[startupfounder]

I find this discrepancy very interesting, only ~4% of the people shot and killed by police were female. Police departments are male dominate and maybe this factors into the difference[0]

Male - 952

Female - 41

Why such a discrepancy? I don't think males are 23x more dangerous than females.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_law_enforcement

[rayiner]

See Table 5: http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf. Men are offenders in 92% of gun homicides, 93% of homicides committed in conjunction with another felony, 95% of drug-related homicides, and 98% of gang-related homicides.

[spikels]

See Table 7: http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf. Blacks are offenders in 57% of gun homicides, 60% of homicides committed in conjunction with another felony, 67% of drug-related homicides, and 42% of gang-related homicides.

[unit91]

I don't understand your comment in relation to the male / female issue. Care to expound?

[spikels]

For the past year the black/white issue has dominated the discussion of police violence, not male/female.

That 97% of those killed by police are male but on 52% of the population is male seems too be in a large part justified by the fact that men commit 90% of the murders and a similar fraction of other violent crimes.

Given the dominant media narrative that cops are unfairly targeting blacks it was bit surprising to find that only 26% of those killed by cops are blacks when blacks commit 52% of murders and similar amount of other violent crimes. This is new information to me.

Unfortunately any rational discussion of the racial dimension of police violence or crine generally is difficult even on HN so I expect to be down voted or even called a racist for the 1st time in my life.

My personal view is that U.S. policing is in need of reform as it is ineffective, too costly and overly violent. This would be difficult but benefit everyone.

[tptacek]

Among the many reasons you're being downvoted is the fact that you said black people are "only" 26% of police shooting fatalities in the US without acknowledging the fact that they make up only 13% of the population.

[x1798DE]

I read the "only" as referring to the ratio of crime percentage to shot by cop. 96% of those killed are men, and men commit the same order of magnitude of the violent crime (even though they are 50% of the population). Following that trend, you would expect blacks to be 50%ish of the shot-by-cop numbers, not 26%.

[brighteyes]

1. Men do commit a lot more crime than women. We don't know exactly why that is, but probably some combination of biology and society.

2. There is a lot of bias towards seeing men as more dangerous. Some is legitimate - men are physically larger, on average - while some is just pure bias. The bias might be partially justified due to men actually committing more crime, but it's hard to say how much. Regardless, if you encounter the police in a potentially violent situation, it's clearly much better to be a woman than a man.

[b_emery]

Between 1980 and 2008 "Males committed the vast majority of homicides in the United States at that time, representing 90.5% of the total number of offenders" [1]. Men are much more dangerous. A general rule for a lost child is to seek out a friendly looking woman, since she would be much more likely to help and not harm the child [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime [2] http://gavindebecker.com/resources/child_safety/its_every_pa...

[x1798DE]

That's basically nonsense advice without mentioning the baseline rates. If 90% of all sex offenses are committed by men, but the baseline rate of sexual predators is 10 per 100,000, your chance of running into a male sexual predator by chance is 0.009%, and your chance of running into a female sexual predator is 0.001%. Both would be essentially negligible risks, even if one is 9 times higher than the other.

[serge2k]

Did you really have to add a second link which has no value except to imply all men are assholes or sexual predators.

[b_emery]

As a man, I respectfully disagree. The link has much value if you're concerned with keeping kids safe, and it's relevant as a direct consequence of the fact that most crimes are committed by men. Your statement about men has it backward. Not all men are criminals, but most violent crimes are committed by men.

[serge2k]

According to that link we should be terrified that any man is a sexual predator just waiting to take your kid away. Fuck that.

[venomsnake]

Yes they are. Especially 16-35 year old ones. Nature of the beast called raging testosterone.

[cmdrfred]

Male lives matter.