Hacker News Reader

Two concerns I don't see addressed in the study:

1. Whether suspect is unarmed is only known for certain after the incident.

2. Differences in levels of crimes by race.

> Whether suspect is unarmed is only known for certain after the incident.

Not even then, really; this can be manipulated in either direction after the incident, and there are enough incidents where its become known that it has been that one should not assume that this is even certainly known after the fact in general.

re: 2, this is covered quite clearly in the abstract: "There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates."

Why does it have to be explained at "county-level"?

If it's true at the county-level, it's true at the national level (which is also stated in the abstract). By specifying it's additionally true at the county level, it makes a much stronger claim -- that high racial bias does not exist only in high-crime areas, and as such, racial bias is not explainable by crime rates.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com