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https://theconversation.com/pain-of-police-killings-ripples-outward-to-traumatize-black-people-and-communities-across-us-159624>
"As the video goes public of Black police officers in Memphis beating Tyre
Nichols to death, it is a stark reminder of George Floyd’s murder by a
Minneapolis police officer in 2020. That set up the largest protests in U.S.
history and a national reckoning with racism.
But beyond any protests, every police killing – indeed, every violent act by
police toward civilians – can have painful and widespread consequences.
Each year, U.S. police kill about 1,000 people, which equals approximately 8%
of all homicides for adult men. This risk is greater for Black men, who are
about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by the police than white men.
The effects of these killings ripple from the individual victim to their
families and local communities as they cope with the permanence of injury,
death and loss. People victimized by the police have demonstrated
higher-than-usual rates of depression, psychological distress and even suicide
risk.
But the pain doesn’t stop there.
Public health research I am conducting with my research team at the University
of California, Berkeley finds that the harm from police killings of Black
people goes beyond the people and places directly involved in these incidents
to affect Black Americans far from the site of the killing, who may have never
met the victim.
Evidence shows that many Black Americans across the U.S. experience police
killings of other Black people as traumatic events, and that this trauma
diminishes the ability of Black communities to thrive."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
