A tale of two studies: Racial disparity in police use of lethal force
A man holds a sign in front of a mural of Alton Sterling while attorneys, not pictured, speak in front of the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, La., Thursday, July 7, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the convenience store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Some news outlets and critics of the Black Lives Matter movement pointed to study results published this year by Harvard economics professor Roland G. Fryer Jr. to refute perceptions of racial differences in police use of lethal force. That, in turn, led to a new nationwide analysis finding that blacks are nearly three times as likely as whites to be killed by police.
NewsWorks Tonight’s Dave Heller spoke with Dr. James Buehler, clinical professor at Drexel University and former health commissioner for the city of Philadelphia, to compare the two studies. According to Dr. Buehler, the studies are not at odds with each other, but rather ask and answer different questions.
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NewsWorks Tonight was a daily radio show and podcast that ran from 2011-2018. It is no longer in production, but the show's archive is available online.