The image of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin using his knee and weight to pin the neck of a handcuffed George Floyd to the pavement, ultimately leading to Floyd’s death, is brutal.
Three other cops in attendance did not stop Chauvin during those nearly nine fatal minutes, though two of those officers were just days on the job and Chauvin was their senior officer. It is impossible to know what was in Chauvin’s mind and heart. Is he a sociopath prone to violence? Was this an act of racial antipathy, or was he showing off to his new recruits with complete negligent disregard to the life of Mr. Floyd?
In the end it doesn’t matter. Policeman Chauvin’s duty was to the protection of Mr. Floyd, who was in his custody. This death at the hands of a Minneapolis policeman is horrific.
Just a year ago, Minneapolis police officer Mohammed Noor, an African American, was convicted in the 2017 shooting death of a white Australian woman, Justine Ruszczyk, who had called 911 for help. What is going on in Minneapolis?
Half a continent away from Minneapolis in Northampton, there are calls to defund our city police.
The nationwide protests, acts of looting, assaults on police, and the calls for defunding police departments across the country are premised on the belief that what happened in Minneapolis were not just local acts, but represents a more systematic targeting for killing of minorities by police in the U.S. The Washington Post, hardly a bastion of conservative thinking, has been compiling since 2015 on its website the statistics of fatal police shootings in the U.S. by year in a searchable database.
Looking at these statistics should be helpful in clarifying our thinking. The numbers for each year between 2015 and 2019 are very similar. There are on average 990 fatal police shootings per year in the U.S. Of these, 456 whites are killed in police shootings, 239 of those killed are African American, 168 of those are Hispanic, and the remaining 126 are classified as “other.”
If we separate out those who were unarmed and shot to death by police, events which trigger the greatest public outrage, we get for each year the average of 63 people per year, of which 27 are white, 22 are African American, 12 are Hispanic and the remaining three are “other.”
We certainly do not want to see any shooting deaths of civilians by the police, and it is needless to say that the shooting death of any unarmed civilian is particularly objectionable. However, the shooting deaths of 63 unarmed people per year in a population of 328 million cannot be characterized as a police in an uncontrolled national rampage.
Similarly, if we break these statistics down by racial category, given a population that is now 60% white, 19% Hispanic, and 13% African American, we do see that the total number of Hispanics killed by police fire is slightly less than we would expect at 17%, there is in underrepresentation of whites at 46%, and then there is an overrepresentation of African Americans at 24% of the total fatalities.
The reasons for an overrepresentation of African Americans in this number certainly needs a national discussion and efforts at correction, as do the economic and educational disparities for that community in the U.S.
Again, I reiterate that any death of an unarmed civilian by police is unacceptable, but to portray a total of 22 unarmed African Americans out of a population of 42.5 million as genocidal is misleading, and if that were the goal of the police, then they are also killing more whites in the effort.
Police have a very difficult and sometimes dangerous job. They generally see humanity at its worst and protect the rest of us from it. Cops are people with families and children, they are not political cartoons, and so the throwing of rocks, bricks and frozen water bottles at police is a criminal assault against our fellow citizens.
One other finding in the Washington Post statistics is that Massachusetts is at the lowest of states in civilian deaths by police gunfire, the highest being Alaska, New Mexico and Oklahoma. So here we are in Northampton talking about defunding our police department.
Over the years in my medical practice, I have had the opportunity to talk with area police officers and I’ve heard some stories about things they have seen: things I’m glad I did not have to deal with. If you think the city of Northampton is above the need for protection, find the book “Home Town,” by Tracy Kidder, who followed a Northampton police detective on his rounds and witnessed criminal activity in this city with which most of us have no recognition, and that is because our police protect us from it.
The Northampton City Council is hearing demands from parts of our citizenry to defund the police. This is quite crazy, and if you think this won’t happen here, I wouldn’t be so confident as this is what the councilors are hearing and this is Northampton. One councilor, Marianne LeBarge, sounds enthralled by what she is hearing. “I have never heard strong voices like that in 21 years. It hit me right in the heart,” she told the Gazette.
If you support our police and value the protection they offer all of us, call or email your city councilor, and not just your own ward representative but the councilors at large as well. The mayor has made a reasonable budget proposal, but the council can take money out of it. You can find their contact information at the city website or call City Hall. Don’t be passive, or you may get something you really don’t like. Don’t let this slide: be worried, call today, call right now.
Jay Fleitman, MD, of Northampton writes a monthly column. He can be reach ed at opinion@gazettenet.com.