Correction made on May 19, 2022: The original video accompanying this article featured the claim that Kriegman was a “Journalist” for Thomson Reuters. This was incorrect. He was a data scientist in a technology role at the business information services company.
Mr. Kriegman is former Thomson Reuters employee, where he worked as a data scientist in a technology function at the business information services company
Controversy surrounds a former data scientist who claims he was fired for sharing research internally that showed police killed more unarmed white people than black people.
This conclusion has since been backed up by reporting from the Washington Post.
Zac Kriegman, who spent six years at Thomson Reuters claimed he was let go because he stood against what turned out to be a false narrative about the company’s reporting on the spin being pushed by Black Lives Matter.
The narrative was that black people were the largest victim of police violence. He also shared data on the company’s internal social media that the BLM movement allegedly caused the death of thousands.
In a piece first published on Bari Weiss’s Substack, Common Sense, Kriegman said he shared with colleagues concerns that reports saying unarmed black people are killed by police at a disproportionately higher rate than their white counterparts were not accurate.
“I was publicly derided as a ‘troll,’ ‘confused,’ ‘laughable,’ and ‘not worth engaging with or even attempting to have an intelligent conversation’ with,” Kriegman wrote.
While Thomson Reuters refused to talk about why Kreigman was fired, it did say that the company reports on topics related to race and equality in a fair and unbiased manner consistent with its principles.
The Washington Post confirmed Kriegman’s research that found that police had killed 3,024 white people and 1,596 black people since 2015.
Looking to understand if unarmed black people were disproportionately affected by police killings, Kriegman cited the FBI’s research into the racial demographics of those who had either killed or assaulted police officers.
The FBI’s data from 2010 to 2019, found that there were 199 times when black people attacked officers but 537 cases where white people were the offenders.
Kriegman said this information better aligned with the Washington Post’s findings and came to the conclusion that unarmed black people are not disproportionately affected by the police killings.
That set off a firestorm and led to personal attacks on Kreigman within the company.
Kriegman claimed his bosses were silent as he endured criticism and abuse by his co-workers. When notifying HR about this, Kriegman was informed he would be fired if he mentioned his experience through the company’s internal channels.
Doubting he would be terminated for discussing the attacks on him, Kriegman proceeded to email co-workers and leadership at Thomson Reuters. He was fired three days later.
Since then, Kriegman has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination for being fired in retaliation and Thomson Reuters creating a racially hostile work environment.
