justifiable, a racial disparity that is hard to explain based solely on the circumstances reported in the police data and one that has persisted for decades.

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This topic will be a gold mine or a minefield.
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Antifar posted...

But killings of black males by whites are more than eight times as likely as all others combined to be labeled justifiable, a racial disparity that is hard to explain based solely on the circumstances reported in the police data and one that has persisted for decades.

Interesting. What about percentages, though? What is the percentage of white homicide victims killed by black perpetrators, or vice versa?
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Antifar posted...

When a white person kills a black man in America, the killer often faces no legal consequences.

Yeah, okay.
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It's racism of course.
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Someone tried to argue that black man getting assaulted in that Nazi mob the other day was justifiable.

Im not surprised
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i don't know if i'd call 17 percent "often" but yeah it's not really suprising
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Google answers many questions. the sincere will use it if they're serious about contributing to the convo.

this country largely doesn't acknowledge the terrorist attack on Black Wall Street as a terrorist attack. I didn't even know about the event period until adulthood.

nobody was prosecuted.
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No more fucking incremental change.

We have to reform systems and do it soon.

Their are too many innocent people get killed, dying because of lack of health care, not getting proper education, etc etc.

Too many homeless people, too many people struggling to pay the bills, there is an opioid crisis ravaging the nation. And now these fuck neo-nazis are getting bolder and bolder...
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Paper_Okami posted...

Too many homeless people, too many people struggling to pay the bills,

Poor people are poor because they are bad with money.
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Spooking posted...

Antifar posted...

In the United States, the law of self-defense allows civilians to use deadly force in cases where they have a reasonable belief force is necessary to defend themselves or others. How that is construed varies from state to state, but the question often depends on what the killer believed when pulling the trigger.

This is the key issue here. It's a state issue.

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If only there were a coalition of activists looking to highlight and rectify this injustice.
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Is it possible that on a case by case basis the incidents were justified?
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Nomadic View posted...

Is it possible that on a case by case basis the incidents were justified?

Considering what they controlled for, that'd be one hell of a statistical unlikelihood.
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That_Happened posted...

Nomadic View posted...

Is it possible that on a case by case basis the incidents were justified?

Considering what they controlled for, that'd be one hell of a statistical unlikelihood.

Why?
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That_Happened posted...

Nomadic View posted...

Is it possible that on a case by case basis the incidents were justified?

Considering what they controlled for, that'd be one hell of a statistical unlikelihood.

The primary issue is that with the low incidence rates, with all the statistical control, they likely actually have very low statistical power.

And then there's obvious key differences between cases that aren't coded with enough nuance or at all. It's really hard to make case for the argument they are making. Evidence wise, it's a bit iffy. But interesting to consider, none-the-less.
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COVxy posted...

That_Happened posted...

Nomadic View posted...

Is it possible that on a case by case basis the incidents were justified?

Considering what they controlled for, that'd be one hell of a statistical unlikelihood.

The primary issue is that with the low incidence rates, with all the statistical control, they likely actually have very low statistical power.

And then there's obvious key differences between cases that aren't coded with enough nuance or at all. It's really hard to make case for the argument they are making. Evidence wise, it's a bit iffy. But interesting to consider, none-the-less.

a bigger problem I have is that the data is pretty messy to begin with (which is obvious if you read their methodology note)
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To the surprise of nobody who actually is aware of racial disparity
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Balrog0 posted...

a bigger problem I have is that the data is pretty messy to begin with (which is obvious if you read their methodology note)

This is true, and usually a baseline assumption with any of this public data.

Funny note I just noticed, they make the claim that the rates are stable across time based on their time-series, but they smoothed their time-series, so of course they seem stable.
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