Trump says cops kill more white people than Black people. Here’s why that’s misleading
President Donald Trump said in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday that more white Americans are killed by law enforcement than Black Americans.
Is that true?
Trump’s claim, which he made when asked by CBS’ Catherine Herridge why Black Americans are “still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country,” is not wrong. But it is misleading.
A study by Harvard University in June showed there were 2,353 white people killed in incidents involving police in U.S. metropolitan areas from 2013 to 2017. There were 1,487 such deaths involving Black people.
The American population is 76.3% white and 13.4% Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Because of the population differences, Black Americans are more than three times as likely as white people to be killed by police, Harvard researchers state.
Latin Americans were also slightly more likely than white Americans to be killed by police from 2013 to 2017, the study showed.
A separate study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine used data from the 17 states that are part of the National Violent Death Reporting System. It showed 52% of fatalities by law enforcement from 2009 to 2012 were white people. Thirty-two percent of the deaths were of Black people, but the Black victims were more likely to be unarmed than white people, according to the study.
“Black victims were substantially over-represented relative to the U.S. population, comprising 32% of deaths but only 13% of Americans,” researchers wrote.
According to a 2019 Rutgers University study, Black men face a 1-in-1,000 chance of being killed by law enforcement. This compares to a 1-in-2,000 chance for all men, according to the study.
“The inequality is not surprising,” lead author Frank Edwards said. “All you have to do is turn on the news to see that people of color are at a much greater risk of police-related harm. What we lack in this country are the solid estimates of police related deaths because there is no official database where this information is stored.”
Black women were 1.4 times more likely than white women to be killed by police, the Rutgers study shows.
Trump’s comments come after the deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and Breonna Taylor, who were all Black people killed in incidents with law enforcement. Their deaths have sparked protests across the U.S. with clashes between protesters and police.
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 2:53 PM with the headline "Trump says cops kill more white people than Black people. Here’s why that’s misleading."