An Epidemic of Police Violence?
14th April 2021
The Star Tribune keeps a running toll of deaths resulting from police encounters in Minnesota. For the period 2000 to 2021, the total is 207, of whom 54% were white and 27% were black. Of course, suspect behavior has a lot to do with the likelihood of a fatal encounter with law enforcement. This is evident from the fact that only 3% of those killed by police have been women.
This total of 207 includes many cases–I assume a substantial majority–where the killing was in obvious self-defense, or for other reasons there was no real question about its propriety. Still, even if we take the raw total of 207 deaths, it represents by my calculation around 0.0002 of all deaths in Minnesota during that time period. It seems remarkable that such a tiny number of occurrences have come to play such a major role in our public life.