Minneapolis Cops' Use Force Show Sevenfold Racial Disparity: NYT

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — When officers of the Minneapolis Police Department use force, the person being tackled, shoved, restrained or maced is seven times more likely to be black than white, according to an analysis of city data published Wednesday by The New York Times.

In its analysis, the Times counted 11,500 total uses of force since 2015, with 6,650 incidents related to black suspects, and 2,750 to white suspects. But it's the demographics of Minneapolis' population of 430,000 that reveal a sharp disparity in those numbers: The city is just 20 percent black, but they account for 60 percent of the police' use of force cases.

"All of that means that the police in Minneapolis used force against black people at a rate at least seven times that of white people during the past five years," the Times reported.

It was a use of force incident captured on film that exploded in Minneapolis last week: Derek Chauvin was recorded as he leaned his knee on the neck of George Floyd for more than eight minutes, a span during which Floyd stopped breathing and, soon after, showed no pulse.

Chauvin, who was fired along with three other officers on the scene, is facing charges for third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

While the Times reported that "Unconscious neck restraints," have been used by Minneapolis cops against suspects 44 times since 2015 — with 27 of those restraints used on black people — the report cited a former member of the Minneapolis civilian police review authority who said Chauvin's tactic, which restrained the front of Floyd's neck, violated the department's use-of-force policies.

In total, there have been 5,000 incidents since 2015 where a Minneapolis police officer used at least one act of force on someone.

Read the full report at the New York Times.