Short version:
Too many unarmed black men are killed by law enforcement officials in the United States. There is no getting around the fact that this phenomenon represents—at least statistically– the definition of institutional racism. The bigger picture, however, is that law enforcement officials are trained to shoot to kill when they believe themselves to be threatened.
Post-9/11 America has seen a tremendous expansion of armed law enforcement bodies; in most cases, these entities’ self-defense protocols permit officers the use of deadly force if and when they determine that they are in danger. Absent stricter rules on the use of force, many officers will thus feel that they can or should shoot when they feel threatened. And, due to ingrained societal racism, even if unintentionally or subconsciously, many Americans, police officers included, are more likely to believe themselves to be threatened when confronting black men.
In short, the many varieties of armed law enforcement personnel in the United States, operating under self-protective and subjective rules of engagement, shoot a lot of people. A disproportionate number of the people they shoot are unarmed black men. This is a direct result of America’s creation of many and varied layers of security personnel with abundant power and prerogatives. Until and unless law enforcement rules of engagement require greater moderation in use of force, black men will continue to die at the hands of security officers who may or may not be acting from racist motives.
Take a step back to see the bigger picture: if law enforcement personnel were not allowed to shoot those they encounter—white or black or other—on the subjective grounds of perceiving a threat, they would shoot fewer people. Establishing tighter national consensus rules on the use of deadly force would save the lives of numerous harmless black men—and many other lives.
Momentum is building in the United States for change. That change will happen within a year.
Longer version:
Every week, many thousands of people visit the food court at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. Loud tribes of middle school students on field trips to the capital, smaller family groups, and tired clumps of tourists roam the food court, seeking lunch, dinner, a snack, or, perhaps, just a break from the heat or cold. The Ronald Reagan Building and its Federal Triangle neighborhood are home to many U.S. government agencies and offices, so hundreds of government workers are also part of the churning mix at the food court.
As it happens, many of these government officials are in uniform and armed as they stroll around with their trays or cups of coffee. In fact, pretty well any time the food court is open, dozens of armed Customs and Border Patrol, Federal Protective Service, and other uniformed, sidearm-wearing workers are present in the food court. During the course of the day, therefore, many hundreds of armed men and women who are not on duty for protective security reasons pass through or sit in the food court.
Why are they armed when most of them are working desk jobs? The simple answer is that most law enforcement agency personnel are armed at all times on duty, wherever they happen to be. Why? Because they are, because it’s considered part of their job, perhaps because that makes people feel safe. That is the way it is at this moment in American history.
Yet is it more strange that so many unnecessarily armed officials mingle in a food court in Washington, DC, or that nobody notices? Americans have become accustomed to seeing armed law enforcement officials everywhere. When they pass through airports, they encounter scores of armed officers from several different agencies—even the officials inspecting passports or customs forms wear weapons. Look around the baggage claim area at any major airport and you’ll see a large number of armed personnel in a variety of uniforms. Why are they all armed? Because law enforcement officials are almost by definition armed in the United States.
Under what conditions are these armed men and women allowed to shoot their guns? Not all agencies and departments have the same rules of engagement or policies on the use of deadly force, but it’s fair to say that all permit the officer to shoot if s/he believes that her/his life is in danger. Imagine for a moment what could happen in the food court at the Ronald Reagan Building if a significant number of armed officers from different agencies suddenly believed themselves to be in danger at the same time. Where would the true threat to public safety lie? Would it be whatever triggered the concern or would it be the potentially uncoordinated gunfire of so many armed officials reacting to the threat– real or perceived?
Black men don’t have to use their imagination much to consider this scenario. By now, they understand that a simple encounter with armed law enforcement officials might devolve into a situation in which the officials believe themselves to be in danger and start shooting. Everyone in the United States—not just black men– is aware of this phenomenon by now, and many decry the racism that surely motivates it.
But is racism the fundamental problem? The United States is full of armed racists who don’t just shoot others on the basis of their race. Do law enforcement officers shoot black men so frequently because of individual and institutional racism, or because they are simply taught to shoot if they calculate that they are confronting a valid threat? The families and friends of black victims of police shootings may find little comfort in examining this difference, but understanding it holds the key to saving black—and other—lives.
Law enforcement personnel shoot people according to the rules that govern their use of deadly force. That a disproportionate number of these people happen to be black men should be no surprise to any American. No serious person would deny the carapace of historic inequality that covers American society or claim that the U.S. public and/or public institutions are now magically color-blind when it comes to certain underlying assumptions based on race. As a demographic subset, black men are widely considered more threatening the United States. That’s all there is to it, and it’s silly to pretend that does not remain a generalization, stereotype, and, sometimes, default position in American society.
The police, just like other Americans, are thus, consciously or subconsciously, more likely to consider black men threatening. If they have been trained to shoot when they believe that they face a worthy threat, the probability that they will shoot black men in disproportionate numbers is a logical, if unacceptable, result of this combination of training and cultural context.
However, whatever the motive might be behind a police officer or other security official shooting a black man—and the case-by-case explanation might be genuine threat or racism or inexperience or something else—law enforcement would shoot far fewer people of any demographic subset if the criteria by which security personnel are allowed to shoot were more stringent.
A broader illustration of this principle of self-protective use of deadly force is that many persons– of any race– shot and killed by police were armed with nothing more than a knife. Americans frequently employ the metaphor “bringing a knife to a gun fight” to describe putting oneself in a vulnerable position, yet American law enforcement officials routinely shoot guns to kill those who brandish knives. And they are taught to do so, since someone waving or refusing to drop a deadly weapon is considered a lethal threat, even if that someone is at a distance that makes the threat represented by a blade less than acute.
Similarly, many police shootings result from an escalation of tension largely provoked by the officers themselves. Is catching a suspect in a minor crime worth high-speed car chases, sometimes through densely-populated areas, that raise adrenaline on both sides and magnify the sense of threat? At what point does failure to obey repeated, angrily shouted orders to drop a knife become a reason to shoot? These are not easy questions, and law enforcement’s job is precisely to prevent crime and confront criminals, but it is time to reevaluate tactics that create an environment in which harmless people are shot dead because what they do during a charged encounter is interpreted as a threat.
It is asking too much to suggest that armed law enforcement officials embrace danger and never shoot their guns. That might mean turning the other cheek to bullets, not just insults or fists. Yet it is clearly time for a course correction toward greater restraint on the use of deadly force. It is clearly time for the rules of engagement to change. And it is well past time for the American public to consider the consequences of its unquestioned support for all-but-unfettered law enforcement.
This will happen soon. Institutional and—more importantly—public momentum toward reform of use of force in the United States will lead to significant change within the next year.