Reply to Schimmack: Critique of Cesario et al. (2019)

Recently Cesario, Johnson, & Terrill (2019) published a report showing that, when benchmarking on various violent crime rates, there was no evidence of anti-Black disparity in police use of deadly force, at the nationwide level for 2015-2016. In response, Schimmack (2019) criticized several aspects of the methods used by Cesario et al., claiming "Their calculations are purely hypothetical and their conclusions suggest only that their assumptions are wrong." In this reply, Cesario addresses the major and minor points raised by Schimmack, arguing that Schimmack's criticisms misunderstand the original argument and fail to appreciate the nature of fatal police shootings.