THE WASHINGTON POST MISSED MY POINT: On Thursday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report entitled, Police Use of Force: An Examination of Modern Policing Practices. That same day the Washington Post discussed that report. It also described my dissenting statement as stating “that not enough of the public conversion about criminal justice focuses on the rates at which black Americans commit crime.”

Well … I did mention that issue as a possible partial explanation for why the media are so reluctant to talk about high African American victimization rates. But my main point—and the point that took up by far the most pages in my Statement was that African American are victimized by crime at higher rates than other groups. I dealt at length with discussions by Gunnar Myrdal, Charles Rangel, Michael Javan Fortner and Heather MacDonald that police have not always offered African Americans the level of protection that they should.

I never wrote that the public conversation about criminal justice should focus more on the rate at which African Americans commit crimes. Instead, I wrote that “[o]ne of the best examples” of “one-sidedness in the [criminal justice] debate” is “the failure to acknowledge African American victimhood and the need to ensure that the African-American community receives adequate police protection.” Everything seems to focus on too much police presence.

The Washington Post also stated that I “voiced the theory popular among some conservatives and police officials that increased scrutiny of police will result in them abandoning their obligations to protect the public.” (Italics added.) That’s true (although the word “abandon” overstates my position). But the Post doesn’t identify the views of my Progressive colleagues as “popular among some Progressives.” Maybe this is an example of what Hal Pashler and I wrote about in Perceptions of Newsworthiness Are Contaminated by Political Usefulness Bias. Pointing out that an idea is popular among conservatives may be more useful for a Progressive reporter writing for a Progressive audience than pointing out that a different idea is popular with Progressives. Oh well. At least it’s true.

Lesson: If you’re interested in a topic, read the original, not the newspaper version.