A study explores the factors underlying racial disparities in fatal police officer-involved shootings. Shootings of Black Americans by police have raised questions about whether White officers are primarily responsible for fatal shootings of Black Americans. However, no federal databases exist on the officers involved in fatal shootings. David Johnson and colleagues created a comprehensive database of more than 900 fatal officer-involved shootings (FOIS) in the United States in 2015, including information about officer race, sex, and years of experience. The authors found that White officers were not more likely than Black or Hispanic officers to fatally shoot minority civilians. Rather, the strongest predictor of the race of individuals who were fatally shot was the rate of violent crime. Once crime rates were factored, civilians who were fatally shot were not more likely to be Black or Hispanic than to be White. The results suggest that increasing racial diversity among police officers might not necessarily reduce racial disparity in FOIS. According to the authors, reducing FOIS of racial minorities may depend on addressing factors that lead to racial differences in violent crime rates.
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Article #19-03856: "Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings," by David J. Johnson, Trevor Tress, Nicole Burkel, Carley Taylor, and Joseph Cesario.
MEDIA CONTACT: David J. Johnson, University of Maryland, College Park, MD; tel: 301-717-2544; e-mail: djjohnson@smcm.edu
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences