Abstract
The police kill Black Americans at disproportionate rates. Despite this, White Americans remain mixed on support for policing-related policy reform. We examined whether bearing witness to police violence leads to support for policy reforms. Across three studies (N = 943), White participants either viewed a news video about an unarmed Black man killed at the hands of police or in a car accident due to a collision with another driver. Participants lower but not higher in symbolic racism reported more empathy after viewing a police shooting (vs. car accident) news video (Studies 1-3). Empathy predicted policing-related policy reform support (Studies 1-3) and mediated the relationship between condition and policy reform support (Studies 1 and 3), among those lower in symbolic racism (Studies 1-2). Results suggest that empathy for Black victims of police violence predicts policy support but only among those who recognize that such violence is systemic in nature.
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