5 Reasons Why Black People Don't Trust Police

Stereotyping Black parents warn their children about how they should look, act, speak and react to police. A study by researchers at Southern Illinois University and published in Criminology in 2011 used 23 different data sets and found that non-white suspects had a 30 percent higher chance of being arrested. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which was conducted jointly by researchers from the University of Chicago, University of Colorado and the University of Denver, found that officers may rely heavily upon stereotypical associations in quick shoot/don't shoot situations, according to Blinker.com History In the 1964 Freedom Summer, James Chaney, a Black Mississippian, and two young white men, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, were investigating a church while they were helping Blacks register to vote. The police arrested them, then released them to members of the Ku Klux Klan to be beaten, shot and left by the riverside. The list goes on and on: In Birmingham, Alabama, the famous pictures of Blacks being hosed down and attacked by dogs at the hands of law enforcement in 1963; the implementation and execution of Jim Crow laws in the South; apartheid in South Africa. Previous Experience The Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of Blacks said that Blacks in their community are treated less fairly than whites in dealing with police. In addition to that, 35 percent of Blacks say they have been discriminated against or mistreated because of their race within the last 12 months, according to the same 2013 report. Evidence of Gross Misconduct/Excessive Force The 2010 National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project found that 23.8 percent of misconduct reported was for excessive force. Of the 1,575 reported incidents of misconduct, 897 were physical, 232 involved a firearm and 166 involved a Taser. Out of the 127 fatalities, 91 were with a firearm. The NPMSRP says that while media reports show a rise in misconduct, too few states submit the information necessary for further analysis. They say that less transparency leads to increased rates of unreported misconduct. Laws Like Stop and Frisk According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, in 2013, 191,558 New Yorkers were stopped by police. Eighty-eight percent of the people stopped were innocent. Fifty-six percent of the people stopped were Black, compared to the 11 percent of people stopped who were white. Since 2003, the percentage of Black New Yorkers stopped by police has been between 53 percent and 56 percent.

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