Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani offered his solution to curb violence in black communities, incorrectly noting that black people face a “99 per cent” chance of being killed by another black person.
“There’s too much violence in the black community,” said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “A black will die one per cent or less at the hands of the police and 99 percent at the hands of a civilian – most often another black.”
He added that police killings of black civilians “happens rarely, although with tremendous attention”, suggesting that “Black Lives Matter” activists ignore so-called “black-on-black” violence.
“If I were a black father and I was concerned about the safety of my child – really concerned about it and not in a politically activist sense – I would say, ‘Be very respectful to the police, most of them are good, some can be very bad and just be very careful’,” Mr Giuliani explained.
“I'd also say, ‘Be very careful of those kids in the neighbourhood, don't get involved with them because son, there's a 99 per cent chance they're going to kill you, not the police’.”
According to FBI data, 90 per cent of black people murdered in the US in 2014 were killed by other black people. However, the data also showed that some 82 per cent of white people murdered in 2014 were killed by other white people.
Mr Giuliani added the phrase “Black Lives Matter” used by activists who protest for police reform, is “inherently racist”.
“Of course black lives matter, and they matter greatly,” he said. “But when you focus in on one percent of less than one percent of the murder that's going on in America and you make it a national thing, and all of you in the media make it much bigger than the black kid that's getting killed in Chicago every 14 hours, you create a disproportion.”
According to the New York Daily News, police killed 160 suspects in New York City during Mr Giuliani’s two terms, between 1994 and 2001 – with the deadliest year being 1996, when police killed 30 people.
