When do black lives really matter?

In Chicago, a person is shot every four minutes and one is murdered every 23 minutes. Of the 646 shootings, 76 percent (491) of the victims were black and 77 percent (497) of the assailants were black. There have been only four police-involved shootings, of which one person died. This means blacks almost exclusively have been shot and killed by other blacks. Not by police and not by people of other races.

In 2014 there were 2,619 shootings, including 388 people who were shot and killed. The police were involved in 45 (1.7 percent) of these shootings. Seventy eight percent of these shooting victims were black and 68 percent the assailants were black.

This year in Baltimore, there have been 49 shootings and 36 homicides ... again the vast majority is black on black crime and none of these shootings have involved police. Similar statistics are available from cities all over the country. They are sad and deplorable, showing that blacks are being killed at a rate many times that of other races and far outweighing the black population percentage. This is a national shame and a dreadful waste of lives.

The recent "protests" in Baltimore, Chicago, New York, Ferguson and many other places with the war cry that "Black Lives Matter" seems to be entirely directed at police while ignoring the overwhelming data referenced above. This seems to me to be a case of totally misguided and misdirected anger. If these "protesters" would direct their anger, energies, and efforts at the perpetrators of black killings instead of at police ... then maybe a real, positive change could be achieved. Otherwise, it seems black lives matter only when they are killed by police, but very little when killed by other blacks.

John Noll

Naperville