Bill O'Reilly cites faulty data for claim about shooting deaths of blacks, whites by police

[RockaFowler]

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/dec/04/bill-oreilly/bill-oreilly-cites-faulty-data-claim-about-shootin/

Bill O’Reilly made headlines this week by offering his take on a silent Ferguson protest by a few members of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, saying the decision of the players "connotes the fact that they believe, I guess, that white police officers shoot black youths all the time."

That’s out of bounds of a fact-check.

But O’Reilly did present some statistics in the same argument that several readers asked us to examine.

"Let's take a good look at this plague of white cops acting violently against blacks, as (professor and liberal columnist Michael Eric) Dyson puts it," O’Reilly said on his Dec. 1, 2014, Fox News program. "In the past 50 years, the rate of black Americans killed by police has dropped 70 percent. In 2012, 123 African-Americans were shot dead by police. There are currently more than 43 million blacks living in the U.S.A. Same year, 326 whites were killed by police bullets. Those are the latest stats available."

Later in the show, O’Reilly said of these numbers, "That's not an epidemic. It's not crazy. It's not a hunting-down of black youth."

This is not the first time we have evaluated pundits’ half-truths comparing black and white deaths from police killings. Like the other cases, O’Reilly is citing available government statistics, but these numbers are shaky and don’t paint a complete picture.



I actually think this should have been a "PANTS ON FIRE" not "MOSTLY FALSE". But see he always gets away with it. People are posting this crap today on Facebook like it's real. I know that Deadspin has been trying to compile a list of police shootings and they can't even get actual data.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. O'Reilly is a vicious, disgusting, purposeful racist. He is the epitome of white privilege

and of what is acceptable racism in large swaths of white america.

Fortunately his audience is dying, literally.





too harsh? fuck em