As politicians are working to find solutions to police violence, having a comprehensive understanding of the statistics is essential. //

If Democrats truly want to solve police brutality they should do a little research.

The current media trend indicates that blacks are targeted by the police; however, new research reports just the opposite. A study released in late 2019 found “no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities” across police shootings. //

The findings continue, citing that “white officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.”

Rather, police are far more likely to kill whites during a confrontation. For example, in 2017 457 white Americans were shot to death by the police in comparison to 223 black Americans.

This trend continues into 2020 where statistics show that police more commonly kill whites during confrontations. The ratio of police violence by race has not changed much over the past five years. //

When taking population differences into account, the argument against systemic racism holds up as well. Despite representing 13% of the population, the FBI reported that in 2017 black Americans committed 53% of homicides and 54% of robberies. Further, when looking into violence committed against police, black American men represent 33% of cop killers despite being only 6.6% of the population.

Senator Tim Scott, the lone black Republican in the U.S. Senate, put forward a good police reform bill, and yesterday, Senate Democrats defeated it.

Scott, who has been at the forefront of police reform efforts in the Senate, put his bill forward, offering a lot of good reform policies that would alleviate many of the issues activists on the left and right want to see fixed. The bill even won some praise in mainstream media outlets, and earned him at least one profile at Politico.

One would think, with massive protests and plenty of vocal activists out there, that Scott would be praised for his work. He has been incredibly vocal about his experience as a black man in America, discussing his own interactions with police and the type of discrimination he has faced in his life. However, putting the bill forward and offering solutions on the issue — an issue that has bipartisan agreement over things that should be done — was not enough for the Democratic Party, whose Senators blocked the bill on Wednesday afternoon and ended up on the receiving end of an angry speech from Scott afterward.

Scott’s anger is understandable. His bill was lied about by some folks (like Corey Booker) and straight-up condemned by others (like Kamala Harris) before they’d even read it. Senate Republicans offered Democrats twenty chances to amend the bill. Twenty. They offered nothing, and they never wanted to change what Scott’s bill offered.

Not because they thought it was a bad bill but because they did not want to hand a GOP Senator a victory on the issue.

Consider the GOP’s treatment of the bill in the Senate versus House Democrats’ treatment of their own bill in the other chamber: While Republicans offered Senate Democrats a chance to amend the bill, Democrats voted to bring their bill to the floor without allowing a single GOP amendment. That says a lot about the Democrats, and none of it good in the fight to bring real police reform. //

As Scott acknowledged later in the day, it’s not about police reform, but who was offering it. The Democratic Party does not want a Republican, even the Senate GOP’s only black member, to get any sort of win on the issue, and it is clear now that their party will try to run out the clock before the August recess in order to run on the issue in November.

People don't have to go through what police do.

The court-made doctrine that makes it very difficult to sue over excessive force by police is under the microscope.

Looting, rioting and robberies break out when police officers stage a 16-hour strike in Montreal. //

Montreal is in a state of shock. A police officer is dead and 108 people have been arrested following 16 hours of chaos during which police and firefighters refused to work. At first, the strike's impact was limited to more bank robberies than normal. But as night fell, a taxi drivers' union seized upon the police absence to violently protest a competitor's exclusive right to airport pickups. The result, according to this CBC Television special, was a "night of terror." Shattered shop windows and a trail of broken glass are evidence of looting that erupted in the downtown core. With no one to stop them, students and separatists joined the rampage. Shop owners, some of them armed, struggled to fend off looters. Restaurants and hotels were also targeted. A corporal with the Quebec provincial police was shot and killed at the garage of the Murray Hill limousine company as taxi drivers tried to burn it down. //

According to a 1999 Montreal Gazette retrospective, the 3,700 members of the Montreal Policemen's Brotherhood walked off the job over pay issues. They were asking for higher salaries in line with those earned by police in Toronto.
The late 1960s was an especially demanding period for Montreal police, who were regularly called upon to disarm bombs planted by separatists and patrol over 100 protests yearly.

That's probably the right decision. //

These protestors hurt their own cause with these attempted shows of control. How? Because while there’s widespread agreement that there are bad cops and that the laws must be applied equally, regardless of union contracts and the like, this kind of behavior paints all police with a broad brush. Has this specific officer brutalized black people? Has he broken rules and regulations? Has he supported those that have? Why does he need to subjugate himself in this case? By generalizing all police like this, it causes divisions and harms any possible consensus towards change.

Demanding that people kneel before you before you’ll even have a “conversation,” as the protestor in this video does, is not operating in bad faith. It’s just inflaming tensions. //

If you really want change, stand up like a man, look them in the eye, and talk to them like a human being. Because despite those who’ve done wrong, you can’t lump everyone into the same boat any more than you can lump everyone of one race into the same boat as those that commit crimes. It’s not fair or right.