This is indeed a tragedy, and police need to be held accountable. But these shootings are rare. And not exclusive to black youth. I can name 5 unarmed white teens (or younger) killed in recent years by police: Zachary Hammond, Jeremy Mardis (age 6), Dillon Taylor, Dylan Noble, and Gilbert Collar. Do people say their names?

Newsweek pointed out that in 2016 only 5% involved no weapon, 16 of which were unarmed black males about one-third of the total. Few if any other news outlets at the end of the year bothered to mention this. The Washington Post showed overall police shootings dropping 3% from 991 in 2015 to 963 in 2016. You could cut 100% of “unarmed” shootings, and the overall total killed by cop would only drop 9%.

Yet when the U.S. has possibly 4000 more people dying by homicide in 2016 than in 2014 (homicide totals hovering around 20,000, half are African American), which one can estimate based on FBI and left-leaning think tank data, one has to wonder: How is it morally justifiable not to question the dominant social justice narrative that police are out-of-control and need to be reigned in and take a second look?