Donald Trump is not willing to admit that more black people are the target of police brutality as compared to white people as shown in multiple studies, claiming that a larger number of white people have been killed by the police. Law enforcement has faced criticism for quite some time for its brutality against black people.
During an interview with the White House, CBS News' Catherine Herridge brought up police killing of black people, referencing George Floyd's murder at the hand of a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for over 8 minutes, ignoring his pleads for breath. Herridge asked Trump why are African Americans still being killed by law enforcement in the United States.
Deeming it as a terrible question to ask, Trump, argued that more white people are dying at the hands of the police in the country. His remarks come after weeks of demonstrations against police brutality and racism in the wake of Floyd's death.
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on Floyd's neck for several minutes was charged with manslaughter and second-degree murder. Several studies show more black people are killed in police encounters than white people, with a study by a University of Michigan, Rutgers University, and Washington University showing that black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white men.
The study suggests that nearly 100 black men and boys per 100,000, and 39 white men and boys per 100,000 succumb to police brutality during their lifetimes. A Harvard analysis of deaths by law enforcement from 2013-2017 was published last month, showing black men are three times more likely than white men to be killed by police.
A Washington Post analysis discovered that in nearly five years of police shooting data, 2,495 white people, 1,301 black people, and 907 Hispanic people were killed by police. The number translates to 13 per million for white people, 31 per million for black people, and 23 per million for Hispanic people.
Trump's statement that more white people are killed by police than black people proves to be true only if the proportion of those killed to the overall population of white and black people in America is not taken into consideration. In the interview, Trump supported displays of the Confederate flag, describing it as freedom of speech.
Public and protestors across the nation are demanding the removal of Confederate symbols including the Confederate leaders' statues from public places. Keeping in line with that, NASCAR has banned the display of the Confederate flag at all its events.