Black kids 6 times more likely to be shot to death by police than white kids, study says
Over the course of 16 years, more than 100 children have been shot and killed by police, with deaths skewing significantly toward Black and Hispanic kids, a new study found.
National death certificate data for children ages 12 to 17 reveal that Black kids were six times more likely to be fatally shot by police during legal interventions, while Hispanic children’s risk of death was almost three times higher compared to white adolescents.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., shows how racial and ethnic disparities in police use of force in children mirrors that of adults, experts say.
Although the study did not investigate the reasons behind the shooting deaths, Dr. Monika Goyal, associate division chief of emergency medicine and trauma services at Children’s National, said recent events point to structural racism and bias among law enforcement.
The paper was published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.
“Any death of a child is devastating but when it is due to police violence, it leads to distrust in the system and undermines the primary mission to protect,” Goyal said in a news release. “The pattern of stark racial and ethnic disparities only adds to this tragedy, further oppressing and alienating communities of color. It’s important to investigate, identify and correct those policies and personnel that perpetuate and exacerbate these disparities.”
There were 6,512 adult firearm deaths by police between 2003 and 2018, according to the researchers, for which Blacks and Hispanics had “significantly higher per population mortality rates than whites.”
To learn if similar disparities affected children, the researchers analyzed data from death certificates collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that list causes of death and race and ethnicity for children between 12 and 17 years old.
Between 2003 and 2018, 140 kids died from police intervention — 113 involved guns. The majority (93%) of deaths were male, with an average age of 16.
A legal intervention “refers to deaths due to injuries inflicted by police or other law enforcement agents ... in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and performing other legal actions,” according to the CDC.
“As the country works to reform policing practices and strives to mitigate disparities in our justice system, it is essential we do not forget the disproportionate impact on children of color,” Goyal said. “Our study confirms these disparities that are stark and unacceptable.”
Goyal said the study likely underestimates the “true toll of disparities” among firearm use against youth of color because they only collected data on kids who died and not for non-fatal shootings.
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 6:06 PM.
