Fatal Police Shooting Research Articles

Examining perspectives on fatal use of force: A comparative analysis of police and social sciences students’ views

Citizen views are, at times, in opposition to professional expertise. When it comes to policing, discussions surrounding the use of force often indicate a lack of understanding from the general population. In this study, police ( n = 1609) and social sciences ( n = 688) students were shown a video vignette of a fatal police shooting. Findings show that police students’ attitudes towards the use of force face a significant shift during training, leading to stronger support for lethal force and greater discrepancy in opinions compared to the other students. Our results also show that non-expert adults want police officers to be sanctioned severely.

Analyzing Fatal Police Shootings: The Roles of Social Vulnerability, Race, and Place in the U.S.

IntroductionSocial vulnerability, race, and place are three important predictors of fatal police shootings. This research offers the first assessment of these factors at the zip code level. MethodsThe 2015-2022 Mapping Police Violence and Washington Post Fatal Force Data (2015-2022) were used and combined with the American Community Survey (2015-2022). The social vulnerability index (SVI) was computed for each zip code by using indicators suggested by CDC, then categorized into low-, medium-, and high-SVI. The analytical file included police officers who fatally shot 6,901 individuals within 32,736 zip codes between 2015-2022. Negative Binomial Regression (NBRG) models were run to estimate the association between number of police shootings and zip code SVI, racial composition, and access to guns using 2015-2022 data. ResultsMoving from low-SVI to high-SVI revealed the number of fatal police shootings increased 8.3 times, with the highest increases in Blacks (20.4 times), and Hispanics (27.1 times). The NBRG showed that moderate-, and high-SVI zip codes experienced higher fatal police shootings by 1.97, and 3.26 times than low-SVI zip codes; zip code racial composition, working age population, number of violent crimes, number of police officers and access to a gun, were other predictors of fatal police shootings. ConclusionsSocial vulnerability and racial composition of a zip code are associated with fatal police shooting, both independently and when considered together. What drives deadly police shootings in the United States is not one single factor, but rather complex interactions between social-vulnerability, race, and place that must be tackled synchronously. Action must be taken to address underlying determinants of disparities in policing.

Fatal Police Shootings of Victims with Mental Health Crises: A Descriptive Analysis of Data from the 2014-2015 National Violent Death Reporting System.

One in five fatal police shooting victims may have been experiencing a mental health crisis (MHC) at the time of their death [1]. We use data on fatal police shootings from the National Violent Death Reporting System (2014-2015) to (a) identify incidents where the victim is reported to have experienced an MHC at the time of their death, (b) describe the characteristics of these incidents, and (c) compare the characteristics of MHC to fatal police shootings where the victim was not experiencing an MHC at the time of their death. We systematically coded 633 fatal police shootings from 27 states. Descriptive statistics characterized fatal police shootings, including victim characteristics; their mental health status; and contextual information regarding the police encounter (e.g., reason for police call). Overall, 203 of 633 fatal police encounters (32%) involved victims who showed signs of an MHC at the time of their death. Victims were predominantly white, male, and in possession of a firearm. In 3 of 4 cases, the MHC manifested as suicidal ideation despite any relevant documented history among most victims. Among half of suicidal victims, suicidal ideation was expressed verbally and in-person to a family member/intimate partner who subsequently called the police. Dispatch was aware of the MHC in 1 of 4 of total police calls. Overall, fatal police encounters involving those experiencing an MHC accounted for 1 in 3 of our caseloads. Approximately, 3 of 4 mental health calls involved a suicidal person who mainly expressed intent to a loved one in-person.

Association between outdoor temperature and fatal police shootings in the United States, 2015-2021.

Here, we investigate the association between outdoor temperature and fatal police shootings in the United States between 2015 and 2021. We conducted a time-stratified case-crossover study. Data on fatal police shootings were from the Washington Post's Fatal Force database and temperature data were from Daymet. A 5°C increase in maximum same-day temperature was associated with a 1.033 (95% CI = 1.002, 1.065) increased odds of a fatal police shooting. In stratified analyses, the strongest associations were observed in victims who were armed (OR, 1.052 [95% CI = 1.017, 1.088), White (OR, 1.052 [95% CI = 1.006, 1.100), or aged 45+ (OR, 1.110 [95% CI = 1.044, 1.181]). In additional subgroup analyses, relative risks were also generally higher among those who were armed. There is evidence of an association between outdoor temperature and fatal police shootings in the United States, particularly when the victims were reported as armed. This study cannot determine if the associations are a result of any specific causes (e.g., increased police aggression or other factors).

Depolicing in Chicago: Assessing the Quantity and Quality of Policing after the Fatal Police Shooting of Laquan McDonald

The release of dashcam footage showing a Chicago Police Department (CPD) officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2015 placed extraordinary scrutiny on CPD to avoid another controversial case of police misconduct. Using data on arrests as well as traffic stops and searches, we assess whether the quantity and quality of policing in Chicago changed after the video documenting this vivid incident of deadly force was released. We find that while both felony and misdemeanor arrest rates declined after Laquan’s murder was publicized, this event had no discernable impact on traffic stop rates, contraband hit rates, or the ratio of felony to misdemeanor arrests. Supplemental analyses reveal that declines in felony arrest rates were most pronounced in majority-Black districts due to reductions in drug possession and firearm arrests. Our findings provide nuanced evidence of a depolicing effect that may reflect attempts by CPD to reclaim legitimacy following this pivotal event.

"Say Her Name": Symbolic Racism and Officer Valuing Predict White Americans' Reactions to the Fatal Police Shooting of a Black Woman.

A report entitled Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women underscores the paucity of research examining police violence toward Black women. This study focused on how valuing a White police officer and symbolic racism moderate reactions when the officer fatally shoots a Black or White woman during a traffic stop. At high levels of officer valuing, symbolic racism was positively associated with perceptions the victim presented a threat to the officer, but negatively associated with support for punishing the officer and perceived victim compliance; these associations were stronger when the victim was Black relative to White. At low officer valuing levels, there was no variability in the link between symbolic racism and the outcome variables as a function of victim race. Implications for bias in judicial outcomes for the victim and officer are discussed.

Re-viewing Video Evidence and Police Violence in the Criminal Courts in Turkey

This article offers an analysis of audiovisual evidence claims in the struggle for identifying and documenting police violence in Turkish criminal courts. Focusing on a fatal police shooting in an urban district predominantly populated by leftist groups and marginalized communities, it aims to illustrate the limits of both criminal trials and audiovisual technologies of proof. The “culture of impunity” has been the prevailing framework to describe courts’ denial of the ongoing violence of law enforcement. Instead, this article pays attention to the formation of facts, regulation of sensory perceptions, and affective engagements in the courtroom. Drawing on the ethnographically grounded examination of the hearings and the case file, I argue that criminal trials establish the particular legibility of video evidence and police violence. Furthermore, the breach between the ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting these media serves to delineate different political communities, challenging the assumed unity over which the law has authority.

Association between Neighborhood and Racial Composition of Victims on Fatal Police Shooting and Police Violence: An Integrated Review (2000–2022)

Police violence is a multidimensional issue that requires consideration of the violent events and how these events reflect systemic oppression. Violence and policing practices are influenced by race and ethnicity, place/neighborhood, structural inequality, and racism. We performed an integrated literature review to critically evaluate the current evidence, focusing on the racial composition of communities and neighborhoods and its association with police-involved violence and fatal shootings between 2000 and 2022. We used Scopus and Web of Science to include peer-reviewed articles in English that studied racial/ethnic differences in police-involved violence in the United States between January 2000 and February 2022. We excluded prior systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and articles on drug-related arrests. Using a PRISMA approach from 651 identified articles, we included 37 articles. Our findings showed that racial/ethnic minorities are disproportionately stopped, experience a higher probability of arrest, and are more commonly subjected to police-involved fatal shootings. Victims are more likely to live in neighborhoods with lower income and distressed communities of color, higher poverty ratios, and the highest levels of criminal violence. Citizens reporting of negative interactions with police is strongly associated with race/ethnicity. Maintaining the highest standards of professional practice consistent with the law and protections guaranteed by the Constitution may reduce police violence. In addressing police violence, policymakers not only need to consider the multidisciplinary nature of vulnerability to address the needs of vulnerable populations and create a collaborative environment but also to control police violence. Considering community-based approaches, encouraging training to interact with minority individuals, and adjusting the racial composition of the police officers by the racial composition of communities are other strategies; more importantly, prioritizing strategies to reduce social inequality and structural racism are crucial.

Comparing Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post Fatal Police Shooting Data from 2015–2019: A Research Note

This research note empirically assessed similarities and differences among three open-source data sets from 2015-2019. Fatal police shooting incidents were compared across Washington Post, Mapping Police Violence, and Fatal Encounters data over a five-year period. One-way ANOVAs, bivariate correlations, and proportional percentage differences were used to examine mean differences, correlational strength, and yearly percentage difference trends. No significant mean differences were observed between Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and Washington Post. With one exception, bivariate correlations between all three data source dyads were consistently strong. Percentage difference comparisons among data source dyads, however, revealed that the sources are becoming more dissimilar in their reporting of fatal shootings over time. Our results complement existing literature that has compared open-source police shooting data to government sources and suggest that the three data sources were strongly associated with one another from 2015-2019. Increasing differences between sources, however, necessitate continued inspection of the data across the various open-source platforms over time.

Firearms law and fatal police shootings: a panel data analysis

ABSTRACT Among industrialized countries, the U.S. holds two somewhat inglorious records: the highest rate of fatal police shootings and the highest rate of deaths related to firearms. The latter has been associated with firearms prevalence mostly due to permissive legislation in several member states. The present paper investigates the relation between firearms legislation and the number of fatal police shooting episodes using a seven–year U.S state–level panel dataset. Our results confirm the negative impact of stricter firearms regulations on deadly use of force by police officers found in previous cross–sectional studies. However, in contrast with previous findings, we show that such impact is not mediated by gun availability. We also show that regulations pertaining to gun owner accountability are most effective in reducing fatal police shooting incidence. These results suggest that, from a public health perspective, what matters most is who owns guns rather than how many guns are owned.

Investigating fatal police shootings using the human factors analysis and classification framework (HFACS)

ABSTRACT Fatal police shootings are highly contentious and troublesome for normative standards of police legitimacy. Fatal police shooting investigations are often criticised because they lack impartiality, transparency and rigour. To assist policing practitioners and policymakers in the UK and beyond with managing these issues, we present a new analytical framework for investigating fatal policing shootings. We re-contextualise Shappell and Wiegmann’s ‘Human Factors Analysis and Classification System’ (HFACS) to test whether HFACS can be used during fatal police shootings investigations to identify contributory human factors. This study used HFACS to qualitatively analyse three high-profile fatal police shooting case-studies in the UK: (i) Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005; (ii) Azelle Rodney in 2005; and (iii) Mark Duggan in 2011. The results show that HFACS is a useful analytical framework. HFACS can be used to identify human factors and failures not discoverable by current methods for investigating fatal police shootings. We also offer the first empirical insights and contribute a more nuanced understanding of using HFACS to investigate fatal police shootings. We conclude by suggesting there are high-level and operational benefits in using HFACS and recommend avenues for further research to test HFACS in other policing contexts beyond the UK.

The Interaction of Race and Place: Predictors of Fatal Police Shootings of Black Victims at the Incident, Census Tract, City, and State Levels, 2013–2018

We develop and analyze a multilevel model of fatal police shootings to better understand the interplay between individual-level and contextual-level factors in incidents of police use of deadly force. We use a three-level hierarchical logistic regression model to identify Census tract-, city-, and state-level predictors of fatal police shootings and a four-level model to identify predictors of fatal police shootings of black victims at the incident, Census tract, city, and state levels. We find that higher levels of concentrated disadvantage and interpersonal firearm violence in a Census tract are significant predictors of the likelihood of any fatal police shooting occurring in that tract. We also find that conditional upon a fatal police shooting having occurred in a Census tract, knowing that the victim was unarmed is a significant predictor of the likelihood that the victim was black. Three other predictors of a police shooting victim being black were a higher proportion of black residents in the Census tract, a greater presence of police officers in the city, and a higher level of black-white residential segregation in the state. We conclude that reducing excessive police use of deadly force requires consideration of not only the individual interactions between officers and citizens, but also the quantity of interactions and the characteristics of the place in which these interactions occur. Special consideration must be given to ameliorating the consequences of structural racism, including racial segregation, over-policing of predominantly black neighborhoods, concentrated disadvantage in segregated neighborhoods, and racial inequalities in income and wealth.

Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls

Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 175 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls In May 2020, mass media outlets widely reported the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY.1 Two months later, in July 2020, some news outlets also reported the story of Grace, a fifteen-year-old Black girl in Michigan who was incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic for not completing her online schoolwork.2 These two incidents are connected: violence against Black girls in schools and classrooms is inextricably linked to the anti-Black state violence that Black women and girls face in society and in their homes. The violence that Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Korryn Gaines, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and many more have experienced results from the same interlocking systems of oppression that marginalize the suffering of Black girls in 1. Taylor had been killed two months earlier, in March 2020. See Errin Haines, “Family Seeks Answers in Fatal Police Shooting of Louisville Woman in Her Apartment,” Washington Post, May 11, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com /nation/2020/05/11/family-seeks-answers-fatal-police-shooting-louisvillewoman -her-apartment. 2. Brande Victorian, “15-Year-Old Black Girl Sent to Juvenile Detention Center for Not Completing Her Online Schoolwork during the Pandemic,” Madame Noire, July 14, 2020, https://madamenoire.com/1176948/15-yearold -black-girl-sent-to-juvenile-detention-center-for-not-completing-heronline -schoolwork-during-the-pandemic. 176 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance schools.3 However, there is a lack of exploration about how these systems —schools, criminal justice, juvenile justice, law enforcement, and media—operate together and simultaneously shape and enact violence against Black women and girls. Assault and violence against Black women and girls that result in murder are masked forms of Black death.4 Information about their deaths is rarely shared across mass media platforms. Brittney Cooper argues that there is much less outrage surrounding Black death when it is Black women and girls who are murdered. She suggests that one reason is that they are often killed in their homes rather than in public spaces and therefore there is less public recognition.5 Because their murders often occur in containment and confinement, Black women and girls’ narratives become hidden, covered up, and written off in ways that deny their victimization and justify the violence they face.6 I have come to understand these kinds of “erasures” as endemic to the structure of this antiBlack world, which only sees us when we are “dead and dying.”7 Indeed, we would not know about Breonna Taylor’s life and that she was an “essential” worker if she had not been killed. A recent 20/20 documentary segment about her murder shows how Breonna Taylor was at first considered a suspect in her own murder case for months, which diminished 3. Treva Lindsey, “The Lack of Mobilized Outrage for Police Killing Black Women Is an Injurious Erasure,” Bustle, June 3, 2020, https://www.bustle.com /p/the-lack-of-mobilized-outrage-for-police-killing-black-women-is-injuriouserasure -22953764. 4. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016). 5. Brittney Cooper, “Why Are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage over Police Violence?” Time, June 4, 2020, https://time.com /5847970/police-brutality-black-women-girls. 6. Beth E. Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Kimberlé Crenshaw, Andrea Ritchie, Rachel Anspach, Rachel Gilmer, and Luke Harris, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (New York: African American Policy Forum, 2015); Lashawn Harris, “#SayHerName: Black Women, State Sanctioned Violence & Resistance,” Organization of American Historians, https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2020/history-for-black-lives /sayhername-black-women-state-sanctioned-violence-resistance (accessed April 12, 2021). 7. Patrice D. Douglass, “Black Feminist Theory for the Dead and Dying,” Theory & Event 21, no. 1 (January 2018). Ashley L. Smith-Purviance 177 the availability of accurate information about her death.8 Criminal legal systems, law enforcement, and mass media outlets mask the violence against Black women and girls when they withhold or...

Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls

Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 175 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls In May 2020, mass media outlets widely reported the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY.1 Two months later, in July 2020, some news outlets also reported the story of Grace, a fifteen-year-old Black girl in Michigan who was incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic for not completing her online schoolwork.2 These two incidents are connected: violence against Black girls in schools and classrooms is inextricably linked to the anti-Black state violence that Black women and girls face in society and in their homes. The violence that Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Korryn Gaines, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and many more have experienced results from the same interlocking systems of oppression that marginalize the suffering of Black girls in 1. Taylor had been killed two months earlier, in March 2020. See Errin Haines, “Family Seeks Answers in Fatal Police Shooting of Louisville Woman in Her Apartment,” Washington Post, May 11, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com /nation/2020/05/11/family-seeks-answers-fatal-police-shooting-louisvillewoman -her-apartment. 2. Brande Victorian, “15-Year-Old Black Girl Sent to Juvenile Detention Center for Not Completing Her Online Schoolwork during the Pandemic,” Madame Noire, July 14, 2020, https://madamenoire.com/1176948/15-yearold -black-girl-sent-to-juvenile-detention-center-for-not-completing-heronline -schoolwork-during-the-pandemic. 176 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance schools.3 However, there is a lack of exploration about how these systems —schools, criminal justice, juvenile justice, law enforcement, and media—operate together and simultaneously shape and enact violence against Black women and girls. Assault and violence against Black women and girls that result in murder are masked forms of Black death.4 Information about their deaths is rarely shared across mass media platforms. Brittney Cooper argues that there is much less outrage surrounding Black death when it is Black women and girls who are murdered. She suggests that one reason is that they are often killed in their homes rather than in public spaces and therefore there is less public recognition.5 Because their murders often occur in containment and confinement, Black women and girls’ narratives become hidden, covered up, and written off in ways that deny their victimization and justify the violence they face.6 I have come to understand these kinds of “erasures” as endemic to the structure of this antiBlack world, which only sees us when we are “dead and dying.”7 Indeed, we would not know about Breonna Taylor’s life and that she was an “essential” worker if she had not been killed. A recent 20/20 documentary segment about her murder shows how Breonna Taylor was at first considered a suspect in her own murder case for months, which diminished 3. Treva Lindsey, “The Lack of Mobilized Outrage for Police Killing Black Women Is an Injurious Erasure,” Bustle, June 3, 2020, https://www.bustle.com /p/the-lack-of-mobilized-outrage-for-police-killing-black-women-is-injuriouserasure -22953764. 4. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016). 5. Brittney Cooper, “Why Are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage over Police Violence?” Time, June 4, 2020, https://time.com /5847970/police-brutality-black-women-girls. 6. Beth E. Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Kimberlé Crenshaw, Andrea Ritchie, Rachel Anspach, Rachel Gilmer, and Luke Harris, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (New York: African American Policy Forum, 2015); Lashawn Harris, “#SayHerName: Black Women, State Sanctioned Violence & Resistance,” Organization of American Historians, https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2020/history-for-black-lives /sayhername-black-women-state-sanctioned-violence-resistance (accessed April 12, 2021). 7. Patrice D. Douglass, “Black Feminist Theory for the Dead and Dying,” Theory & Event 21, no. 1 (January 2018). Ashley L. Smith-Purviance 177 the availability of accurate information about her death.8 Criminal legal systems, law enforcement, and mass media outlets mask the violence against Black women and girls when they withhold or...

Afterword

Afterword

Fatal police shootings of civilians, by rurality

In the United States, firearm homicides disproportionately occur in urban areas. We examine whether the same is true for fatal police shootings. We use data on fatal police shootings from Washington Post's “Fatal Force Database” (2015–2017). Using Census population estimates, we examine rates of fatal police shootings, stratified by race/ethnicity (White, Black, Hispanic), across urban and rural areas using five different classification schemes. Two classification schemes—from the National Center for Health Statistics and the US Department of Agriculture—use counties as the basic unit. Three classification schemes—from the National Center for Education Statistics, the US Census Bureau, and the website “FiveThirtyEight” use zip codes. There were just under 1000 fatal police shootings per year from 2015 to 2017, a rate of 0.31 per 100,000 population. Black victimization rates were more than twice those for Whites, with Hispanic victimization rates in between. Across all classification schemes there was little difference in rates of fatal police shootings between urban and rural areas, with suburbs having somewhat lower rates. Among Whites, rates of fatal police shooting victimization were higher in rural areas compared to urban areas, while among Blacks the rates were higher in more urban areas. Our results suggest that efforts to reduce police shootings of civilians should include rural and suburban as well as urban areas.

Reparations for Police Killings

After a fatal police shooting, it is typical for city and police officials to view the family of the deceased through the lens of the law. If the family files a lawsuit, the city and police department consider it their legal right to defend themselves and to treat the plaintiffs as adversaries. However, reparations and the concept of “reparative justice” allow authorities to frame police killings in moral rather than legal terms. When a police officer kills a person who was not liable to this outcome, officials should offer monetary reparations, an apology, and other redress measures to the victim’s family. To make this argument, the article presents a philosophical account of non-liability hailing from self-defense theory that centers on the distinction between reasonableness and liability. Reparations provide a nonadversarial alternative to civil litigation after a non-liable person has been killed by a police officer. In cases where the officer nevertheless acted reasonably, “institutional agent-regret” rather than moral responsibility grounds the argument for reparations. Throughout the article, it is argued that there are distinct racial wrongs both when police kill a non-liable black person and when family members of a black victim are treated poorly by officials in the civil litigation process.

The Relationship between Racial Residential Segregation and Black-White Disparities in Fatal Police Shootings at the City Level, 2013–2017

BackgroundAlthough there is a disparity in the rates of fatal police shootings of Black victims compared to White victims throughout the nation, the magnitude of this racial disparity varies widely between cities. Examining the reasons behind this vast variation in the racial disparity in fatal police shootings across different localities could be helpful in identifying the underlying causes of this problem. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess potential causes of the Black-White racial disparities in police shootings at the city level. MethodsUsing a cross-sectional design, we examined the relationship between the level of racial residential segregation in a city and the ratio of the rates of fatal police shootings of Black people compared to White people within that city during the period 2013–2017, using data from 69 of the largest cities in the United States. Using linear regression analysis, we modeled the ratio of Black to White fatal police shooting rates as a function of the level of racial segregation in each city as measured by the index of dissimilarity calculated at the Census block level. We controlled for several factors at the city level that might be expected to influence the rate of police shootings by race/ethnicity, including the level of deprivation of the Black population in economic status, the degree of Black representation in the city's police force, the relative size of the police force, crime rates, racial composition of the city, and city population. ResultsThe level of racial residential segregation was significantly associated with the racial disparity in fatal police shooting rates. For each one standard deviation increase in the index of dissimilarity, the ratio of Black to White fatal police shooting rates increased by 44.4% (95% confidence interval, 17.1%–71.7%). ConclusionsRacial residential segregation is a significant predictor of the magnitude of the Black-White disparity in fatal police shootings at the city level. Efforts to ameliorate the problem of fatal police violence must move beyond the individual level and consider the interaction between law enforcement officers and the neighborhoods that they police.

#BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays

AbstractThis paper examines two British plays that respond to cases in which the police have been implicated in the deaths of black men. Gillian Slovo’sThe Riots(Tricycle Theatre, 2011) uses interviews from witnesses and politicians to dissect the events leading up to and during the Tottenham riots that followed in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan by police on 4 August 2011 and spread to other inner cities in England over the following five nights. I examine how the first half portrays the local community’s concerns and locates the breakout of riots within a longer history of tense police-community relations in Tottenham, whereas the second half focuses on the political rhetoric surrounding the spread of rioting throughout England, which means that Mark Duggan disappears from the narrative. Oladipo Agboluaje’s adaptation of Kester Aspden’sThe Hounding of David Oluwale(Eclipse Theatre, 2009) effectively uses dramatic strategies to remember the life of 38-year old Nigerian David Oluwale whose body was retrieved from the River Aire in Leeds on 4 May 1969 after allegedly last seen being chased towards the river by two police officers two weeks earlier. I explore the effectiveness of both plays as memorializations of black lives and consider how they contribute to ongoing debates about the relationship between black men and the police in Britain. #BlackLivesMatter #BlackPlaysMatter

“Police took my homie I dedicate my life 2 his revenge”: Twitter tensions between gang-involved youth and police in Chicago

ABSTRACTThe hostile and adversarial relationship between youth and police in urban settings has remained pervasive and persistent for centuries. This is a tension historically rooted in the miasma of lack of trust; racial, ethnic, and cultural differences; and fear, anger, and hostility from racialized surveillance and policing. Indeed, most Black youth have little contact with police unless it involves harsh profiling and/or criminalization. In this article, we leverage the policing literature to examine how the perpetual detestation between urban youth and police is expressed in physical and digital contexts (e.g., Twitter). We find that urban youth, particularly gang-involved youth, publicly articulate their disdain for law enforcement agents on Twitter. The young people in our study expressed chronic grief and anger after the fatal police shooting of a Southside Chicago gang member. Further, they expressed a strong desire to violently retaliate against the Chicago Police Department after their friend was killed. In fact, users on Twitter frequently posted the hash tag #CPDK—an acronym for Chicago Police Department Killer—shortly after this incident. We discuss the implications of using Twitter data to inform policing practices, as well as early intervention and prevention strategies for youth living in inner cities.