STUDIES:   

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“Cities with police departments where whites are in the highest position of power have 40 percent more fatal officer-involved shootings than cities with blacks in power.” Results hold after controlling for crime rates and city racial makeup.

Leadership Matters: Police Chief Race and Fatal Shootings by Police Officers Leadership Matters: Police Chief Race and Fatal Shootings by Police Officers Table 2 shows the results of ordinary least squares regressions where the dependent variable is the number of fatal shootings per 100,000 people... After controlling for a city's overall crime rate and racial breakdown, we see that the differential in fatal shooting rates between cities with black and white police chiefs remains large and statistically significant, with a coefficient on the black police chief indicator equaling -0.907, indicating a differential of nearly 50 percent. Table 2 shows the results of ordinary least squares regressions where the dependent variable is the number of fatal shootings per 100,000 people... After controlling for a city's overall crime rate and racial breakdown, we see that the differential in fatal shooting rates between cities with black and white police chiefs remains large and statistically significant, with a coefficient on the black police chief indicator equaling -0.907, indicating a differential of nearly 50 percent. Figure 1: Fatal Police Shootings Per 100,000 People for 100 Largest U.S. Cities (2015–2020). As shown in Figure 1, the average number of fatal police shootings is just over 2.0 per 100,000 people for cities with a black police chief. The analogous statistics are roughly 2.5 and 2.8 for cities with police departments led by Hispanics and whites, respectively. These numbers imply that cities with police departments where whites are in the highest position of power have 40 percent more fatal officer‐involved shootings than cities with blacks in power Figure 1: Fatal Police Shootings Per 100,000 People for 100 Largest U.S. Cities (2015–2020). As shown in Figure 1, the average number of fatal police shootings is just over 2.0 per 100,000 people for cities with a black police chief. The analogous statistics are roughly 2.5 and 2.8 for cities with police departments led by Hispanics and whites, respectively. These numbers imply that cities with police departments where whites are in the highest position of power have 40 percent more fatal officer‐involved shootings than cities with blacks in power
Leadership Matters: Police Chief Race and Fatal Shootings by Police Officers
Social Science Quarterly
Wu, Stephen
in Press, 2020
10.1111/ssqu.12900
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