Are they twice as likely to resist?

We've wasted money on a four-year federal investigation of the Austin Police Department. The complaint by the NAACP and the Texas Civil Rights Project was that the department was violating residents' civil rights. From 1998 to 2003, police were twice as likely to use force against blacks as against whites. Gee, do you think that could be because blacks were twice as likely to resist arrest? That would be my guess, because the department was completely cleared of any violations, and you can bet that if there had been any, we'd be hearing all the specifics.

However, even though the department wasn't violating anybody's civil rights, they had to implement programs so they'd keep on not violating anybody's civil rights. These include a program to identify officers with a tendency to use force (even though they've had no instances of that) and having review boards to identify "tactical or training issues that could be corrected to minimize uses of force against citizens" (even though they've had no instances of undue force). No word on how much all this "diversity training" is costing the city. They should send the bill to the NAACP.

"Austin police cleared in civil rights inquiry." The Dallas Morning News; May 31, 2011; p. 3A.