The Seattle Times reports, "213 people were killed by police in Washington from 2005 to 2014." (AP)

In a remarkably biased Seattle Times feature, a cadre of reporters set their sights on a 1986 law that they imply needs to be changed, arguing it’s the reason why only one police officer has been charged in the state of Washington between 2005 and 2014 for the shooting death of suspects. Unfortunately, they purposefully bury important details in a sea of contextless analysis and frame the entire discussion in a way to show cops as racist bad guys.

Now, there’s no doubt that I am also biased; I make no claims to be anything but a strong supporter of good cops (I know, I know; it’s controversial, for some reason, to support good cops). They’re heroes in my eyes and take on a thankless, dangerous job that is demonized by virulently anti-cop activists in the state.

Bias aside, it doesn’t take much to see this as a transparent advocacy piece masquerading as journalism, hoping – begging – for someone to give them an award for what they think they’ve uncovered.

In a very dramatic graphic accompanying the piece, the Times says “213 people were killed by police in Washington from 2005 to 2014.” They say in 1986:

Washington’s Legislature decided police officers shouldn’t be prosecuted for killing someone in the line of duty as long as they acted in good faith and without malice, or what the law calls ‘evil intent.’

This judgment aside, given the law is from 1986, they don’t explain why they only looked between 2005 and 2014 for these numbers. I asked the lead reporter, Steve Miletich, why and he told me that they needed to “keep the project manageable” and to make the focus contemporary (as to the time period). Fair enough. However, doesn’t it seem relevant to know how many times police officers were defendants before this law went into effect? And wouldn’t you be curious what the numbers are between 1986 and 2005?

Related: Here’s a way to stop hateful, anti-cop bias

Moreover, it takes them six paragraphs to point out, as an aside, that “the vast majority of the cases were deemed legally justified.” If the vast majority were deemed legally justified, it seems disingenuous to use the one in 213 statistic to make your point that the 1986 law is keeping cops from serving time for their bad, illegal policing. It would make more sense to focus on the cases the Times feels are controversial.

In fact, in 84 percent of the cases, officers used deadly force against suspects who had a weapon on them. Yet, the takeaway for the Times is that 9.9 percent of the suspects killed by cops were black, even though black Washingtonians represent 3.6 percent of the state’s population. They tie this into the larger Black Lives Matter movement because it’ll get them attention. But, of course, they don’t offer answers to incredibly important questions, like what is the socio-economic makeup of the suspects.

I suspect, the majority of them are poor, and if you’re low-income, there’s a higher chance that you’re non-white (there’s no doubt that historical racism is mostly to blame for this). As the University of Michigan’s National Poverty Center points out, “[p]overty rates for blacks and Hispanics greatly exceed the national average.”

We know there is a relationship between household poverty and crime. As the National Dialogue Network points out:

Starting from the 1970s, studies in the U.S. pointed more and more at the link between unemployment, poverty and crime. After that, other connections with income level, time spent at school, quality of neighborhood and education were revealed as well.

And where do you often see higher policing and police interactions with the public? In communities of high crime.

If there is a relationship with poverty and crime, and you’re more likely to be non-white living in areas of high crime and high police interaction, couldn’t this explain the disproportionate numbers of black suspects being killed by cops?

Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. The Times doesn’t seem interested in this. Instead, they play into the easy narrative that these cop interactions are due to racism. But it doesn’t necessarily indicate racist cops – it more indicates cops are going into areas of high crime. If they don’t patrol these areas with extra officers, the argument is that they’re racist for not putting resources there. It’s a lose-lose situation for the cops and this is context the Times chooses not to highlight.

Instead of providing context to explain the numbers, they singularly focus on a handful of controversial cases (not the overwhelming cases where the shootings are justified) To highlight the law, they use an ACLU director to characterize thus: “It is virtually a license to kill.” This, too, wildly perverts the truth and purposefully casts cops as wanton murderers.

“This almost perfect defense to a mistaken use of force has kept police officers out of court as defendants,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg is quoted as saying.

But it’s not the law that keeps officers out of court; it’s the prosecutors who won’t charge. If you have a bad officer, you should file charges and shine a spotlight on the behavior (and, perhaps, the high bar the state Legislature has set in order to prosecute bad cops).

Satterberg does offer some understanding of the law:

The policy reasons for the law are understandable, Prosecutor Satterberg said. Police are expected to “run toward danger,” make split-second decisions and put themselves at risk, meaning they will make mistakes, he said. Fear of prison over a mistake might create “timid” officers.

This defense of the law seems reasonable to me, but perhaps not to you. And that’s OK – we can disagree and this is certainly subjective. I share the goal of wanting bad cops prosecuted and off the streets; but in order to come to make that a reality, we ought to take an honest look at why the numbers are what they are.

Unfortunately, under the guise of journalism, the Times tries to persuade you into taking their side against the law, sans the context you absolutely need to make up your mind. And perhaps, with the context, you still side with the Times. That’s fine by me – only the Times didn’t seem to want you to have that information so you can take a more informed position. And that’s why the mantra of my show (weeknights from 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.) gives tips on how to be better consumers of news.