Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News host Ed Henry — inaccurately — on Wednesday that more Black people kill police officers in America than police officers kill Black people.
Giuliani made the false claim in response to Henry's questions about the progressive "defund the police" movement.
"That's a terrible, terrible overreaction to what's been created as almost a hysterical reaction to a single incident," Giuliani claimed. "And not just a single incident — some instances of police wrongdoing where they actually are unjustified in the use of force."
"As the president pointed out, and as we all know logically, 99% — if not more — of police contact with the public is appropriate," said President Donald Trump's personal attorney, who advises municipalities in developing countries on how to set up emergency management systems, an operation which many legal experts view as a vehicle for corruption.
"Either no use of force — or in many cases, the use of force saved their lives," Giuliani elaborated.
"After all, more police officers are shot and killed by blacks than police officers shoot and kill African-Americans," Giuliani preceded to falsely claim Wednesday to Fox News.
Giuliani — who once accidentally texted a password to a Salon reporter — on Wednesday went on to espouse more stats to Henry that were irrelevant to his overall claim.
"The unarmed shooters, which are the ones that are troublesome — there are only nine of them against blacks, 20 against whites in 2019," Giuliani told Fox News. "So that will give you a sense. Meanwhile, there were 9,000 murders of blacks, 7,500 of which were black-on-black."
A Mediaite analysis found that Giuliani's claim was quite far from accurate.
In 2018, 229 black people were killed by cops and 23 police officers were killed on duty, in which the offender was recorded as a black person. In 2017, 224 black people were killed by law enforcement and 16 officers were killed on duty, in which the offender was recorded as a black person.Between 2015 and 2019, 86 cops were fatally shot in incidents involving a black offender. In that same span, 1,195 black people have been killed by law enforcement.
Reached for comment, Giuliani clarified his remarks, writing in a text message which Salon has left unedited:
"What I thought I said, and meant to say, was that police kill more Whites than Blacks even though Blavks commit considerably more violent crimes. Last year police killed 9 unarmed blacks and 20 unarmed whites; even though Blacks were both the perpetrators of violent crime and the victims of violent crime at a rate of 53%"
