the Perceived Threat of Blackness

   On August 5th 2014, 22 year old John Crawford III was shot and killed by two police officers in an Ohio Walmart. The police were on the scene responding to a 911 call reporting the presence of Crawford, walking through Walmart carrying a BB gun at the time, was threatening to the other shoppers. Shortly after his murder, however, holes began to form in the story of the police timeline. In late September surveillance footage released ("conveniently" after a grand jury trial absolved the involved police officers from facing indictment) shows that the responding officers shot Crawford almost immediately, contrary to their insistence that they only shot after he repeatedly refused to lay down his gun. The man who called 911, Ronald Ritchie, recanted on his version of the story after viewing the footage. Finally Ohio is a state with fully permissive Open Carry laws, meaning that anyone with no criminal history, substance dependence, or history of  involuntary commitment to a mental institution can openly carry a firearm in public.

John Crawford III

   A similar tragedy unfolded in Utah on September 10th when 22 year old Darrien Hunt was shot to death by police responding to a complaint of a suspicious person with a sword. Police claim that Hunt lunged at the officers, however eye witness reports say he did not move until fleeing after being fired upon, an account supported by an autopsy showing the entry wounds to be in his back. Not only would the visible carrying of a sword be fully legal under Utah's Open Carry laws, but the alleged sword itself was a blade less souvenir used for part of a costume.

Darrien Hunt

    In both of these killings we see police responding to legal and harmless actions with extreme force,  despite the fact that white Americans perform the same actions with actual weapons on a regular basis. As we've covered in our discussions of The New Jim Crow, part of this phenomenon can be explained by the institutionalized racism prevalent in the War on Drugs era, but psychological studies published earlier this year suggest that these assumptions are more internalized than just law enforcement prejudices.

   In The Essence of Innocence, a study published this past March, a group of psychologists explored how two predominantly White test groups, one made up of college students the other consisting of police officers, perceived young boys based on race. The test subjects were shown a series of photos of boys, ages roughly 10 to 13 and of several different races, each with a crime they were supposedly suspected of. They were then asked to estimate the age of the boy as well as his culpability (how responsible he was for his actions, how likely he was to continue criminal behavior, how likely it was that he didn't intend the negative consequences of his actions, and how well he could take care of himself). The study showed that in both groups Black boys were deemed on average to be both the most over estimated in age and deemed the most culpable.

Age Overestimation and Perceived Culpability responses from the college student group.

Age Overestimation and Perceived Culpability responses from police officer group.

In addition to the testing procedure the officers involved also had their on-the-job record of use of force against criminal suspects. The group most often targeted by such violence was Black suspects.

Number of use of force incidents per officer

    This study shows psychological evidence that people in American society not only hold internalized misconceptions about the maturity of Black boys, but that it starts at a disturbingly young age. The study's authors note that when suspected of a felony "boys would be misperceived as legal adults at roughly the age of 13 and a half". Worse still is at "every age level after 10, black boys were considered less innocent than either white or unspecified children". These findings help provide explanation for the recent spate of police slayings of Black young adult civilians, but if police and White America can't fix this lack of empathy then we can only expect this trend of apathetic violence to continue.

Sources Cited:
Goff, P., Jackson, M., Leone, B., Culotta, C., & Ditomasso, N. (2014). The essence of innocence: Consequences of dehumanizing Black children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 526-545.

Bump, Philip. "People - Including Cops - See Black Kids as Less Innocent and Less Young Than White Kids." The Wire. The Wire, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.

Murdock, Sebastian. "New Video Shows John Crawford Fatally Shot By Police In Walmart." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.

Swaine, Jon. "Utah Authorities Alter Account of Darrien Hunt Shooting by Police." The Guardian. Http://www.theguardian.com, 16 Sept. 2014. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.