The recent series of high-profile killings of black persons by police officers (i.e., Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, and John Crawford III) is, to say the least, saddening and troubling. Without getting too deep into the issues at hand, I thought I’d just show the data for what they are. This graphic depicts the relationship between the police presence in a city (officers per 1k population) and the black and/or African American representation (% of city population). The data include 100 of the largest US cities – all have at least 200k people. The strong correlation, though not surprising, is certainly disappointing. Maps are provided for viewing the geographic distribution of each variable independently.

Data sources:

http://factfinder2.census.gov/ (ACS 2013, 1-yr, B02001)

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/police-employee-data/browse-by/city-agency