Since the police claim they hardly ever kill anyone needlessly, I don’t think they’d be much help…

My guess is that there is a certain percentage of people who — regardless of race — are mentally ill, volatile, unhinged, or maybe just awful human beings. They do crazy stupid stuff and get themselves shot, usually deservedly. The difference is that race saves a few White people who might have been killed and takes extra POC who shouldn’t have been.

There’s also some interesting results that suggest racial bias on the part of cops is less significant than the way policing is done. Basically, police focus on certain kinds of crimes and on certain neighborhoods, and those are based partly on race. In that case, it’s less about individual bias and more about systemic: police violence is tilted toward the poor, and POC are disproportionally poor; police focus on urban areas over rural, and POC are concentrated in the cities; etc.

The War on Logic…er, Drugs…plays a role as well. There’s the well-known crack cocaine (POC) vs. powder (White) discrepancy. Marijuana used to be seen as “Black” and has always been disproportionally policed, now that it’s more “White” it’s being legalized. Whites often abuse prescription drugs (seen as a medical problem) vs. POC and street drugs (seen as a criminal problem).

My guess is that yes, there are some racist cops, but it’s way more complex than that.