White American police officers use their gun more than their black colleagues, and even more in black majority neighborhoods, according to a study which confirms a feeling often expressed by minorities in the United States. White agents, on average, twice as often use "force of arms than black agents" when called on to emergency response, write economists Mark Hoekstra and CarlyWill Sloan of A&M University, Texas .
"Does Race Matter for Police Use of Force? Evidence from 911 Calls" from Mark Hoekstra
and CarlyWill Sloan @nberpubs Finds that white officers are five times more likely than black ones to use gun force in black neighborhoods (in addition to other things) https://t.co/GUbXDy3fTc pic.twitter.com/XEsOXGvOaT
If they use their weapon in a comparable way "in white and mixed neighborhoods, white agents are five times more likely to use their weapon in predominantly black neighborhoods", they emphasize in a study submitted to discussions on the site of the National Bureau of Economic Research. To arrive at these figures, the researchers peeled more than two million calls to the 911 emergency number in two major American cities - not mentioned - which dispatch agents at random.
24% of African Americans do not trust
The sample is therefore not necessarily representative of the whole country. However, it is broad enough to "demonstrate that the racial issue counts at a time when the police, and white agents in particular, know that they are being watched closely by the media and the public," they write, recalling that 24% of African Americans express "no confidence" in the local police.
The deaths of blacks shot and killed by white police regularly cause a stir in the United States. These gave birth to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
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