What If We Considered Police Killings a Public Health Crisis?

It's an old refrain uttered by police officers who realize they have shot an unarmed victim: “I thought he had a gun in his hand.”

Indeed, that is what police officer Jeronimo Yanez said after fatally shooting 32-year-old Philando Castile in Minnesota in 2016. Police killings, often times driven by racial bias, have become an all-too-familiar American narrative. Indeed, a new study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health validates what many have speculated: “Police violence disproportionately impacts young people, and the young people affected are disproportionately people of color.”