Tulsa officer says police shoot Black people ‘less than we probably ought to be’

By Biba Adams

·June 11, 2020

Tear gas reigns down on a woman kneeling in the street with her hands in the air after a demonstration over the killing of teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer on August 17, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Despite the Brown family's continued call for peaceful demonstrations, violent protests have erupted nearly every night in Ferguson since his August 9, death. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Tulsa Police Department Maj. Travis Yates told a talk radio host that systemic racism in policing, “just doesn’t exist.” He also said that officers shoot Black people “less than we probably ought to.”

Yates pointed to flawed research that argued that white people are more likely to be shot by police.

However, the studies did not address racial disparities created and supported by police. A 2016 report says that Black Americans are two-and-a-half times likely to be shot and killed by police than whites.

The interview took place on The Pat Campbell Show.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/71nhtCniY10lItS1qwhmlt

The officer has previously stated that police officers are “at war” with those advocating for reform. Yates said that “justice” has been served in the killing of George Floyd because the officers were fired, arrested, and charged.

“This is what they’re trying to say that all these changes need to come from: this is why we’re protesting, this is why we’re rioting. Because of systematic abuse of power and racism. That just doesn’t exist,” he said on the show.

Tulsa, Oklahoma is due to be the site of Donald Trump’s first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic began. The rally is scheduled for June 19 —the date that African Americans observe as the end of enslavement. That celebration is also called Juneteenth.

Some people have had push back to the president’s choice of venue.

“Almost blasphemous”: Trump plans rally in Tulsa, site of a race massacre, on Juneteenth https://t.co/bddx6pmn65

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 11, 2020

At the time, Tulsa was the site of the wealthiest Black community in the country and was known as “Black Wall Street.” The residents were never compensated for their losses and the community never recovered. A fictionalized account of the event was portrayed in the HBO series, The Watchmen.

Yates is the author of two controversial essays about police violence.

In one, written in 2016, he blamed victims. The essay titled “Follow Commands or Die,” he wrote, “Would we even know where Ferguson was if Michael Brown would have simply got out of the street like the officer had asked him to do?”

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