"But there has also been a contrary narrative, that officers are hesitant to fire at black suspects, starting with a 1977 analysis of reports from major metropolitan departments which found officers fired more shots at white suspects than at black suspects, possibly because of “public sentiment concerning treatment of blacks.” And in 2004, David Klinger at the University of Missouri-St. Louis interviewed more than 100 officers and found “evidence of increased wariness about using deadly force against black suspects for fear of how it would be perceived and the associated consequences.”
...
This is particularly notable because “our police participants demonstrated strong implicit bias associating black suspects with weapons,” James wrote. Still, the officers were “more hesitant and more careful in their decisions to shoot black suspects.” In effect, the officers “displayed a counter bias, or ‘reverse racism’ effect,” James said. “These findings call into question the validity of the widespread assumption that implicit racial bias is the cause of the disproportionate number of racial minorities in officer-involved shootings.”

But why? James’ team did not interview the Spokane officers. But she did not think that a 0.23 second delay in firing enabled the officers to consciously decide based on race. She considered whether the fact the officers knew they were being observed played into their actions, but she said the police did not know that race was a factor in the project. More likely, James concluded, was the reverse racism “rooted in people’s concerns about the social and legal consequences of shooting a member of a historically oppressed racial group…paired with the awareness of media backlash that follows an officer shooting a minority suspect.”"

(Oct 6, 2016 10:18 PM)C C Wrote: EDIT: Er, I mean a "band of posters" trounced him / her. Carelessly didn't consider that "gang" might take on an improper PC connotation in this context.