by Christian Gomez

“This verdict brings us a step closer, and the fact is we still have work to do. We still must reform the system. Last summer, together with Senator Cory Booker and Representative Karen Bass, I introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This bill would hold law enforcement accountable and help build trust between law enforcement and our communities. […] This work is long overdue. America has a long history of systemic racism.”

— Vice President Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris made those remarks in her address to the nation from the White House shortly after the guilty verdict against former Minneapolis police officer Derrick Chauvin was announced, on April 20, 2021. In the view of Harris and others on the progressive Left, a guilty verdict isn’t enough. All local police, sheriffs, and deputies must pay their fair share of social “justice.” That price includes handcuffing them to a set of proposed national standards and regulations, thereby further weakening local control of police powers in favor of greater control and consolidation of those powers in Washington.

Motivating this desire for radical and unconstitutional change is the propagated myth of “systemic racism,” as Harris mentioned in her remarks.

When the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was initially introduced on June 8, 2020, Senator Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), a co-sponsor of the bill, said, “We must act to dismantle centuries of systemic oppression and racism in our country — from slavery and Jim Crow, to redlining and inequalities in our education system, to mass incarceration and the killing of black Americans by law enforcement.” Bennett continued, “I’m joining Senators [Cory] Booker and Harris in introducing the Justice in Policing Act. We need a comprehensive approach to improve police training, practices, and accountability. This is one step of many we must take to seek justice and equal protection under the law for black Americans.”

Red Roots

The implication in both Harris and Bennett’s remarks is that our nation’s local law-enforcement agencies are systemically racist. These sentiments, as popular or mainstream as they may now seem to be in the culture and media (though in actuality they are not mainstream), parrot the sentiments of the radical left-wing propagandists. For example, an official statement from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), published on their website three days after the verdict, said, “The Communist Party USA celebrates this verdict, a victory for justice won by people’s struggle. Much remains to be done before the racist killings of African Americans by the police ceases.” (Emphasis added.)

The CPUSA continued, “The sad truth remains that this murder should never have happened, the police cover-up should never have occurred, and systemic racism of the U.S. police should not be tolerated as it continues to be today.” (Emphasis added.) The CPUSA’s statement concluded with a call to action in favor of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act:

We urge everyone to demand that the Senate pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, passed by the U.S. House. This act would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants, hold police accountable in court, limit the transfer of military equipment to police departments, establish the National Police Misconduct Registry, and more. Call your senators today.

It should also be noted that the primary author and lead sponsor of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in the U.S. House of Representatives is Representative Karen Bass (D-Calif.), who is no stranger to the Communist Party and the radical Left.

In a 2008 interview with the authors of the book Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities, Bass boasted how from an early age she was surrounded and influenced by CPUSA members. She approvingly recalled:

It (the white left) played a huge role for me. In Hamilton (High School) for instance, lots of the Jewish parents were activists. Some of them were in the Communist Party. So I grew up with a lot of red diaper babies. And there were some African American parents who were in the Communist Party. There were teachers who were in the Communist Party. So white radicals were very influential. And at the same time you have the Panthers and the whole Black movement.

Bass has been in communist and socialist circles throughout her life. In her youth, she was a member of both the Black Panther Party and the pro-Castroite Venceremos Brigade, which was backed by the Communist Party of Cuba. The Venceremos Brigade was founded in 1969 in part to recruit Americans to the DGI — Cuba’s top intelligence and espionage agency patterned after the Soviet KGB.

Additionally, Bass was also a protégé of the late Oneil Cannon, a longtime and leading member of the CPUSA’s National Central Committee. On January 30, 2017, Representative Bass honored Cannon from the floor of the House of Representatives, describing him as her “friend and mentor.”

Considering the author of the bill’s vast communist pedigree, is it any surprise that the CPUSA endorses it? (For more about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, along with other anti-police local and state legislation being proposed across the country, see page 8.)

What Crime Statistics Show

Despite the extremist ideology of those promoting the bill, what are we to make of the underlying beliefs being used to justify its enactment along with the simultaneous Marxist push to “defund the police”? Are cops racist? Are black Americans being gunned down by police officers at an alarming rate?

According to the Washington Post’s own extensive “police shootings database,” as of May 5, 2021, a total of 985 people of all races (out of a U.S. population of 331,449,281, according to the 2020 Census) were shot and killed by police over one year (May 5, 2020 — May 5, 2021). That accounts for about 0.0003 percent of the population that was killed by a police officer.

From January 1, 2021 to May 10, 2021, 321 people were fatally shot by police in the United States. Of those 321, the overwhelming plurality (115) — over one-third — were white, 64 were black, 38 were Hispanic, 3 belonged were of other races, and 101 were listed as unknown race. In 2020, police fatally shot 1,021 people, of whom the overwhelming plurality (458) were white, followed by 243 blacks, 171 Hispanics, 28 belonging to other races, and 121 of unknown race. In fact, ever since the Washington Post began tracking these statistics on its database in 2015, the vast majority of people shot and killed by police are white males. White men are far more likely to be killed by police than a black man or woman. In fact, as most in law enforcement are well aware, use of deadly force by a police officer or sheriff is very rare.

According to the latest available data from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, “In 2015, an estimated 21% of U.S. residents age 16 or older — about 53.5 million persons—had experienced some type of contact with the police during the prior 12 months.” In 2015, the estimated U.S. population for people 16 years or older was estimated at 253,587,400.

Not only are whites more likely than blacks and Hispanics to be fatally shot by police, whites are also more likely to experience police encounters than blacks and Hispanics. According to the Bureau of Justice’s special report entitled “Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2015,” the number of whites age 16 or older in the U.S. population in 2015 was 164,813,500, of which 37,334,2000 (22.65 percent) had in-person encounters with police. The number of blacks age 16 or older in the U.S. population in 2015 was 31,056,200, of which 6,146,400 (19.79 percent) had in-person encounters with the police. And the number of Hispanics age 16 or older in the U.S. population in 2015 was 39,697,500, of which 6,680,700 (16.82 percent) had in-persons encounters with the police.

According to the Washington Post’s database for police shootings, 993 people were fatally shot by police in 2015. Of those 993, over half (503) were white, 258 were black, 172 were Hispanic, 38 were of other races, and the race of the remaining 22 was not known or reported.

If out of the 6,146,400 blacks who had any police contact in 2015 (according to the BJS), only 253 blacks were fatally shot by police (according to the Washington Post’s database), that equates to about a 0.004 percent chance that a black person will be fatally shot during a police encounter. And the percentage of blacks killed by police out of the total black population age 16 and older in the United States in 2015 is infinitesimally smaller at 0.0008 percent. The numbers do not lie.

Simply put, the belief that the police are systematically racist, gunning down blacks and other people of color, is unfounded. Myths such as these — perpetuated by Biden, Harris, leftist congressional lawmakers, and extreme-left organizations — unnecessarily place the lives of police officers and sheriffs in greater danger and can destroy the trust between local law enforcement and the people living in their communities.

If the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (H.R. 1280) is being sold on lies, it is reasonable to question the true intent of the act, along with other proposed “police reform” bills across the country.