A top official with the Tulsa Police Department this week said that systemic racism in policing “just doesn’t exist” and suggested research shows police are …
A top official with the Tulsa Police Department this week said that systemic racism in policing “just doesn’t exist” and suggested research shows police are shooting African Americans “24 percent less than we probably ought to be.”
Tulsa Police Department Maj. Travis Yates, who is white, spoke to podcast host Pat Campbell on Monday about the ongoing national protests against police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer was seen kneeling on his neck.
“You get this meme of, ‘Blacks are shot two times, two and a half times more,’ and everybody just goes, ‘Oh, yeah,'” Yates said on the podcast. “They’re not making sense here. You have to come into contact with law enforcement for that to occur.”
“If a certain group is committing more crimes, more violent crimes, and law enforcement’s having to come into more contact with them, that number is going to be higher,” he continued. “Who in the world in their right mind would think that our shootings should be right along the U. S. Census lines? That’s insanity.”
Yates added that some research states that “we’re shooting African-Americans about 24 percent less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed.”
The officer faced severe backlash over his comments, originally reported by Public Radio Tulsa (PRT).
Yates on Wednesday defended himself, saying the radio outlet “misquoted” him and included a libelous claim reading: “…according to his interpretation of crime data, police should actually be shooting black Americans more frequently.”
“I never said actually. This is plainly false and factually inaccurate,” Yates said in a statement to KTUL in Tulsa. “And to think that beyond a discussion of comparative statistics that I would suggest that the ‘police should actually be shooting’ anyone is simply outrageous.”
“Clearly the published article does not reflect my hypothetical discussion of statistics based on the research of others,” Yates continued in the Wednesday comments. “It makes no mention of the sources I cited. And it absolutely does not factually reflect my words.”
On the podcast, Yates cited research from former Harvard University economist Roland Fryer, conservative political commentator and Manhattan Institute fellow, Heather Mac Donald, and the National Academy of Sciences.
