Vice reports in a new piece that the police are killing ever more Americans. This is, given the method they use, true, but it's horrendously misleading. For there are also more Americans. It is more – more that is, not exactly – true to say that the rate of police deaths is roughly steady.
One unnecessary death at the hands of the police is one too many, of course. Others might be called rather more necessary – taking down an active shooter strikes most of us as being a very reasonable deployment of violence. The numbers Vice uses don't distinguish here:
American police killed more people last year than they have in nearly a decade, according to a nonprofit organization that has tracked and published data on deadly state violence since 2013.
Even that's a bit twisted – the “nearly a decade” is because the numbers have only been collected for nearly a decade. The actual figures are here and they are the raw figures, unadjusted. But we do need to adjust them. The American population has grown these past 9 years, by about 5% actually, perhaps a little more when we add 2022. When we adjust for that, to get the rate not just the number then, well, police killings are about what they were. The trend in the rate seems to be the usual sort of statistical variance around a norm, even as the number rises with the population. That is, this is all about the same as the variation in many other causes of death, say falling down stairs, or being killed by your own bedsheets (no, really, something that happens).
But then we'd probably not expect Vice to report on this subject with any nuance. They have a definite view on the subject, to the point that they've whole sections of their archives on “police brutality” and “police killings”. They seem to think that K-9 units were invented by slavers (err, no, actually in England and about 200 years after the abolition of slavery in England and some 500 years or so before the re-invention of chattel slavery in Virginia.) When Vice says defund the police they really mean it too, just stop paying them.
Vice ranks at 79 for news and media outlets in the U.S. and gains some 30.5 million visits a month from that. But that is just the website – the magazine has a distribution of 900,000 and the TV channel reaches 60 million American homes by cable.
The problem here is that Vice has already made up its mind on the subject. Therefore new reports are simply evidence for that view rather than being reported correctly. Given the increasing population of the U.S., yes, it is true that the number of police killings are rising. But the rate seems pretty stable which would be much more informative and better reporting, in fact. But media outlets who have already made up their minds tend to not do that, instead, they run with what supports their preconceptions. As here.
We can only decide what is a problem, zero in on a solution to any of them, if the reporting of that real world is accurate in the first place, after all.
This article originally appeared in Accuracy in Media. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News. Republished with permission.
Pew Research did a study to determine who are the most law abiding to least law abiding demographics. They used every demographic available—over 160 demographics in all. Law enforcement officers were the second most law abiding demographic of all. Showing once again that the police have earned our support and trust.
What was the #1 most law abiding demographic? Conceal carry permit holders.
Where is the statistics on how many police officers are killed each year by the bad guys?? I’d like to hear about those….
Then apply racial stats and see how ugly it really is…..
What can we expect when violence is rampant and prosecutors are allowing horrible offenders to go free within 24 hours? You see drug addicts and other mentally disturbed people blatantly coming after police with knives, axes, guns, etc. while police are warning them to stop and desist. They keep on coming – what would you do? The problem is in the lack of proper justice to criminals who shouldn’t be out of prison.
The leftist propagandists will continue lying until they’re held responsible and punished where warranted….which is near EVERY report.
Yep…they need set in the same sparky.
Mediia always lies on LE issues, watch NewsMax
How many of these accounts were for people shooting at the police? This is a one sided opinion
One thing the MSM have avoided for years is the redefinition of “child.” Remember when Obama did the executive order to allow family members up to age 26 stay on parent’s health insurance? All government data was altered to list people up to age 26 as children. Shortly after, they began ranting about all the children who were victims of “gun violence.” Of course, they did not mention it included hundreds of gang bangers up to age 26, who were now classified as children.
Get back to me when they don’t lie which will be never.