The Media, Racism and Law Enforcement

When it comes to law enforcement, EVERY death associated with it is tragic...

Almost equally tragic is the manner by which many in the Media shape the perception of those deaths...

Having had an uncle, a brother and a son; as well as numerous friends and acquaintances involved in law enforcement, allow me to offer the following stats (on behalf of those in law enforcement) provided by the DOJ. 

There are on average 12,000,000 arrests made annually in our country.

Last year, of those arrests, there were 420 people/perpetrators who were killed by police officers.

The DOJ, however, does not provide what percentage of those deaths were done by police officers, who were later indicted for murder etc.. Arguably, a relatively (albeit still tragic) small percentage...

Interestingly, if you take those 420 deaths attributed to police officers (for whatever reason - justified or unjustified), divided by 12,000,000 arrests annually, demonstrates that just 0.000035% (of one percent), of all arrests result in some kind of alleged perpetrator fatality.

Moreover, if you were to take just one quarter of the 420 fatalities attributed to law enforcement officers, say 105 of them (the number could be much smaller), who were eventually indicted and found guilty for first, second or third degree murder, the percentage from among all of those arrests would be 0.000000875% (of one percent). Notably, and importantly, the percentage of the minority and racially motivated fatalities (e.g. African American, Hispanic, Muslim, Oriental etc.) by law enforcement officers would be smaller yet...

Now consider how the Media habitually portrays much of the Law Enforcement culture, as well as the image of police officers in our country today... Entire industries have emerged on this phenomena... And other people, innocent ones, who have died unnecessarily, and just as tragic; because of the Media's drive and desire in their oft misrepresentation...

One other irony? Many of the good cops are leaving law enforcement in droves...

Prosecute dirty cops to the full extent of the law... But keep it all in proper perspective...

Check the stats out for yourself, then draw your own conclusions

The Media is the single most powerful institution in our society with the least amount of accountability... And no other institution in this country shapes perception, through the use of image, words and insinuation; and thereby creating emerging and corrupt forms of various realities, goaded by their preferred narrative and ideology, more than they do...