Hey AJ,
The police are not justified in murdering an unarmed black American because another individual with the same skin color is more likely to commit a violent crime.
I'm not suggesting that they are, and the police are not doing that.
Since black neighborhoods have higher violent crime rates, they are policed more heavily and more frequently.
What this means is that a black American - on average - is more likely to commit a violent crime compared to their white counterpart. Therefore, the nature of an encounter between an officer and a black American is more likely - on average - to necessitate force.
When you extrapolate the latter, without considering the former, you are led to a false conclusion.
What I did, previously, was consider both violent crime rates and murder rates.
For example, Hispanics (using the same methods that I used) are approx. 1.40X more likely to be shot by police compared to white Americans. If the police are racist, it should mean that all non-white minorities are equally likely to be shot when compared to their white counterparts. However, Hispanics are more likely to commit violent crimes than white Americans but less so than black Americans. Again, when the nature of the encounter - on average - is considered, this would be expected; it certainly does not conclude that the police are racist. In fact, this would conclude the opposite is true.
When the nature of the interaction and the outcome of the interaction are both considered, there is no evidence of systemic racism in policing.
Cheers, Adam
