Harvard Professor Reveals Police Shootings Non-Racial; Social Perception Untrue According To Study
ByA Harvard Professor conducted a study on the racial bias among men and women in police shootings. The study examined a larger pool of shooting incidents, including nonfatal ones.
Harvard Professor Roland G. Fryer Jr, the author of the study, reported that they found no racial differences in officers involved shootings in the raw data or even when contextual factors are taken into account. The study is entitled was published with the title "An empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force."
The Harvard Professor said that his study has the most surprising result of his career. The study examined more than 1,000 cases of shootings in 10 major police departments located in Texas, Florida and California.
Prior to the Harvard Professor study, it has been perceived that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. According to previous reports, these people are more likely to be touched, handcuffed and pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by police officers, Washington Times reported.
The "An empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force" outcome opposes to the image of police shootings that many Americans hold after the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Walter Scott in South Carolina, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
The contradicting results sparked a debate on the volume of police encounters and the scope of the data, after being posted on Monday. Fryer Jr. then emphasized that the study is not the definitive analysis of police shootings and that more information would be needed to understand the country as a whole. He further explained that his work only focused on what happens once the police have stopped civilians, not on the risk of being stopped at all, NY Times reported.
Harvard Professor Fryer Jr revealed that anger after the deaths of Brown, Freddie Gray, and others drove him to study the issue. He added that protesting is not his thing, but data is.
