During widespread violence in the aftermath of the unwarranted police killing of George Floyd, more than 800 police officers tasked with maintaining order in America's cities were shot, stabbed, spit on, hit by cars, cursed, called Nazis, smeared as racists, viciously beaten, and seriously injured by bricks and bottles of frozen water hurled at them.  Deliberately shot in the head by a cop-hating protester in Nevada, Las Vegas police officer Shay Mikalonis, pictured below, remains paralyzed from the neck down and will likely be on a ventilator for the rest of his life, according to his family.

Image: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Outrage over George Floyd's inexcusable killing is understandable, but much of black America has been led to incorrectly believe that unjustified police killings of black suspects are an out-of-control epidemic.  Reams of data, including the two examples below, conclusively show that the epidemic narrative is a myth.

● During an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, former NYPD chief Bernard Kerick quoted statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Report and the Washington Post. In 2019, there were 10 million arrests in the U.S.  Of that number, police officers were involved in 1,004 fatal shootings, with 41 of the suspects killed having been unarmed.  Of the 41 unarmed people shot and killed by police last year, 19 were white; nine were black.  That only nine unarmed black people were killed in a 12-month period is light-years away from being anywhere even remotely close to an epidemic.  Because of breathless news coverage given to killings of unarmed black suspects by white officers, many African-Americans assume that unarmed white suspects are never killed by white police, an entirely inaccurate assumption that roils our society by creating unfounded hatred of the police.

● In 2019, NPR cited a peer-reviewed study of police killings of U.S. citizens.  Published in a prestigious journal, the study found that white officers were no more likely to kill unarmed black suspects than were black officers.  Cases where unarmed black suspects are killed by black officers lack an exploitable political angle, therefore they never receive sensationalized press coverage, as happens with every such killing where the officer is white.

Considering that policing is one of the most difficult jobs in America; that cops often have to make life-and-death decisions in the blink of an eye; and that cops, like the rest of us, are human beings who occasionally make mistakes that end up being unlawful, the small number of wrongful police killings of unarmed black people is a testament to the restraint and professionalism of the 800,000 men and women who wear blue.

According to this FBI report, 17 law enforcement officers were victims in 2016 of ambush assassinations, presumably by African-American men who'd been led to believe the "epidemic" myth.  That police officers are murdered because of racial anger over an epidemic that doesn't exist is every bit as tragic as instances where white police unlawfully kill black people.

Even though white cops are no more likely than black cops to kill unarmed black suspects, the media have misled many African-Americans to believe that white cops should be feared.  Such fear is irrational.  Every day and every night, white cops put their lives on the line in crime-ridden urban neighborhoods protecting law-abiding black citizens against rape, robbery, murder, assault, drug-dealing, domestic violence, child-trafficking, carjacking and drive-by shootings.  When innocent black citizens are set upon by violent criminals, their most fervent hope is that a car with flashing blue lights is on the way.

The angry, disrespectful way police were treated during the recent race riots shows that cop-hating has become an unfortunate part of our modern culture.  Those who have been conditioned to hate the police lack a basic understanding of the indispensable service cops render to urban communities and of the constant physical danger that comes with being a police officer.  According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 58,865 law enforcement officers were assaulted in 2018, and over the last decade, an average of 163 officers per year were killed in the line of duty.