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UN Inquiry Into U.S. Police Brutality
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Recently, 200 families representing loved ones that were victimized by American police forces during the past two decades have teamed up with 300 civil liberties organizations and filed a request with the United Nations asking for the Human Rights Council to launch an inquiry into police violence in the United States.
No serious person in the United States would disagree that police brutality is a problem, and all measures should be taken to reduce it. So, it’s hard to criticize a call for a UN probe.
However, here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of this international crusade.
The Good
Since 2014 a narrative was repeated by journalists, scholars, and activists that white police officers were targeting minorities for extrajudicial killings. Many accepted the narrative due to America’s racist past, but others wanted to know if the race-based narrative corresponded with reality.
After the Washington Post created its Police Shooting Database and the academic findings of black economist Roland Fryer were published, the public had evidence that revealed the race-based narrative didn’t match the data. The Washington Post database pointed out that American police forces shoot and kill close to 1,000 people…