ABSTRACT

A sharp racial divide in attitudes towards the police has been a mainstay throughout US history. The divide has come to the fore in recent years due to a number of high-profile police shooting incidents, such as the 2014 death of Michael Brown. This paper examines how whites and African-Americans differ in their perception of such incidents, as well as how the race of the officer and victim involved influence these perceptions. Across multiple data sources, whites are much more likely than African Americans to express favorable attitudes towards the police and see police shootings as justified. These pro-police attitudes are strongest for whites with the strongest levels of racial resentment. Racial identity attachment, however, does not have a consistent effect on whites’ attitudes. Further, in an experiment where the race of the officer and victim are manipulated, whites are less likely to state that a police shooting is justified if it explicitly involves a white officer and black victim. Evidence suggests self-monitoring may make some whites reluctant to state an explicitly “racialized” shooting can be justified.