Tag: Police Use of Force

State Violence, Legitimacy, and the Path to True Public Safety – Niskanen Center

Let’s be clear about what’s been happening in the country these last few weeks. Policing is an arm of the state. Police departments and police officers operate under the color of law and as agents of the state, with authority granted by their nation’s citizens. That gives their actions special meaning. George Floyd was—literally—killed by his government. Over and over again in America, Black people have been killed, beaten, and otherwise abused by their government through its agents: the police. In the modern era, Rodney King was beaten by his government. Michael Brown was shot and killed by his government. Walter Scott was shot in the back and killed by his government; his government then falsified the shooting scene and lied about what had happened.
— Read on www.niskanencenter.org/state-violence-legitimacy-and-the-path-to-true-public-safety/

In study of police, female officers perceived more danger, were more suspicious of civilians than male colleagues

How do female police officers, who are often excluded from the traditional masculine occupational culture of policing, feel about their working environment and how the public perceives them? A new study has used survey data from officers in a large, urban police department to test for gender differences in two aspects of the external environment that are core to police cultural attitudes: perceptions of danger and suspiciousness toward civilians.
— Read on phys.org/news/2024-07-police-female-officers-danger-suspicious.html

De-escalation Training: What Works, Implementation Lessons, and Taking It to Scale; Plenary at the 2023 NIJ Research Conference

There is a video of the panel discussion at the website below.

Police use of force, while infrequently used, is a tremendous concern to public safety in the United States when officers employ it excessively or inappropriately, causing injury or death and eroding public trust in law enforcement. This plenary from the 2023 NIJ Research Conference describes the Integrating, Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) de-escalation training program developed by the Police Executive Research Forum to guide officers in defusing critical incidents. A rigorous evaluation of ICAT found it reduced overall use of force as well as injuries to both officers and members of the public. Panelists will describe how research evidence was used to develop the training curriculum; discuss strategies to ensure training implementation fidelity and secure the buy-in of all ranks; describe preliminary findings from complementary NIJ-sponsored replication evaluations; and explore strategies to take ICAT to scale. Led by Karhlton Moore, director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the plenary was a discussion among Robin Engel, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, National Policing Institute Maris Herold, Chief, Boulder Police Department, Colorado Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) Justin Witt, Sergeant, Louisville Metro Police Department, Kentucky
— Read on nij.ojp.gov/multimedia/de-escalation-training

The Cost of Police Violence and Mayhem – A Report on Police Misconduct During the George Floyd Protests

Four years ago, on May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. We already had a too-long list of black men and women killed by police, and the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s throat for nine minutes, assisted by 3 other cops, spurred a mass protest movement into action.

The movement against the long and brutal history of police murdering Black men crystallized under the banner of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in 2013 after the acquittal of the man who killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin.1 The movement grew, forcing us to pay attention as police killed Black men and women with impunity. On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner uttered his last words, “I can’t breathe,” over and over 17 times to an NYPD cop who continued to choke him. Less than a month later, Ferguson cop Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. And police kept killing Black people in other towns and cities all across America. We said their names and held them in our hearts: Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Breonna Taylor. And so many more, their glaring absence felt by their communities.
— Read on drive.google.com/file/d/12OOPD54mQSsCBanMomfHIN_tkumtm4IR/view

A Study of Racially Disparate Outcomes in the Los Angeles Police Department

Abstract: This report analyzes pedestrian and motor vehicle stops of the Los
Angeles Police Department over a one-year period: July 2003 to June 2004. We find
prima facie evidence that African Americans and Hispanics are over-stopped, over-
frisked, over-searched, and over-arrested. After controlling for violent and property crime
rates in specific LAPD reporting districts, as well as a range of other variables, we find
that:

  • Per 10,000 residents, the black stop rate is 3,400 stops higher than the white stop
  • rate, and the Hispanic stop rate is almost 360 stops higher.
  • Relative to stopped whites, stopped blacks are 127% more likely and stopped
  • Hispanics are 43% more likely to be frisked.
  • Relative to stopped whites, stopped blacks are 76% more likely and stopped
  • Hispanics are 16% more likely to be searched.
  • Relative to stopped whites, stopped blacks are 29% more likely and stopped
  • Hispanics are 32% more likely to be arrested.

All of these disparities are statistically significant (p < .01). The findings of racial
disparity are supported by ancillary analyses of investigative outcomes and officer race.
We find that frisks and searches are systematically less productive when conducted on
blacks and Hispanics than when conducted on whites:

  • Frisked African Americans are 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon than
  • frisked whites and that frisked Hispanics are 31.8% less likely to have a weapon
  • than frisked non-Hispanic whites.
  • Consensual searches of blacks are 37.0% less likely to uncover weapons, 23.7%
  • less likely to uncover drugs and 25.4% less likely to uncover anything else.
  • Consensual searches of Hispanics similarly are 32.8% less likely to uncover
  • weapons, 34.3% less likely to uncover drugs and 12.3% less likely to uncover
  • anything else.


It is implausible that higher frisk and search rates are justified by higher minority
criminality, when these frisks and searches are substantially less likely to uncover
weapons, drugs or other types of contraband. We also find that the black arrest disparity
was 9 percentage points lower when the stopping officer was black than when the
stopping officer was not black. Similarly, the Hispanic arrest disparity was 7 percentage
points lower when the stopping officer was Hispanic than when the stopping officer was
a non-Hispanic white. Taken as a whole, these results justify further investigation and
corrective action.

Get a .PDF copy of the report HERE