Police shootings account for a much smaller share of homicides in the black community than in other communities: 4% of black homicide victims are killed by the police, compared with 12% of white and Hispanic homicide victims

Though they made up 15% of the population, in America’s 75 largest counties in 2009, blacks constituted 62% of all robbery defendants, 57% of all murder defendants and 45% of all assault defendants. In New York City in 2014, blacks committed 75% of shootings and 70% of robberies — as reported by the victims of and witnesses to those crimes — but represented only 23% of the population. In contrast, whites committed less than 2% of shootings and 4% of robberies in New York City in 2014, though they are 34% of the city’s population.