New Report Finds Black Women and Girls at Higher Rate of Being Killed in Los Angeles

by Xara Aziz
Photo by Matthew Chattle/Shutterstock (5822119d) Flowers and tributes at the crime scene of the knifing in Russell Square. Russell Square knifing, London, Britain. - 4 AUG 2016

A new report has revealed startling findings about Black women and girls who “remain at higher risk of victimization than any other demographic.”

In a Los Angeles Times report published Saturday, the deaths and disappearances of Black women and girls receive far less attention from media and police than other races.

The news echoes the afflictions placed on Black women who are strained to overcome “financial instability, income inequality, housing insecurity and a myriad of other potential social safety risks,” according to the report.

“Black women experience a unique position of precarity as a result of decades of discrimination, grounded both in racism and sexism,” the report further detailed.

According to data compiled by the Los Angeles Police Department, “Black women make up about 4.3% of the city’s population,” but “account for 25% to 33% of its victims of violence.”

Furthermore, almost 500 women were killed in Los Angeles between January 2011 and August 2022, with nearly a third of them being Black. Their deaths usually took place in poorer neighborhoods, while many of them were murdered by a domestic partner. The number of Latina women killed has risen significantly as well, according to the report, which states that murders among Latina women “jumped by more than 38%,” but Black women were “statistically the most overrepresented” when equated to their share of the population.

“Basically, when things go wrong, women of color, particularly Black women, get the worst of it,” said Capri Maddox, executive director of the city’s civil rights department, told the Los Angeles Times. “This is just another example of how we are ‘othered.’ I mean, we deal with biases in the workplace, biases in medicine and even biases in how to protect our personal safety.”

The report comes just months after the city elected its first Black female mayor, Karen Bass, who has vowed to put gun violence as a top priority on her agenda as leader of the city.

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