PUTTING COPS KILLING BLACKS IN ITS PROPER PERSPECTIVE

Whether justified or not, every time a white cop kills a black man, the BLM rabble and white liberals would have you think racism was behind the killing 

By Howie Katz

Big Jolly Times
June 2, 2020

The death of Houston native George Floyd by the knee of a Minneapolis cop has left the US with what can best be described as an insurrection.  What started out as a peaceful protest in Minneapolis morphed into assaults against the police, the burning of businesses and police cars, and widespread looting in more than 40 cities from coast to coast and from north to south.

Black Lives Matter and white liberals would have you think racism was behind the killing of Floyd as they do just about every time a white cop shoots dead a white man.

Whenever an unarmed black man is killed by the police, the hue and cry goes up that he was killed because he was black.  Here are some of the most notable cases.

In August 2014, NY cops tried to arrest Eric Garner, a 400-pound giant.  During a struggle when he resisted arrest, officer Daniel Pantaleo applied what appeared to be a choke hold while Garner uttered the now famous words: "I can't breathe."  Pantaleo was never charged by the DA or the Feds, but he was unjustly fired and stripped of his pension in August 2019 at the insistence of Sandinista-loving Mayor Bill de Blasio.

In August 2014, Michael Brown Jr., who had committed a strongarm robbery at a convenience store a short while earlier, was shot dead by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson as he tried to defend himself from a physical assault by the 300-pound giant.

In October 2014, Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke shot dead Laquan McDonald as he was walking away from the police.  This was clearly an unjustified shooting and Van Dyke was convicted of 2nd-degree murder and several counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. 

In November 2014, Tamir Rice, a 12-year old boy, was shot and killed by Cleveland police after officers mistook his toy gun for a real weapon.

In April 2015, Walter Scott was shot in the back while running away from North Charleston, South Carolina officer Michael Slager after a traffic stop for a broken taillight.  This was clearly an unjustified shooting and Slager was deservedly charged with murder.

Also in April 2025, Freddie Gray died of a spinal cord injury a week after he was tossed into the back of a Baltimore police van.  The officer driving the van was charged with 2nd-degree "depraved-heart" murder and five other Baltimore cops were charged with various crimes, including manslaughter.  One officer's trial ended in a mistrial and two others were acquitted.  Charges against the remaining three were then dropped.

And now we have the killing of George Floyd, a Houston native who had been twice convicted of armed robbery.  Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin was clearly wrong when he kept his knee on Floyd's neck for seven minutes after Floyd begged the cops to stop because he could not breathe.

The killings of Laquan McDonald and Walter Scott were clearly unjustified and George Floyd's death was unintended, but in all the cases listed above, there is no evidence the men were killed because they were black.

Let's take a look at the number of whites, blacks and Hispanics shot dead by cops in 2017. 2018 and 2019.

In 2017: 457 whites, 223 blacks and 179 Hispanics.

In 2018: 399 whites, 209 Blacks and 148 Hispanics.

In 2019: 370 whites, 235 blacks and 158 Hispanics.

During those three years, there were a total of 667 blacks shot dead by the police as compare to 1,711 people who were not black.

Another way of looking at it is that blacks make up only 12 percent of the US population, but from 2015 – 2019 they accounted for 26.4% of those that were killed by the police. In other words, the police killed blacks at about twice their rate in the general population.  Does that indicate that cops are a bunch of racist bastards?  Of course not!  The disparity results from the fact that blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime.

So, let's put cops killing blacks in its proper perspective.  There are some 800,000 law enforcement officers in the US.  They have to deal with countless thousands of incidents every day, some of the incidents being perceived as a deadly threat to the officers.  Cops have been ambushed numerous times, mostly by black men, the most notable ambush being the killing of five Dallas police officers by a black man in July 2016.

The BLM rabble, liberals and the media continuously make a big deal out of cops shooting unarmed black men.  But an unarmed man can overpower and kill a cop with his bare hands or may be perceived to be armed and an imminent threat to an officer's life.  Many years ago, two white Houston cops approached a black man who had been acting erratically in the street during the middle of the night.  He shouted "Hey, I've got something for you" and pulled an object out of his pocket which he pointed it at them.  In the dark, the two cops perceived the object to be a gun and killed him.  The 'gun' turned out to be a bible.  Tragic as this deadly incident was, the two cops were justified in shooting the poor man.  

Yes, there are racist cops just like there are racists in the general society.  But that does not necessarily mean racist cops discriminate against blacks.

There are no protests or riots over the daily slaughter of blacks by blacks in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and other US cities.

Every so often a white cop among 800,000 law enforcement officers kills a black man.  And sometimes when that happens, half the country sinks into chaos like now with the Floyd killing.  The hoodlums who have been looting stores, setting buildings and police cars afire, and attacking police officers are encouraged to do so by Colin Kaepernick who calls them freedom fighters.

US law enforcement is accused of being beset with institutional racism by none other than former President Barack Obama.  That's a terrible accusation when there is little if any proof that white cops kill blacks because they are black.