In the wake of Harvard researcher Roland G. Fryer’s finding that the central thesis of Black Lives Matter — that unarmed black suspects are more likely to be killed by white cops than white “persons of interest” — was not actually borne out by hard fact, academics have been scrambling to find some data that will prove BLM’s point.

“Some researchers simulate police-shooting scenarios on computers,” Emma Pettit reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education on July 22, 2016. “Subjects sit in front of a screen and watch people of different races pop up either armed or unarmed. Then the subjects instinctively press a button to shoot or not shoot, and the length of their response time indicates their racial prejudice.”

“Lab simulations can provide precise data in a controlled environment. But that environment often bears little resemblance to real-world policing. Debbie Ma, an associate professor of psychology at California State University at Northridge, helped conduct a simulated shooter study.”

“She and her fellow researchers found that police officers and civilians alike were quicker to shoot an armed black person than an armed white person. But she also found that when the virtual target was unarmed, racial bias showed up only in the trigger fingers of people who were not police officers.”