ONE-SIDED? Anti-Police Bias and Conflict Resolution

When I took a “Conflict Resolution” class it was based on the premise that there were two rational people that disagreed.  What happens when one person or, for that matter, one group of people are not rational?  The protesters from Ferguson, New York and others have formed their opinions on the deaths of black men, emotionally.  As I have written before, it does no good to try to change their mind with logical arguments.

Sometimes, when, researching a story, you find an interesting result that is, only tangentially, related to your original premise.  When I searched for the number of black men killed by the police, using the most popular search engine, I found twelve results displayed.  Out of the twelve only one appeared to be evenly balanced and eleven were slanted against the police.  None were slanted toward the police. 

Oddly enough, it was St. Louis Public Radio that pointed out that depending on one statistic gave only a partial result.  The station said, even though a greater percentage of black men were killed by police than white men, a greater number of black men committed crimes than whites, when compared to the population as a whole.  The article concluded that the common factor between white and black deaths by police was poverty but it did not provide any statistics to back up their assertion.  I’m not sure I agree with that conclusion.  I would have to see the figures.

The search engine displayed a definite anti-police bias.  Conservatives have long accused this company and its founder of a leftward bias, though people on the left and right have accused police of brutality.  For the most part, the police are doing a decent job, while putting their lives on the line from an increasingly heavily armed criminal class.  Oh, by the way, the search engine, as you, probably guessed, was Google.

In my many years I have come to a
conclusion that one useless man 
is a shame, two is a law firm, 
and three or more is a congress. 
— John Adams

Image; http://www.blacklistednews.com/Thousands_protest_Zimmerman_verdict_
as_Justice_Dept_vows_to_restart_hate_crime_inquiry/27358/0/38/38/Y/M.html