Black men at highest risk of US police killing: Study

Black men in the United States are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by the police than their white counterparts, according to a new study published Monday that quantified racial disparities in law enforcement violence.

High-profile killings including those of Michael Brown, Charleena Lyles, Tamir Rice, Stephon Clark and many others have brought the issue sustained national attention in recent years, but a lack of official data had prevented accurate estimates about the extent of the problem.

The new study relied on data from Fatal Encounters, a journalist-led effort, as well as the National Vital Statistics System, to analyze the period 2013-2018.

It found African American men and women, American Indian men and women, and Latino men all faced higher lifetime risks than their white peers.

"We think that there's ample evidence that police are a threat to public health in the United States," Frank Edwards at Rutgers University, the lead author of the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told AFP.

"They're a lot more violent in communities of color than they are in white communities, and we need to take that seriously when we talk about police reform."