The California legislature has passed a bill, expected to be signed by the governor, which is intended to impose a stricter standard for the justifiable use of deadly force by police. Although the bill is not as strong as one of its sponsors claims,[40] any step toward better control is welcome. There have been too many shootings, many fatal, by police officers.[41] A disproportionate number of those victims have been black. [42]
Any number of factors may be at work in producing the number of fatal shootings; here are my non-expert thoughts: The statistics make clear that racial bias is a significant element. Training may be another, if it makes shooting the default reaction. Militarization of police departments contributes to the problem; too many situations involve heavily armed forces and confusion. Fear is a factor, in turn probably driven in part by the glut of guns, leading cops to assume everyone is armed and dangerous.
Data on non-fatal shootings by police are hard to come by, but it is likely that there are many such incidents and that racial distribution is similar to that for fatal encounters.[43]
Police have a difficult, inherently dangerous, necessary role, and blanket condemnation is neither fair nor useful, but there have been too many instances of bad behavior to ignore or explain away. Rooting out reactionary attitudes, including racism, would be a great step forward, and addressing the problem of too many guns would serve both the police and the rest of us, but what are the odds in the age of Trump?
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40. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-bill-police-use-deadly-force_n_ 5cf02f23e4b0e346ce7b0bc8
41. Nearly 1000 fatal shootings per year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/four-years-in-a-row-police-nationwide-fatally-shoot-nearly-1000-people/2019/02/07/0cb3b098-020f-11e9-9122-82e98f91ee6f_story.html?utm_term=.bbefee87974a
42. https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938186/police-shootings-killings-racism- racial-disparities
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