So, three things have happened:
- The calendar flipped to February
- A shooting occurred in my little home town involving a cop
- The Super Bowl ended
Okay, four things – I am beginning to study and learn R.
I’ve known about the effort at the Washington Post to record all of the police shootings in the US since 2015. Because the requirements to self report are terrible, the Post relies on local news coverage, eye witness accounts and even social media to obtain the data they keep for each shooting. This means that often all of those details are not available for days or even weeks. I’m hoping that with us moving into February, the details surrounding 2017 incidents are complete.
The news out of my little corner of the world in Southwest Minnesota kinda nudged me back to this reality.
Both of these things were timed with the ending of the NFL’s 2017 season which, of course, carried with it the Anthem protests carried out by many NFL players.
As the Minnesota Vikings transformed their year from disastrous to glorious I bought a new vehicle. This car had the advantage of Bluetooth connectivity which allowed me the luxury of listening to Twin Cities sports talk radio. Which meant that my normal listening patterns were thrown into chaos. The winner? ESPN 1500 talk. The loser? 1A.
But before 1A gave way to the Vikings I did listen to a number of shows that mentioned the kneeling protests. From the interviews I listened to I understand the reason the players were kneeling was to protest the treatment of people of color in the United States, specifically treatment at the hands of police.
With the data now in for 2015, 16 and 17, the NFL season concluded and the violent reminder of such encounters, I am going to try and look into the data and see what there is to see.