Searching for patterns is part of the “hard-wiring” of human beings, part of the original factory equipment so to speak. It’s among our earliest instincts. Even newborns look for patterns. Searching for patterns underpins learning language or learning to walk as well as more mature activities including dancing a waltz, discovering that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around, painting the Mona Lisa, worshipping a god, or playing a sonata on the piano. Absent the search for patterns life would be extremely difficult and probably terrifying.
If someone tells you they believe that everything is random, they’re either lying, exaggerating, insane, confused, or just plain wrong. Other than at the quantum level, real randomness is quite rare; it’s hard to produce. True randomness would mean that when I stepped out of my house here in Chicago it would be just as likely that I would be mauled by a bear, attacked by a shark, or explode into pure energy as it would that I would reach the sidewalk.
Because seeking patterns is so natural to us, we sometimes see them where they don’t exist. I think that the widely-reported phenomenon of seeing ghosts is caused by just such pattern-seeking.
There are whole branches of learning focused on distinguishing between patterns that don’t exist and those that do. Understanding logical fallacies is one way of doing that.
Depending on their abilities and experiences different people will see different patterns in the same things. As one friend of mine put it many years ago, you and I can do the same things but have different experiences.
In a country of 320 million people all sorts of things that would appear to be highly unlikely are practically certain to happen. Distinguishing between the things that actually constitute a pattern and those that don’t can be difficult. The pattern may be in what’s being reported and how it’s being reported rather than in what’s happening.
This all may sound like a lot of irrelevant rambling but it’s highly relevant since I strongly suspect that the evidence supports the hypothesis that both black men being shot and killed by police officers and the rioting that has followed black men being shot and killed by police officers are responses to seeing patterns. Are the patterns real or not?
Here are several true statements (some from this source):
- In the city of Chicago an ordinary Chicagoan is more likely to be shot and killed than a Chicago police officer.
- Twice as many whites are shot and killed by police officers every year as blacks.
- As a proportion of homicides, more whites and Hispanics are killed by police than blacks.
- Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to discharge their guns at black men than white police officers.
- Politics deals with perceptions not realities.
- Politically-motivated policies are not likely to alter the underlying facts and may not alter the perceptions.
I think it’s a reasonable inference that what moves police officers to shoot and kill black men is fear. Is that fear based on reason?
Reasonable fear is not the cause of the violence and oppression of black people in this country.
Re: patterns–My personal experience of being a white person who grew up only around white people and then being around poor/working poor black people is that regardless of privilege or class there’s a huge perceptive change that takes place in being a white person on a street with only threatening black people and a white person on the same street who sees black people as poor, tired, struggling, and fearful.
But it’s still true that Black men in THOSE neighborhoods, and living lifestyle associated with them, are more likely to have a bad outcome in any interaction with police. Statistics be damned, they will tell you these are their firsthand experiences, lived and shared with each other every day of their lives.
Related, it’s always been my perception that Black men are hard for me to communicate with. I think they are aware of it, always using phrases such as “know what I mean?” or, “know what I’m talking about?”, “hear what I’m saying?”. Then I realize that I DON’T understand even though I’ve heard their words.
There’s an expression, “you just had to be there” that I think applies. If you weren’t born Black, and lived their lives, you just can’t understand.
Of course cops are afraid. They live in a country where any random idiot can buy an AR-15 clone and a 30 round clip of armor-piercing bullets. They’d have to be nuts not to be scared.
Our cops are scared enough to shoot hundreds of people every year. British cops no. Why? Brits are not armed, and Americans are. Fear and civilian deaths are just a part of the externalities of the NRA gun cult. They export fear and death into society the way a chemical company exports toxic sludge to a Louisiana bayou.
I think they are aware of it, always using phrases such as “know what I mean?†or, “know what I’m talking about?â€, “hear what I’m saying?â€.
It’s just kind of a verbal tick, like the “…but, um…” that one hears all the time now among white people. (My wife called me out for doing that a few years ago, and I’ve become very sensitive to the phrase since. I hadn’t noticed it before being called on it.) I hear black men use the phrases mentioned all the time speaking to each other. (I live in a black neighborhood, so I get a good sample size on that sort of thing.)
…
Anyhow, one can’t really delve into stats on blacks and police and violence without stepping on various shibboleths, and separating out all the variables would be extremely difficult.
Example of the latter: In the case of ordinary Chicagoans being more likely to be shot and killed than Chicago police, one has to sort out where people live, how they live, what they do for a living, HOW they approach their interactions with other Chicagoans, etc. Cops earn more money than ordinary Chicagoans, and I imagine they’re more likely to live either outside the city, or in areas that are nicer than average. Those tend to diminish their risk. Lots of police officers aren’t really “harness bulls” and don’t see action on the street. Those on the street probably wear more body armor than the average Chicagoan. Those on the street are probably much more careful than the average Chicagoan in how they handle situations. And so on and so forth.
It may well be that being a cop is a more dangerous profession, but because of all the care they take on the job and how they live off the job, they’re safer than most. Or it may be that cops find it easy to generate a lot of sympathy for themselves, thus elevating their pay & benefits beyond what might reasonably be expected. No matter which side of the debate one comes down on, merely having an opinion is likely to piss off a fair number of people.
…
As to the riots, it seems that there have been some peculiar things that have happened. It’s been reported, though I have no opinion of the accuracy of the reports, that most of the people arrested for the rioting & looting in Charlotte were from non-local locales. I remember hearing similar reports about Ferguson. I don’t recall similar reports about Baltimore, though I confess I haven’t looked. This is that kind of thing that several someones/organizations in the news field should investigate. If it’s true, then a whole series of other questions arise. But I doubt we’ll get any serious reporting on the matter, as doing it well would require a lot of resources, and most news organizations don’t want to waste resources on stories like this. Not when we need to know about how many time Brad Pitt may have had an argument with his children or if Angelina Jolie really does throw up after every meal. Priorities, dontchaknow?
Michael,
There are about 1 million police officers in this country. For the past ten years there have been around 150 officers killed in the line of duty per year. Regardless of how many guns are in the hands of idiots, there should be no reason for any officer to fear that at any moment the bullet with their name on it is coming.
Since wariness and paranoia are subsets of fear, ok, the pattern fits. However, whether its universal, depends on the individual cop house and other factors. A police force with a Wyatt Earp gestalt will be much more likely to kill than a laid back Andy of Mayberry gestalt. Throw in officer injuries/fatalities, resolution of those cases, police/community relations, officer selection, training, retention, the ease of using DA weapons, etc.
Will leave the horse tenderizing to others who enjoy that.
As alternatives to Michael’s maximalist prescription, I have some other suggestions. First, reduce the number of ex-military in the police force. Here in Chicago to qualify for the police force you either need a college degree or some college plus military service or high school plus more military service. Don’t allow military service to count at all. College educated non-ex-military are better equipped to defuse situations without the use of force. There’ve been studies but I’m too lazy to look them up right now.
Also, re-introduce the height requirements. 50 years ago there were height requirements to be a police officer. Those have been eliminated over time. The rationale was good but I think it’s proven a mistake. Look up “command presence police” for some ideas of why I think this.
That Chinese-American (New York) police officers and black police officers (Charlotte) are killing and shooting black men defuses the “white racism” argument on the subject somewhat. Not entirely but somewhat.
Modulo:
Riiiiight. No reason to fear.
By the way, it seems that every year 150 internet commenters are randomly chosen to be electrocuted by their keyboards. Enjoy the rest of your commenting day.
I realize conservatives are incapable of imagination, which is why we have a grand total of about six cons in the entire creative industry of the United States, but try a little harder.
Dave:
Height requirements? Reduce the number of ex-military? Command presence? From forces numbering a million people you want to eliminate virtually all women and most Asians, and hire who, exactly? We have a population of 320 million, so one in 320 Americans is in law enforcement. I will guarantee you that you cannot fill a million jobs with tall, commanding men who avoided the army. That’s a fantasy. Worse, it’s nostalgia.
We don’t recruit women for the military or law enforcement to do women a favor, we do it because we have slots to fill, and we need people to fill them. The notion of a big, tall, “commanding,” all-male, mostly white police force being just the ticket to deal with fractious minorities is nuts. I’d have expected it from Trump.
You know who was the most decorated American soldier in World War 2? Audie Murphy. 5’2″ and 110 pounds soaking wet, the size of a typical American woman today. His officers shared your affection for commanding presences and refused to let him near the front until they just couldn’t stop him. And then he won the MOH and pretty much every other medal for fighting tall, white males in gray uniforms. As a tall man myself, and one with a moderately commanding presence, may I just say: I am no Audie Murphy. Size isn’t courage or capability.
Also, as a tall, commanding man, let me confess that tall command is only slightly useful, and more when dealing with head waiters or perhaps recent divorcees, than with criminals. We tall, commanding types often become accustomed to relying on our size to intimidate people and intimidation is not necessarily the best way to wind down a tough situation. You know who I’d like as my partner if I were a tall, commanding cop? I’d want a woman. I’ve never yet met a woman nearly as likely as I am to end up throwing fists in a confrontation. And I’m a peaceful guy.
Bigger, taller, more commanding white men. The perfect way to convince African-Americans to trust the police. I can’t wait for the press conference announcing the exclusion of women, Asians and veterans from police forces. That would be entertaining.
Michael
It takes very little imagination to going around in a constant state of siege and fear. So I don’t know what your point is. These police shootings seem to be operating under the same rules that gun fans endorse: everything is a threat. And guns are objects of interest for people with the least imaginative capacity known to mankind.
Michael:
Because there are no tall black men.
What you’re saying is that you prefer a fearful, inclusive police force who feel the need to shoot first. How does a smaller person control a situation that calls for police presence? By applying more force. That’s fine for Audie Murphy under war conditions. Not nearly so good for a police officer. Oh, and BTW Audie Murphy was 5’8″.
There are presently about 360 million guns in the U. S. You know how many fewer there would be if there were a total ban on gun sales? Zero. There would still be 360 million. What would happen if you totally banned gun sales and went house to house confiscating guns? Guns would become more valuable. There would be a burgeoning black market and criminals would lay traps for police officers to get their guns.
I don’t own a handgun. Wouldn’t have one in the house. The only firearms in the house are family heirlooms that haven’t been fired in more than a century. The shotgun that my father received as a present on his twelfth birthday and the rifle one of my great-great-grandfathers carried during the Civil War. I don’t oppose controlling the sale of firearms. I just think it’s not a practical solution. It’s irrelevant to the problems we actually have.
So stop proposing impossible maximalist solutions that don’t even fractionally address the problem and concentrate on small or at least smaller steps that might.
BTW I didn’t say “ban veterans”. What I said was stop making military service a credential, something quite different. The status quo causes ex-military to be hired preferentially by police forces.
Why do you limit your data to shootings? Is that the only bad thing that can happen to people? We actually have data on other behaviors, both that self-reported by the police and reported by non-police.
Steve
“In the city of Chicago an ordinary Chicagoan is more likely to be shot and killed than a Chicago police officer.”
Is this what you meant to say? Given that we usually have 50-60 police killed a year in the whole country, this probably true in almost every city, not just Chicago.
Steve
Because that’s what people are rioting about.
And, yes, that was what I meant to convey. Statistically it’s more dangerous to be a Chicago civilian than a Chicago police officer. I don’t know the statistics for the U. S. off the top of my head but I do know those for Chicago. A Chicago police officer being killed in the line of duty is a rarity. Hasn’t happened in years. The total number of officers killed here in the line of duty in this century is lower than the number of non-police officers killed over some weekends. If a Chicago police officer uses lethal force, he or she is responding to something other than the conditions she or he is actually facing. In other words, I’m supporting the observation I saw made in another thread to the effect that being a police officer isn’t a particularly dangerous role. It requires that you be willing to be placed in dangerous and sometimes delicate situations but generally speaking the outcome won’t get the police officer killed.
There are several practical ways of reducing the likelihood of police officers shooting and killing people. One is to have a police force that by composition is less predisposed to use lethal force. Another is to hire police officers who by disposition, experience, temperament, or other characteristics are better able to defuse situations without the situation escalating to lethal force. Yet another is training that gives police officers the skills and perspective to keep situations from escalating.
One of the hallmarks of a good, practical solution is that it can be implemented fractionally and still have benefits even if they’re just proportional to the implementation. Solutions that have no effect unless they’re completely and perfectly implemented will probably never be implemented so completely and perfectly that they’ll have any effect.
If minorities were treated exactly the same all of the time, I doubt they would be rioting. After years of getting beaten and abused, or in the case of Chicago tortured, the shootings are just very visible and galvanizing events.
I think your ideas are practical and likely to have some effect. I think you should add to that, maybe implicit in what you said, that we need to get rid of bad cops. Not everyone can or should be a police officer. Increase the usage of cameras also.
Steve
If minorities all behaved in a manner statistically similar to whites, they’d probably be treated more like whites. Black men, especially black men under the age of 35 or so, are insanely more violent than anyone else, statistically speaking. Of course, the DOJ stats that back that up are hate facts, and we aren’t really supposed to mention that. (I can because I’m part of The Coalition of the Deplorable.)
But whatever. All the white people bitching about deplorable treatment of blacks would shit themselves if they had to walk around the block I live on in the middle of the night. Or even in the afternoon when all the high school & middle school kids are walking home. If you assholes really want the police to act differently to young black men, try it yourself first.
Michael,
“I realize conservatives are incapable of imagination, which is why we have a grand total of about six cons in the entire creative industry of the United States, but try a little harder.”
It’s kind of funny you think MM is a “conservative” –whatever that means anymore.
You should look up the FBI statistic for how many police officers get shot by an “rifle.” Over the last 10 years the number is about 10 averaged out of a million police officers. I know a few cops and it the handguns they worry about. Pulling out an AR-15 at a traffic stop just doesn’t happen and the vast majority of police shootings involve handguns.
Dave,
“Twice as many whites are shot and killed by police officers every year as blacks.”
From your link:
“According to data compiled by The Washington Post, 50 percent of the victims of fatal police shootings were white, while 26 percent were black. ”
That is true as far as it goes, but that statistic doesn’t take into account relative population. Another problem is that most hispanics are designated as “white” in federal statistics.
I also don’t agree with you that former military personnel are a problem. Do you have any evidence for that? I think the main issue is improper escalation of force and historical deference to police who shoot and kill suspects. The only reason it’s become an issue is because of videos showing police conduct. Previously, this conduct still existed but was largely hidden from public view.
You speak truth in that last comment, ice. But it’s not allowed, because acknowledging a portion of the issue is subordinate to political correctness.
And I don’t know if Dave is correct about former military, but the general thrust certainly is. The police have closed ranks in a siege mentality and do not do a good job of preventing unsuitable candidates or of weeding out unsuitables.
Both of those issues are cultural, have nothing to do with guns or race, and no chance of resolution in the current ideologically charged climate.
There is survival bias in comparing the general population with law enforcement; law enforcement is specifically trained in the use of force in part to survive encounters where force is used. In exchange of gunfire situations, the person who fires first is far more likely to survive, as well as the person with superior gunfire training. One measure of the danger of a job is how frequently you may find yourself in exchange of gunfire situations?
A state trooper told me yesterday that since the troubles began they’ve been receiving training in which they play the role of a driver being pulled over and ticketed. This was in addition to the new state law requiring kids to learn what to do when pulled over to get their first license. I quipped that this would just normalize expected behavior, and if I had read this post would have expressed as creating a pattern which draws attention to drivers who don’t do what is being trained. He said some officers think people need to go through the experience themselves from the officer’s p.o.v. (He by the way, offered that he’s never been afraid during a pullover)
Andy:
I can’t provide hard evidence. It doesn’t seem to be available. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence and it goes both ways. Former military blame police officers without military experience and vice versa.
Where there seems to be agreement is that our police forces have seen rising paranoia and the development of what’s called the “whatever it takes to go home” mentality. That lends itself to the use of lethal force including under circumstances where it might not be called for. Blame has been placed on former military, non-former military, the federal government, video games, and just about anything you can imagine. I don’t know what the truth of it is.
That black men are being killed by police officers disproportionately to their numbers in society is obvious. That they are being killed disproportionately to the number of events in which police officers are reasonably in fear for their lives is not as clear. There’s actually some evidence that the opposite is the case.
I don’t know. I’ve proposed a framework for thinking about reforms that might result in fewer needless deaths. The framework I’ve proposed is more practical than solutions which would require extreme measures to be at all effective.
But I’m open to other suggestions.
As an aside, in my researches I stumbled across an interesting article that claimed that in Chicago the police are taking the attitude of a military force occupying hostile territory. It made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons not the least of them being that I thought the article had an undercurrent of antisemitism. I still wonder whether there’s any validity to the claim.
That sounds like a rationalization to me.
I wonder how many white police officers are aware of the paralinguistic differences between the way that whites communicate and the way that blacks communicate. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if white police officers interpret responses from black folk as threatening which would be considered ordinary discourse among blacks.
Dave,
I think there’s been a marked increase in the militarization of domestic policing, but I’m not convinced that former military personnel are a cause.
I go back to this article published after Ferguson – Everyone I know who did “policing” in Iraq and Afghanistan has the same basic view.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/15/iraq-vet-small-town-cops-have-better-armor-and-weaponry-than-we-carried-in-a-combat/