Just before 2 pm on Sunday, April 11 in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officers pulled over 20 year old Daunte Wright in his white Buick sedan for expired vehicle license tabs. Three officers were present. One officer approached the driver’s side of the vehicle while another the passenger’s side. A third officer, later identified as Kimberly Potter, remains near the rear of the car, her body camera recording the events. The officers had learned that there was an outstanding warrant for the arrest of Daunte Wright, so Wright was asked to step out of his vehicle, face the car, and place his hands behind his back so that the officer could apply the handcuffs and take him into custody. Suddenly, Wright breaks free from the officer and jumps back into the driver’s seat. Officer Potter comes forward quickly, calling out “I’ll tase you!” then “taser, taser!” But instead of reaching for her taser, she grabs her service revolver. Just before Wright drives away, she fires a single round into his left chest. Apparently stunned by her mistake, Officer Potter can be heard exclaiming, “Holy Sh-t, I just shot him!” Wright drove several blocks away before colliding with another vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
It seems like Minnesota just can’t get a break. The state has already been on a knife’s edge during the high profile trial of Police Officer Derek Chauvin, charged in the death of George Floyd. Soon after word of Wright’s death, hundreds of protesters gathered around the Brooklyn Center Police Department. The protest soon turned into a violent riot, with squad cars damaged and projectiles thrown at the police. Police responded with tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets to disperse the angry crowd. Looting broke out both in Brooklyn Center and Minneapolis. Despite a curfew, more unrest following Monday evening, leading to 40 arrests. The Minnesota National Guard – already activated for the Chauvin trial – was deployed. For Minnesotans, these scenes were eerily reminiscent of the events which transpired following George Floyd’s death.
There is precisely zero evidence that race played any role in the shooting of Daunte Wright. For anyone who has watched the video, it seems clear that Officer Kimberly Potter made a horrifying mistake – a mistake that she will no doubt regret for the rest of her life. Yet the media and the political left immediately declared this yet another example of the systemic racism which plagues our nation. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz simultaneously embraced the racial narrative and disparaged the police, tweeting “our state mourns another life of a black man taken by law enforcement.” Community activist Jonathan Mason declared, “This is murder. This is white supremacy.” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said, “Whether it be carelessness and negligence, or a blatent modern day lynching, the result is the same. Another black man has died at the hands of police.” New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proclaimed, “Daunte Wright’s killing was not a random, disconnected accident – it was the repeated outcome of an indefensible system that grants impunity for state violence.”
Murder. White Supremacy. Modern day lynching. Intentional slaughter. By now such heated rhetoric is achingly familiar to us all. Millions of Americans have come to fully accept the notion that the police are the greatest threat to the black community. Yet the narrative of systemic police racism in the United States is clearly, demonstrably false. How can that possibly be? Well, let’s begin by examining some numbers frequently cited in our public discourse. In 2020, police officers shot and killed 1,021 people. The vast majority of these fatalities involved someone who was armed or otherwise dangerous. Roughly 24% of those (241) were black. Previous years have produced very similar statistics – with blacks accounting for about a quarter of all police shooting deaths. Since blacks currently comprise only 13% of the US population, it is often suggested that police racism must account for this differential. Some make essentially the same claim in another way, pointing out that a black individual is more than twice as likely to be shot by a police officer versus a white person. These statistics are both completely true and terribly misleading.
The likelihood of a violent police encounter is directly related to how often police officers are confronted by armed and violent criminals – and the troubling fact is that blacks commit far more crime than other racial groups. Now there are plenty of people out there who want to pretend that this is not the case, but if we are going to confront the problems of our society we must begin by being honest with ourselves. Virtually every American knows that largely black, urban communities suffer from disproportionately high rates of crime. If you don’t realize this you are either incredibly naive or willfully blind. FBI data shows that in the United States in 2019, blacks committed 51% of all murders, 53% of robberies and 33% of aggravated assaults. The fact that blacks constitute 13% of the general population is completely irrelevant. Crime rates are the real numbers that matter. Police rightfully focus their efforts on high crime, largely black, urban areas where they often encounter dangerous, armed criminals. Considering the crime rates in largely black communities, it is astonishing that blacks comprise only 24% of all those fatally shot by police. This is actually much less than we would expect based on crime patterns.
Let’s check out recent crime statistics for New York City. Blacks account for 23% of the population of the Big Apple. Yet blacks commit fully 75% of all shootings, 70% of robberies, and 66% of violent crime. Whites on the other hand represent 34% of New York’s population, yet commit only 2% of all shootings and 4% of robberies. You might be asking yourself if these statistics themselves might be tinged by racism. However, these numbers are based on reports from eyewitnesses and victims of crime. It’s not that researchers are cooking the books. Rather, it’s black victims and witnesses who are indicating they have been robbed, shot, or assaulted by a black assailant. And New York is by no means exceptional. Very similar statistics can be noted in large cities all across America.
What about here in Minnesota? If you believed the leftist media, you would think there is an epidemic of racist police violence – with Daunte Wright just the latest in a long line of victims. The Minneapolis Star Tribune keeps a record of deaths resulting from police encounters in Minnesota. These records indicate that from 2000 until 2021, there were a total of only 207 fatalities – less than 10 per year! Again, the vast majority of these deaths involved fully justifiable use of police force against assailants who were armed and dangerous. 54% of those who lost their lives were white, while 27% were black. So the Minnesota figures generally match the nationwide statistics we noted above – roughly a quarter of those shot by police are black, much less than crime rates would predict.
What about those horrifying incidents when the police fatally shoot an unarmed citizen? The Washington Post keeps a database on such incidents. In 2019, there were 9 unarmed blacks killed while 19 whites were gunned down. It’s well worth taking some time to ponder these numbers. The United States has 330 million people. Each year, the police make over 10 million arrests. Roughly 1,000 people are fatally shot by the police each year – the vast majority a genuine threat. 28 unarmed people were shot and killed by police. Even this remarkably low figure does not tell the whole story, because of how the Post defines “unarmed.” Some of these cases involve unarmed assailants shot while attempting to grab an officer’s sidearm or attempting to reach for a nearby weapon. Others were threatening serious violence by brute force, even though they did not technically have a weapon. (The best known example of this is 300 lb Michael Brown, fatally shot while bull rushing Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.) The reality is that incidents of unarmed blacks unjustly shot by police officers are very rare.
Yet the sad fact is that the left wing media and politicians have convinced large swathes of our nation that racist police are threatening to destroy our black communities. Police shootings of black men receive saturation coverage for months on end, often neglecting key facts in order to fit the preconceived narrative. When the police use deadly force against a white person, the media conveniently ignore the story. The claim of systemic police racism is a deep, dark lie, straight from the pit of hell. We should be celebrating the fact that our police officers generally show such solid judgement. Instead, our nation is being torn apart. Police officers are often jeered, harassed and condemned simply for doing their job and keeping our communities safe. Far worse, some cops are assassinated by disturbed individuals bent on getting revenge for perceived police misconduct. Astonishingly, a police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be gunned down by a black male, than an unarmed black man has of being killed by the police.
Meanwhile, the real threats to the black community remain unspoken. The stunning fact is that 7484 blacks were murdered in 2019 – a figure which is quite consistent year after year. Roughly 90% of these murders are committed by another black person. So thousands of young black men lose their lives each year, often due to drug related gang violence. Nationwide, 64% of all black children come from single parent households. In some inner city communities, this number is far higher. Fatherless young black boys have complex criminal histories long before they reach adulthood, if they make it at all. While thousands black lives are snuffed out at the hands of other blacks, they receive scant media attention. The Black Lives Matter movement and race hustlers like the Reverend Al Sharpton are nowhere to be found. Yet the left becomes apoplectic over the very small number of times when a white police officer uses deadly force against a black man.
The false narrative of systemic police racism has created a reinforcing downward spiral. Young black men are constantly told by the media and left wing politicians that the police are their greatest predators. Unsurprisingly, when they encounter a real officer, many of these blacks choose to flee or fight. It seems virtually certain that Daunte Wright would be alive today had he not elected to break free from the arresting officer and flee in his car. George Floyd might very well have died considering the toxic levels of fentanyl in his blood, the severe narrowing of his coronary arteries and the pathologic enlargement of his heart. Nonetheless, even Floyd’s chances of life would have been better had he not vigorously resisted for over 10 minutes. The simple fact is that each time a black suspect resists arrest, there is a much higher risk of a bad outcome. Yet another young black man is added to the list of casualties and the cycle repeats itself. There is only one way this vicious cycle will be broken: the dark lie of systemic police racism must be confronted. Who is up to the task?
Thank you Joel for taking time to reasearch out all the numbers and provide a much-needed counter-argument to the leftist narrative. Fathers, you need to teach your children to cooperate with police if you want an acceptable outcome. His father let him.down. Instead of being another tragic statistic, Mr. Wright would have likely been released from jail on bail by the next afternoon had he simply complied wirh the officer’s requests.
It seems as though only the comments of those that subscribe to your worldview are posted with the exception of one. I commented on your first George Floyd post with a correction to a quote you cited from the Hennepin County medical examiner along with other comments made by a legal expert about the case. You chose not to post it.
Again, I have a correction to point out in your narrative about Daunte Wright’s interaction with Officer Potter. Her gun was already drawn as she approached him even before she yelled “taser”. Watch the video. Then the young man panicked. This is not a simple issue of a person making a bad choice. This kid was terrified of police in a way most of us white folks cannot understand. I wonder why? Yet this experienced and trained officer, in your view, made a “horrifying mistake” but once again the victim is vilified as being uncooperative. Is it too hard to acknowledge that this young man may have been racially profiled which was why he was pulled over in the first place? I myself have unknowingly driven around with expired tabs for months until a co-worker pointed it out. My 19 year old son has something hanging from his rear view mirror. He’s never been pulled over on the mean streets of Andover.
I invite you to put your time and energies toward more compassion and understanding for the black community rather than more firmly entrenching yourself in the belief that systemic racism doesn’t exist and claiming to understand their “issues”. The views of an upper class white evangelical male just don’t have a lot of credibility. Listen. Learn. Lament.
I am also tired of all who believe systemic racism exists being labeled as “leftist” or “liberal”. I guess it’s easier to dismiss since in today’s polarized world it is tantamount to being an unbeliever. I am a Christ-follower. I believe in biblical justice. I think your viewpoints represent a Christian nationalism that is one of the biggest threats to the evangelical church today. I truly pray your heart would be changed.
Hi Maria,
Thanks for your input. Your comments make it clear that you’ve engaged the blog very thoroughly, which I appreciate. I commend you for reading even though we clearly have differing viewpoints. I also make it a high priority to read sources with which I disagree; it’s very healthy to check our own blind spots. A brief response to some of your concerns: 1) I have posted all original comments. I regard people’s own comments as much more valuable than links to other materials. 2) You are incorrect about Officer Potter’s gun being drawn. Her hands are clearly shown as she steps forward to assist with handcuffing Wright. 3) I acknowledge your experience about having never been pulled over for expired tabs. Interestingly, I’ve been pulled over twice for having expired tabs. Of course, I would never use such isolated anecdotes to justify any broader conclusion about police racism or profiling. I will address this issue in this week’s blog. 4) Your comment that my views as an upper class white evangelical male just don’t have credibility are notable. I hope you realize that this statement is blatent racism, not to mention sexist and classist? I welcome everyone’s viewpoint, and judge their contribution based on the truth of their claims and the quality of their arguments. I urge you to do the same. 5) I have never claimed that all those who believe in systemic racism are all liberals or leftists. In fact, one of the main themes of the blog was that many Americans of all stripes have come to believe this. I only claim that the relentless drive to convince people that America is hopelessly racist comes in large part from left wing media and politicians. I never for one moment would seek to question the authenticity of your faith, nor your commitment to Biblical justice; in fact, I celebrate them wholeheartedly. I believe that we both are thinking/acting out of love for the black community and a deep desire to bring about their flourishing. My argument is simply that many people have been misled by the false narrative of systemic police racism and this false narrative is causing tremendous damage. Tragically, much of that damage is inflicted upon the black community itself. 6) Puzzled by your accusation that I am a Christian nationalist since there was absolutely nothing about that in the blog. Blessings and peace,
It is disheartening to read these words from someone who is an elder at a Christian church. Would Jesus speak so harshly of his beloved brown and black children? Please listen to the voices of those who have been marginalized with the heart of Jesus in mind. He loves those “fatherless young black boys” just as much as he loves you.
I love and respect our law enforcement officers, and I reject the notion that one must choose to support the police OR people of color. I pray that Christ softens your heart to be more compassionate toward those who have spent their lives growing up in poverty. Their trauma should not be your fodder.
I appreciate all the research that was done. It is sad how fellow believers attack one another and question their belief. Actually the Bible does say obey the laws. We are to respect and pray for those in authority. This type of thinking that certain people are racist or bad is anti christ. Our Christian colleges are implementing that narrative, that is what the secular colleges and public schools are teaching, and we can see what is happening to that generation because of teachings like that, they have rejected Jesus. We must pray for America🙏
I am so glad I read this! It’s nice to know that others have looked into the numbers this in-depth. So many are okay with blindly following the media and accepting what they have to say as truth. It is so scary. I had a friend tell me once that if you tell a kid they are bad often enough, they will then become bad because that’s what they have been told. I have seen littles screaming hateful things to men and women of uniform. They will grow up with no respect for the law and sadly the numbers may rise. Thank you for sharing this!
Joel,
I appreciate your response to my comments. Obviously we are not on the same page. Randy Discher sent my a recent article in Christianity Today. This table is an excerpt that encapsulates our differing views. I am in the Contrite/Compassionate stance and it appears you are in the Courageous one.
I am not at all sure how we as a church can come together on this but I pray we can respect one another age image-bearers of Christ.
here’s the link to the complete article: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/why-reformed-evangelicalism-has-splintered-four-approaches-to-race-politics-and-gende
Table 1 (Race)
Contrite Essential to American history, Whites must repent Rampant— disparities imply discrimination Evidence of continuing racism and injustice Full of good insights Say it, wave it, wear it
Compassionate More prevalent than we think, Whites should lament Not the only explanation, but should be seen and called out First step is to weep with those who weep Chew on the meat, spit out the bones Support the slogan, not the organization
Careful A sad part of American history but not the whole story, we should all celebrate what is good and reject what is bad Open to the category, but racial disparities exist for many reasons Let’s get the evidence first before jumping on social media Core concepts are deeply at odds with Christian conviction, but let’s not throw around labels willy-nilly Black lives are made in the image of God, but given the aims of the larger movement, using the phrase in an unqualified way is unwise
Courageous Sadly, a part of our past, but lumping all Whites together as racists is anti-gospel A Marxist category we must reject The real problem is Black-on-Black crime The church’s path toward liberalism What about Blue lives? Unborn lives? All lives?
Maria,
I read the Kevin DeYoung article, which I thought had some merit.
I would however frame things in this way: we share the same Christian worldview. We share a deep desire to see justice and flourishing in God’s world as human beings live according to God’s wisdom. We both have tremendous concern and compassion for the black community. You are responding to your perception that blacks are suffering injustice at the hands of police racism. If I shared your perception of systemic racism, I would wholeheartedly embrace your response. Of course, Jesus our King commands his people to respond vigorously to injustice in the world.
My critique is that I believe that your appropriate reaction to injustice is not controlled by truth. I have spent an enormous amount of time reading, listening, learning, and yes even lamenting issues of justice, both in the present day and historically. This investment has led me to conclude that while there may indeed isolated episodes of ugly racism, the accusation of systemic police racism is false. Moreover, this falsehood is doing great harm particularly to the black community. I have attempted to lay out some of the evidence which under girds my position. I’ve tried as hard as I can to check my blindspots. If you show me something I hadn’t thought about, I’ll gladly change my mind. But I would ask you to do the same, so that your rightful Christ-inspired response to injustice does not go astray.
I learned recently that you are leaving our church. You will be missed. I would rather have one Maria Douglas, a woman who is passionately dedicated to justice in God’s world (even though you may be in my opinion misguided) than ten thousand people who can’t be bothered to lift a finger against evil in God’s world.
Blessings