How Bad Are American Cops?

Last year, a “white George Floyd” died.

The year before that, Tony Timpa, a white man was gunned down in a hotel (graphic):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EIMj5UOAno

The policeman who shot the unarmed Tony was acquitted.
That same day, a different white policeman was sentenced to 20 years for shooting an unarmed black man.

These are depressing stories, so let’s end with some perspective before we jump to the conclusion that all cops are evil and we must completely defund the police.

There are 18,000 police officers in the USA.
If you assume that each officer interacts with the public 10 times per day, that’s 180,000 interactions per day or 65 million interactions per year.

Cops are human. They make errors. And, as the videos above (and George Floyd’s death) show, sometimes they make inexcusable errors.

Given 65 million annual interactions, should we be shocked that 1 in a million ends terribly wrong?

The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database. Remember that there are 5.7 times more whites than blacks in the USA.

The underreported reality is that most cops are good and fair

If they weren’t, you’d have millions of incidents that end badly.

We need to watch more videos like these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1rBlWOCE3E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49b8EJFqqPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-bz-kFyk8I

Rejoice Tapon has always said that she would much rather have the cops of the USA than the cops in any of the 31 African countries she visited.

I’m not suggesting that our police force doesn’t need reform.
There are definitely some bad apples.

There are a few bad apples among the black male population.
It’s wrong to then say that all black men are dangerous and evil.
Let’s not use the same perverse reasoning to condemn all cops.

In these times in which nuance gets tossed out the window and people gravitate to the extremes, let’s keep perspective.

Lastly, let’s end on a funny note, from Trevor Noah and the Comedy Central Team:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QIWolLM9i8