Cops More likely To Shoot Indians Than Blacks (Picture, vIDEO]

Police killings have been one of the most frequently discussed topics across the media and public over the course of the past year.

This has largely been a product of a series of high-profile police killings involving unarmed African Americans.

These consecutive incidents have reinvigorated conversations surrounding the persistence of racism in the United States and its impact on the criminal justice system.

The numbers surrounding police killings in America are certainly disturbing, particularly when compared to those of other nations.

This year alone, US police have used lethal force against 683 people, killing blacks at a rate almost four times higher than whites.

Combined with the fact blacks are also pulled over, arrested and imprisoned at much higher rates, this data is emblematic of a much broader problem.

But the killing of a 35-year-old named Paul Castaway by police in Denver, CO, on July 12 reveals a related issue seemingly absent from media coverage and public discussions: the disproportionate rate at which Native Americans are killed by police.

Castaway was a Rosebud Sioux.

According to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ), a nonprofit that conducts research on issues pertaining to incarceration and criminal justice:

The racial group most likely to be killed by law enforcement is Native Americans, followed by African Americans, Latinos, Whites and Asian Americans.

The CJCJ reached this determination by examining data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics.

It revealed between 1999-2011, Native Americans were killed at a higher rate than any other racial group.

To put this into perspective, Native Americans make up less than one percent of the population, but comprise around two percent of police killings.

  VIDEO

What’s more, they make up three of the top five age groups that cops use lethal force against:

Castaway’s mother, Lynn Eagle Feather, also claims he suffered from schizophrenia and alcoholism, so it seems his killing is also linked to another disturbing trend: the use of the lethal force by police against the mentally ill. SOURCE