Review of In Context: Understanding Police Killings of Unarmed Civilians


 In Context: Understanding Police Killings of Unarmed Civilians by Nick Selby, Ben Singleton, Ed Flosi
437 pages
c2016

This book was an interesting but tough read. Not because of gruesome details but statistics and more statistics ! 
The book was based on a research project of StreetCred Software - The StreetCred Police Killings In Conext (PKIC) for incidents in 2015.  They examined 153 cases that fit the parameters of unarmed civilians killed by police or that died while in police custody.  The study collected information and then broke down all kinds of demographics such as age, race, were narcotics involved, what was the prior information, what did the officers do, etc. 
They spent a fair amount of time explaining what criteria they used to include or exclude and what sources they pulled from.
The last section of the book they analyzed all 153 cases broken down by month, an amazing catalog. 

The book did not present an agenda just a careful analysis of what happened and in some cases what could have been done differently. A reader with an agenda will not be swayed. A "the criminal gets what they deserve" attitude or a liberal " the police are always at fault" won't have their minds changed but an open minded reader might. 
As one author puts it in the back of the book " Our low intellectual standards and our craving for fast and easy-to-swallow morsels of half-cooked facts, is compromising our ability to see things clearly. We increasingly only know how to be fed and have forgotten how to cook" ( pg 381). 
An incredible work and really good to unpack the " What the hell happened ?" questions that come up with an unarmed citizen being killed by police. 


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