An encounter with the police is generally stressful. It's especially difficult when black citizens are wary of the police and feel unfairly targeted. African American residents of North Charleston have been complaining about mistreatment by police for years. The Charleston Post and Courier reported on complaints in 2010; the-then chief of police replied by arguing that the ends justified the means. "I am not going to apologize for the strategies we've employed in these areas," he said. "Those strategies are working and the violence is dropping dramatically." Two-thirds of stops that failed to produce a ticket or arrest involved black drivers. The following year, however, the chief insisted his department did not profile.
Most encounters do not end with violence or death, even if they produce humiliation and tension with police. But they are far more likely to end in a killing in the United States than anywhere else. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, police shot and killed 828 people in 2011, a figure that includes all killings, justifiable or not. By comparison, during the same year, there were two fatal police shootings in England and Wales; six in Australia; and six in Germany.