FACT: You're Not Likely To Be Killed By a Police Officer

Seeing that there’s a burgeoning perception shaped by the left and the neo-libertarian right that cops routinely execute citizens for no reason, I took the liberty of being the best and came up with the following statistical guide that I hope will assuage the collective fear of being killed by a police officer. 

US Population=316.1 million

# cops (state and local law enforcement personnel)=1.1 million

# of cops killed in the line of duty in 2013=76

# of citizens killed by police (justified + unjustified)=1000* (*The numbers are surprisingly hard to get, but this is the high end estimate according to Nate Silver’s 538 blog. FBI puts it at 500. I'll go with the high end estimate.)

Percentage of citizens killed by police (justified and unjustified)=1000/316.1 million=.00032%.

That's .00032%

Percentage of cops killed in the line of duty=76/1.1m=.0069%

That's .0069%

.0069%>.00032%

So in fact, a police officer is 22 times more likely to die in the line of duty than a citizen is at the hands of the police.

Now controlling for race.

US black population=43 million

# of black people killed by police (justified and unjustified) in 2013: according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number is 123. Many critics have pointed to numerous flaws in the CDC’s data, yet are unable to offer a better estimate. So let’s use Nate Silver’s data (i.e. 1000 people killed by police in 2013) and assume that 75% of the victims were black (this is almost certainly higher than the actual number). # of black people killed by police=750 (high end estimate).

Percentage of blacks killed by police=750/43m=.0017%

That’s .0017%

.0069%>.0017% .

So, the odds of a cop dying in the line of duty is still greater than the odds of an African American being killed by the police. And to reiterate, this is based on an unrealistically high estimate of the number of blacks killed by police, and includes both justified and unjustified cases.

None of this is consolation to Eric Garner’s family. But seeing social media inundated with wildly inaccurate assumptions about police brutality compelled me to run these numbers.

The Shamelessly Dishonest Sports Media

Now that a federal judge has reinstated Ray Rice because constitutional republics depend on federal judges to arbitrate private sports leagues' personal conduct matters, I am anxiously counting down the seconds until the sports media, the pseudo sports media (Deadspin) and the anti-NFL lobby blame Roger Goodell and the NFL owners for Ray Rice's indefinite suspension being revoked.

Actually, I don't need to count down seconds per se, because as this ESPN article strongly implies, this is all Roger Goodell's fault.

You see, because Roger Goodell initially caved into the NFL players' union (NFLPA) demand that players accused (convicted or just accused?) of domestic violence only be suspended for two games, he is responsible for Ray Rice punching out his fiancee.

This article is rife with some truly Orwellian stuff (as opposed to neo-Orwellian stuff).

The judge criticizes the NFL's ostensible failure to take cases of domestic violence seriously, and at the same time, criticizes the NFL for suspending Ray Rice indefinitely after acknowledging that it didn't take cases of domestic violence seriously enough!  


Now, a reasonable lady or gentleman could make the case that the NFL acted in an ex post facto manner, and that Ray Rice should never have been suspended indefinitely.

That would be a reasonable, perhaps controversial, stance.

But that is NOT what the sports media is harping on.

They're saying straight up that Roger Goodell beat Ray Rice's wife and should be fired. Wait what? No, ok, they're not going that far, but the narrative advanced by the sports media strongly suggests that Roger Goodell is the main villain in this story. Not the woman beater. The guy who disciplined the woman beater.

The arbitrary punishment piece is a glaring red herring. We know this because after handing down the initial punishment, Roger Goodell did the mea culpa dance and was universally praised by every gasbag on ESPN for having the integrity to admit he was wrong.

None of his detractors gave a shit about ex post facto back then.

The truth is that Ray Rice's retroactive punishment only became an issue once the unhinged anti-Goodell lobby went after the NFL.

Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW)--a hyper political organization which represents at most 40% of women and clearly does not speak for all women--was invited on every ESPN show to belligerently attack the NFL as either endorsing or condoning violence against women. Without ever being challenged for the extremely incendiary and potentially libelous charges. 

Given the fact that the NFLPA was defending the woman beater Ray Rice while the NFL was arguing against him, will Terry O'Neill slam the NFLPA and praise the NFL? Will she slam the judge who reinstated Ray Rice? 

Haha, good one. 

Politics takes precedence over so many things that most people don't want politicized. Including, in this case, reason. 

The bottom line is this. 

The NFL disciplines its employees for conduct unbecoming. Ergo, the NFL disciplined Ray Rice consistent with the rules negotiated and agreed to by the NFL and the NFLPA. 

When the initial punishment didn't appear to fit the crime, the NFL responded to media pressure by quickly changing the rules to more severely punish perpetrators of domestic violence. (Again, it's unclear whether the new rules apply to convictions or simply allegations. Clearly, if it's the latter, then legitimate questions must be raised about presumption of innocence. But that's a separate matter.)

When the graphic nature of the elevator video ignited even more outrage over the lax punishment, Roger Goodell retroactively suspended Ray Rice. 

Then, in a brilliant stroke of Orwellian chutzpah, the sports media, Terry O'Neill et al., pounced on Roger Goodell for not taking domestic violence seriously or worse, even though he was super hawkish on domestic violence, going so far as to retroactively change the rules to punish woman beaters. 

Logic is hard.