Minor offenses like a seatbelt violation, a broken headlight, or a crack taillight have resulted in the deaths of more than 400 people over five years, according to a startling new report.
Many of those unarmed motorists are Black, the New York Times reported.
The newspaper conducted an extensive investigation of traffic stops in which police officers justified the shootings by arguing that the vehicle was a weapon.
The Times found that in about 250 cases, police officers had fired into vehicles that they claimed posed a threat. “Relative to the population, Black motorists were overrepresented among those killed,” the researchers reported.
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