From ScienceDirect:

Journal of Criminal Justice

Available online 10 May 2017

The prevalence of fatal police shootings by U.S. police, 2015–2016: Patterns and answers from a new data set

Jon M. Shane, Brian Lawton, Zoë Swenson

This is the first analysis of its type to rely on incident-level national data and to establish base rates for police shooting fatalities.

Relies on a new nationwide database from the Washington Post to model the data.

The patterns are not consistent with the national rhetoric on police use of deadly force.

… Previous studies on police use of fatal force in the United States are limited to specific cities or rely on aggregate data. This is the first analysis of its type to rely on incident-level national data and to establish base rates for police shooting fatalities.

Publicly available data from the Washington Post were used to model the data, which cover the period from January 2, 2015 to December 29, 2016 (n = 1948).

Although the data are limited, the patterns are not consistent with the national rhetoric that the police are killing Blacks, particularly unarmed Black men, more than others because of their race and that officer-involved shooting fatalities are increasing; fatalities are generally stable across both years. …

The United States government should develop a nationwide use of force database to assist police executives, elected leaders and researchers in understanding police use of force. Future research should rely on the situational context of the shooting and the micro-level factors the courts consider when analyzing the legal aspects of use of force instead of sociodemographic factors.

My general impression is that the cops shoot a lot of white guys who aren’t that interested in going on living. In contrast, blacks tend to be the least suicidal race.

Public policy should be to try to reduce the levels of suicide-by-cop shootings, but nobody much cares politically about white screw-ups the way it is fashionable to be obsessed with black screw-ups like Michael Brown.

This study debunking the “national rhetoric” points out how Real Fake News works: the MSM, the Obama Administration, and the Soros-like NGOs are all looking around for away to goose black turnout, so they seize upon defending a shameful riot to cherrypick the shooting of Michael Brown as the Defining Moment of the Era.

In a country of 300 million people you can always find incidents to support The Narrative. (What’s striking is how often the Establishment winds up choosing the wrong incidents, such as Ferguson.)

In the end, of course, this giant exercise in Fake News backfired by getting all those cops murdered by BLM supporters and no doubt costing Hillary the election.

[Comment at Unz.com]