Fact Check: The Quote Heather Mac Donald presents when discussing Johnson et al comes from a passage of a pre-print that does not appear in the published work.

More bad form.
Sociopolitical
Analysis
Author

Thadryan

Published

July 11, 2020

In a recent Op-ed Heather Mac Donald presents the following quote:

“no significant evidence of antiblack disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police”

This quote does not appear in Johnson et al, the study she cites.

The quote comes from a pre-print (before peer review) reply to a letter criticizing the methodology.

Reading the pre-print and the published version reveals the quote appears in the pre-print (uploaded August 16, 2019) but not in the published literature (published, January, 21, 2020).

note: thanks to @ulymelendez for tracking this down.