Crime, not cops, is by far the largest threat to black lives

It’s a truth urban prosecutors like me know well but that the activist fire and fury of our moment threatens to swallow: Incidents of black men ­being killed at the hands of ­police are exceedingly rare. Killing-by-police isn’t even close to a major cause of death of black men. Such incidents are rare in Gotham, rare nationwide.

When they do happen, there is almost always a back story: the victim resisting arrest, attempting to grab the officer’s pistol or ­Taser. Watching the heartbreaking footage, I keep thinking, “Stop fighting the cops!”

In New York City in 2019, 319 people were murdered. Fully 88 percent of them — 280 people — were black or Hispanic. And 93.2 of them were murdered by other people of color.

Almost 96 percent of all shooters and shooting victims in the Big Apple in 2019 were people of color. People of color also accounted for 73.8 percent of rape victims and 81.3 percent of the rape suspects; 69 percent of robbery victims and 93.3 percent of the robbery suspects; and 79.5 percent of felony ­assault victims and 86 percent of the assault suspects.

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