By: Matt Rosenberg, Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
A video on the Chicago Public Schools “equity” website fuels the fairly-widespread belief that police are embarked on a deadly vendetta against black men. In the video, black filmmaker and author Kimberly Jones says: “…there is this contract that we all have that if you steal or if I steal then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person [police] who fixes the situation is killing us.”
It’s that kind of rhetoric that’s left more than one-third of liberal and very liberal respondents to a Skeptic Research Center survey believing 1,000 or more unarmed blacks were killed by police in the U.S. each year. Another survey found eight in 10 African-Americans and about half of white Biden voters “thought that young black men were more likely to be shot to death by police” than be one of the 7,500 blacks to die in a car accident each year.
The reality is far different. In 2020, a total of 243 blacks were shot and killed by police nationwide with 18 of them unarmed, according to The Washington Post’s Police Shootings Database. (For comparison, 459 whites were fatally shot by police, 26 of them unarmed).
Drill down into Chicago’s numbers and you’ll find the city doesn’t match its reputation. No more than one unarmed black Chicagoan was killed by police in any given year since 2015.
Of course, that’s still tragic, but infinitesimal compared to the extreme narratives Kimberly Jones and others promote.
National data
Data from the Washington Post shows there were 1,020 police-involved fatal shootings in 2020. Of the 900 shootings where race was identified, 51 percent, or 459, were whites; 27 percent, or 243, were blacks; and 19 percent, or 171, were Hispanics.
A concern of activists is that at 27 percent, fatal shootings of blacks by police are disproportionate to the black share of the overall national population, which in 2020 was 12.4 percent. However, the 27 percent fatal shooting rate is in line with federal data for 2020 that shows 26 percent of reported arrests made nationally were of blacks.
What’s little known to the public is that most people killed by police are armed. Ninety-four percent of 2020’s 1,020 fatal police shootings were of those armed: 960 armed vs. 60 unarmed. For blacks specifically, the results were 225 armed vs. 18 unarmed.
Overall, the 2020 data follows a similar pattern to the average from 2015 to 2020. Confirmed fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians averaged 67 per year. For blacks, the annual average was 22.
Blacks are 33 percent of the unarmed civilians fatally shot nationally by police over six years. This could suggest bias relative to their share of population or arrests. But the overall numbers are so small that it is impossible to conclude racial bias is the primary cause. In any case “proportionality” arguments are weak because they avoid individual choices and actions in favor of formulaic behavioral quotas by race.
Fatal police shootings in Chicago
Wirepoints analyzed the 2021 deaths of seven civilians – six armed and one unarmed – in officer-involved shootings in Chicago. According to our examination of the document archive of the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) and the Washington Post’s data, only one of the seven was an unarmed black man, Michael Craig. The remaining six were armed and failed to follow police instructions to relinquish their weapons and surrender.
Five of the seven civilians slain* were black and two were Latino, Anthony Alvarez and Adam Toledo. Both were being pursued in separate foot chases by police. Those cases led to a new CPD foot chase policy which restricts circumstances under which officers may engage in a foot chase.
The hard truth: the real threat to black lives is from other blacks, not police
The real threat of murder for black men comes from within the community. Four of every five murder victims in Chicago have been black, and more than 70 percent of known Chicago murder perpetrators have also been black. That’s according to victim data by race in 2017-2020 annual police reports, and the 1991-2011 CPD report “Chicago Murder Analysis.” That adds up to a big black-on-black murder problem.
In Chicago the majority of murders are of blacks and by blacks. This is what the police brutality rhetoric of Jones and many others is meant to mask.
Unquestionably, Chicago’s police have had to answer for major abuses and serious unforced errors. These include $130 million in settlements and judgements tied to reports of confessions coerced with torture by detectives working under Commander Jon Burge. Other black eyes for Chicago Police have included excessive use of force, plus egregiously mistaken raids on civilians at home, and mismanagement of public safety during the riots of 2020. In addition, a code of silence around misconduct and retaliation against whistleblowers is an ongoing problem, as are sometimes highly politicized promotions described as “a reward for cronyism.”
But Chicago cops have also been buffeted by growing political hostility from elected officials, including being called “white supremacist” by the Democratic Socialists of America Chicago chapter representing six city aldermen. Chicago police have endured violent attacks, the ongoing revocation of days off, and a steady drumbeat of tragic officer suicides while the department is struggling to raise plummeting arrest rates and improve worrisome response rates to high-priority 911 calls.
Like the rest of us, Chicago Police face challenges, and they remain a work in progress. But perceptions and rhetoric around police brutality in Chicago and nationwide are very far from the reality of what happens on the ground.
Chicagoans implicitly seem to know that. A 2020 Wirepoints/Real Clear Opinion Research survey showed 77 percent of black Chicagoans want to see police in their communities as much or more than at present, very close to the 80 percent of all Chicagoans who answered the same way.
It is to the great discredit of Chicago Public Schools that they advance inflammatory claims of deadly racial bias by police at a time when growing violent crime – by the community against the community – continues to rend the social fabric of Chicago.
*The seven civilians identified by Chicago COPA who died in officer-involved shootings in 2021 included federal fugitive Losardo Lucas, who was fatally shot after pointing a gun at a federal agent trying to take him into custody. Because a Chicago officer was part of the fugitive task force, COPA had to report on the incident. The Washington Post database did not include this incident. The Post’s 2021 data on Chicago counted one case not in the COPA database. That of Jamar Jayson Taylor. He was a Bay Area fugitive wanted for murder, who was fatally shot by an Amtrak police officer after firing at authorities trying to arrest him at Chicago’s Union Station.
Appendix
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Chicago Public Schools’ radical agenda gets uglier: ‘Equity’ video promotes looting and burning
- Sexual assaults, car thefts and shootings: A growing new reality for Chicago’s lakefront communities
- Illinois state’s attorneys demand changes to no-bail law
- Chicago crime statistics: Even worse than you think
- New 2021 Chicago data shows 400,000 high-priority incidents where dispatchers had no police available to send
- Read the BGA’s report on Chicago’s overblown anti-violence programs
- The tentacles of city crime spread across Chicagoland: Here’s why
A mess of uncertainty and litigation is sure to follow.
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
Audio and summary
Not true. The police are not the “killers of black people”. The biggest killers of black men, women and children are other black men, many are affiliated with street gangs.
Mr. Rosenberg and co-authors, as usual, make this point factually, succinctly, and elegantly. The only problem? It’s missing one dimension … and it is not their fault. Facts don’t matter. When you have someone … anyone with the power to produce a document that is backed by “feeling” and it is able to elicit support on “feelings” only, then that point of view will enter the arena of ideals on an equal basis. Worse: feelings will become the standard for everything. Clearly, that has happened. The challenge of our society is to make public policy that responds only to that… Read more »
Reports like Kim Jones’ are not based in fact but are aimed at spreading the socialist narrative. They want to create chaos through a lawless society and allow the government to step in and take over. If those promoting this narrative truly cared about black people they would take action in their own communities to protect the many children that are killed senselessly by other blacks. We need the police now more than ever. We must refund the police and promote law and order.
Leftists have no shame. They don’t care about people. They don’t actually believe black lives matters. Because no lives matter to Marxists who will do anything for power. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Murder. Facts don’t matter. Nothing matters but power. This grown woman is a pawn. A fool. All the information in this piece is available to anyone who seeks it just as in Heather MacDonald’s 2016 book “War on Cops”. Very similar stats. CTU didn’t read that book and it won’t read this column because it destroys what they’re selling: Ignorance. Hate. Division. Racism. Systemic racism? I submit the CTU… Read more »
CPA should be ashamed for promoting misleading content/ lies. Matt, thanks for a great article.
This Jones woman is shameless, she surely knows that black criminals are the greatest danger to the black community.
And CPS is not only shameless but egregious for posting her videos. One only hopes they drive even more parents away from their schools until the public realizes they need to be defunded.
Great article!!! Absolute truth. I have been digging into these stats since the George Floyd nonsense. Most stats offered by liberals are false & agenda based. Test, even when presented with facts they refuse to see the truth. It is beyond disgusting that CS would push & teach absolute racial lies. That is very dangerous for students, police & the community. Chicago Public Schools are run by angry Marxists who protest police. Anthony Alvarez’s family holds protests at the 16th district police station because he was killed in the 16th district by a police officer after he attempted to rob… Read more »
This article should be required reading for high school freshmen. It not only says but proves in great detail what I believe so many people are afraid to say, for fear of being called a racist if they’re white, a Tom if they’re black and certainly another epithet if they’re Hispanic. A huge number of our white police officers strap on their tac belts in the morning just hoping they can catch a [insert minority group name here] doing something that may range from odd to destructive and threatening so they can kill the suspect and reduce the population of… Read more »
Thank you for this excellent article. This needed to be said. So much of the leftists’ narrative is, like this, totally false. It makes me wonder if they are evil or stupid to promote such blatant lies.
Another great article from Mr. Rosenberg that exposes yet more of the pattern of false information and outright lies that substitute for action. If the city’s establishment (mayor, CPS, etc.,) don’t have the desire, skill, and will to improve the city or the schools, it is important to place blame elsewhere. “Systemic racism” and the CPD may be good scapegoats, but the danger is that soon a population will exist that knows only the lies. They want people to believe what they say – not what they see with their own eyes.
Yes mostly blacks are killed by other blacks…..It’s on the news every night of the week. And in general when a black is killed by police it’s because they usually are armed and start running. Once again if they would just stop, put their hands up and listen, most of the killings wouldn’t happen. The terror of Chicago is getting worse and worse. Before long no one will even venture downtown.
That video continues to boggle the mind. Not that it’s out there, because some of the supposed trodden-upon actually feel that way. But that it’s actually being championed by the CTU.
Every time I hear, ‘…it’s not about the WHAT, it’s about the WHY…’ which pretty much sanctions the looting, stealing & mayhem, my blood boils.
I think folks are forgetting these are criminals and skin color has nothing to do with it. Great article and the data to back it up!
The statistics gathered in this article are impressive, and quite persuasive—IF they are presented to rational people with some experience of critical thinking.
The problem you face is that you compete for your audience with Marxist propaganda experts who know how to appeal to the emotions of indoctrinated, ideologically brainwashed rank-and-file Leftists. Very few of them know how to debate formally and logically. Most of them have been trained or conditioned to respond only to emotional rhetoric.
Black crime can be directly traced to fatherless homes. No one tells a black man what to do and that includes police authority.
The vehemently outspoken uninformed hate it when verifiable information proves them wrong.
Matt, you hit the long ball yet again and our own media outlets just blatantly refuse to report and sit on their hands yet again. Called Strike 3 on many of our local media which has become a really sick joke. Unfortunately I just see this as part of the bigger picture. The medias silence is very telling. Its shows agreement, apathy, wokeness, and allows for incompetent political leaders to always get off the hook. Its no surprise that the private news source outlets are exploding with readers when the MSM has become a propaganda ministry information machine. Great job… Read more »
Matt Rosenberg did the research to find the facts on deaths of black citizens due to police shootings. Contrary to the liberal leftist narrative, very few unarmed blacks are killed by law enforcement while the vast majority of murdered blacks are murdered by other blacks.
Matt, Thank you got your in-depth article. Unfortunately we are experiencing the same crime in NYC. Keep up your important work.
The CTU and the lies they spread pushing fear need to be shut down, CPS thinks more about corruption them teachig
Thanks, Matt for writing an in-depth intelligent article based on facts and truth on this subject. The only way we will ever begin to solve this, or any problem, is by facing the truth head on! While most legacy media act as the Pretorian Guard for our political representatives, you are a breath of fresh air exposing us to the unbiased truth wherever it leads! Bravo, Matt!
Why would the school district create such lies about the Chicago police? They are motivated by something. Is it possible that the district is looking to cause hatred of the police so that the city will cut police funding, thereby freeing up cash to go to the school system and the salaries of the school administrators? The operators of this website are after something.
Because the CTU is led by Leftist so call Progressive Socialists. The only authority they support is under the guise of an autocratic ruler for the proletariat. All other authority is to be supplanted.
Excellent article. Thanks so much for being a voice the truth.
Fantastic piece with all the facts and figures anyone needs to know Chicago police are not the problem. I have two more key points to add regarding CPD-involved killing data: For the past five years, with no notice by the media or public officials, Chicago police are no more likely to shoot and kill their citizenry than the national average, numbering just under nine fatalities per year. This is despite facing 6 times the rate of homicides as an average American city. THIS year, there is only ONE (1) fatal killing by police to go along with (at current count) 468 overall… Read more »
Black alderpersons should be shouting this to their constituents, instead they promote the false narrative too.
“We must realize that our Party’s most powerful weapon is racial tension. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by the whites, we can mould them to the program of the Communist Party.” – Israel Cohen 1913
While the world and its inhabitants gets wilder and weirder, basic laws of physics and human behavior are timeless. “Viscosity” intersects both disciplines. Looking at innovation and the ascent of “climate change” impacting everything in sight, it is much more lucrative to “save the planet” with “Rent Seeking” than it is develop new technologies to actually save the planet. The viscosity facilitating success (i.e., positive cash flows) to arrive at an exit with a multiple of capital invested, is openly more secure with stroking the machinery at the federal government with edicts and mandates than it is with taking risk… Read more »
Now re-reading ‘A Man in Full’. These days it’s difficult to keep “No” out of my heart.
Thanks for another terrific piece that spreads truth and facts, and counters the wicked false narrative.
The reoccurring lack of truth in media has become a new low. My question is why is the CPS setting a narrative about the police? Isn’t their job education? I have read and heard the numbers of students not returning to school is at an all time high. That fourth graders can’t read at their level. Gee CPS shouldn’t you care about that? Isn’t it all about the children. How many times have we heard that. Yet nothing? I don’t lay the blame solely on the flapping mouth pieces. I blame those who nod, agree, and bend a knee to… Read more »
Lin, don’t ever confuse a government jobs program with education.
Do you live in Chicago (or Illinois)? By doing so you are paying the people you despise with your taxes. Respectfully Lin, the only realistic way to fight back is to leave and deny them your tax dollars. Are you willing to leave?
Hi Honest Jack.
Yes I live in Illinois. I am a product of the south side where I grew up and attended public schools.
I left Illinois for fourteen years due to my husbands health. Lived in Florida for that time. He passed I moved back to be closer to family and friends.
As far as leaving again. Yes one day soon I hope to leave again. It has gotten ridiculous. No longer the state or city I grew up in and loved.
Thank you for you comment.
Good point. I’ve had friends for 6 years simply “nod, agree, and bend a knee to follow.” It’s doing wonders, I’m sure, for their social acceptness. But it’s hurting the city, and its citizens.
Facts is facts…they don’t phase the Left, because the Left has a different agenda. There are very few things that people on the left claim that they an back up facts, or even common sense…but they decide what they want people to believe, bruit it about in the media (which is completely complicit), and if they happen to be challened, they change the subject, or pull the “racist” card. The only way for citizens can overcome the triuverate of Democrat politicians, the libeal media that runs interference for them, and deep state bureaucrats is to VOTE in large enough numbers… Read more »
For more than fifty years I’ve operated casual restaurants in the near north area. I can honestly tell you that for every African American who comes looking for employment, I field 100 Mexican immigrants looking for work. I can also tell you that these fellas are routinely married and proud fathers of children that learn English, go to Sunday school and dress up for the holidays, communion and Sunday church services. They buy homes, automobiles and they take vacations. Living The American Dream … with few skills, not conversant in English but eager to work, save and educate their children.… Read more »
My cousin is an employer in LA. He tells me the same story. He says the only thing a Mexican wants is Sundays off!
The truth here is patently obvious. The question is why the false narrative is so widely accepted.
The false narrative is accepted, at least partly, because it’s the easy way out and more importantly the Democratic Party uses it to expand their power over the ‘victims.’ They thrive on convincing African-Americans that they are victims and only the Democratic Party can set them free. Lies, lies and more lies.
Points not made in this article that are very uncomfortable. Nationally, over 50% of murder victims are Black. FBI data shows that 90% of Black murder victims were killed by other Blacks. This is even worse when you look at shootings. Last year that was about 12,000 Black murder victims. New York City keeps very good records of both murders and shootings by race. In NYC 67% of the 460 murder victims were Black vs 24% of the NYC population. Of the 1876 shooting victims in NYC last year 72% were Black. Whites and Asians make up only 3% of… Read more »
You and I see this as a Problem. But do they see this as a Problem? I don’t think they do. The community sees the police as the problem because it interferes with their ability god given rights to carry on their business and seek justice/vengeance/revenge.
Society, for many years, locked up a lot of BIPOC criminals. It reduced crime significantly. But now, the unofficial policy is to the community take care of its problems, and there’s going to be a lot of violence, crime and mayhem. And we all just have to accept this.
Another way of saying the same thing, with 100% factual accuracy: Only around 2.5% of black homicides are at the hands of police. It was closer to 4% in 2014. (Math: 243 police-involved fatal killings and 11-12,000 overall black homicides.) But 10% of white and Hispanic homicides are at the hands of police. It was 12% in 2014. Why won’t The New York Times, ABC News, Washington Post, and other outlets publish this data? Why is it only conservative commentators like Heather Mac Donald? https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/23/heather_macdonald_on_black_lives_matter_does_the_truth_matter.html Does the truth matter? An analysis of federal police crime statstics and the Washington Post… Read more »
3/4’s of New Yorkers feel that Public Safety and Crime is their greatest concern ! One hell of a society we live in !
After the Rauner years, I realized fighting the lying, corrupt socialists from inside the Illinois border was hopeless. I opted to fight from the other side of the state border. I now advise anyone who will listen just how terrible a state Illinois has become. Other former Illinois residents are doing the same and our numbers are growing. We now view Illinois like a foreign enemy. You know how you feel when you hear the name “Putin”. That’s similar to how we feel about Illinois. We can usually put the brakes on anyone considering a move to Illinois. No one… Read more »
Amen. Illinois independents and conservatives, if you remain you risk being collateral damage and will pay a high price for supporting the Illinois socialist agenda with your taxes.
Other considerations.
As Illinois sinks, former residents will be encouraging our representatives in Washington to vote against federal assistance for Illinois.
As the recession deepens, your Illinois homes will decline in value faster than ours and your real estate taxes will rise faster than ours.
As a Detroiter I can verify that scenario.
…
One can twist the statistics any which way they so desire. The very simple fact is that Black citizens commit a disproportionate amount of the violent crime in every American city. Politically correct or not, the facts are the facts and until these black children can rely on a father in the home, discipline at school and three square meals a day, nothing will change. In the end ‘wishing don’t make it so.’ Those who can, will escape these violent cities. And those who cannot will watch where they go, hole up in their homes and learn to live with… Read more »
That one third of liberals, and 8 in 10 Blacks, could believe something that is ridiculous on its face is yet another indictment of our education system. Simple math says that over 1,000 unarmed blacks killed per year by police would be 3 police killings per day. Do they really believe something of that magnitude would have escaped the notice of the MSM? Just the fact that it is a massive news story when it does happen should tell people that this kind of incident is rare. Apparently educators are no longer satisfied with their failure to educate, now they… Read more »
It’s the most telling statistic I’ve seen, and I’m glad that Michael Sherman and the skeptics over at Skeptic Magazine ran that poll. I’ll post the link again below, with some commentary. 85% of very liberal people and 78% of liberal folks actually believe 100 or more unarmed black men are killed by cops annually — and about half think it’s 1,000 or even 10,000 (!). The right answer according to The Washington Post figures, is about 10 unarmed black people killed in 2019; along with 20 white unarmed. Note: Many conservatives have also bought into a factually incorrect social… Read more »
For further perspective on just how good the police across this country are, there is something like 10 million police interactions with civilians per year, so the number of police shootings compared to total interactions is absolutely minuscule. Nobody talks about this, yet it’s the most illuminating police statistic out there.
The police go into every interaction not knowing how it will turn out, and they are aware that the most innocuous situation can turn deadly in a split second, yet on a national basis it’s obvious that the police overwhelmingly make good decisions millions and millions of times over.
The asylum that is Chicago is literally run by the lunatics in City Hall and at the highest levels of the CTU.
Chicago school system pushing a fake narrative to purposely divide the community 😱😱who would have thought? Sarcasm is all I have left these days for the liberal school system. Take your kids out of government schools even if you have to move because the narrative will turn them into tugs.
Larry Elder stated in his documentary that if you took the wealth of black America they would be the 16th wealthiest country in the world. If this is true that’s very interesting.
This is the result when the Media pushes a theme until it is accepted as fact.
Spot on TOF,
There was guy in the 3rd Reich (Minister of Propaganda Josef Geobels) who stated if you tell a big Pinocchio often enough people will come to believe it as a fact!
The left has never given a hoot about truth and reality. Why would now be any different? The sad reality is the disinterest or inability of these folks to acknowledge this… Apparently, they prefer ignorance.
The *truth* is irrelevant to the left…
It’s the *impression*, what it *feels like*…
The police just must be killing us…!
They have tricked millions into really believing this…
They are ruled by the father of all lies…
Where is this on the CPS website?
https://www.cps.edu/sites/equity/tools/us/how-can-we-win/
The link in the second word of the piece takes you to the previous write-up we did on the video and the link in the eighth word takes you directly to the video on CPS’ website. And here it is directly: https://www.cps.edu/sites/equity/tools/us/how-can-we-win/