Exploring the two trigger fingers thesis: racial and ethnic differences in officer involved shootings

Abstract

This article provides a comparative, qualitative and quantitative, analysis of officer-involved shootings of residents who were white, black, or Latino in the City and County of Denver, Colorado from 1983 to 2012. This research project combined district attorney summaries, police shooting files, and police shooting video interviews to understand the patterns involving 213 officer-involved shootings resulting in 103 deaths. Thematically, the differences by race and ethnicity are outlined by three themes including (1) suspect characteristics, (2) officer characteristics, and (3) contextual factors. The findings highlight similarities and differences between incident narratives and compare these observations with aggregated statistics to explore whether law enforcement officers possess one trigger finger for whites and another for blacks and Latinos. This comprehensive analysis of racial and ethnic differences in officer-involved shootings indicates the intersectionality of suspect and officer characteristics along with contextual factors.

Keywords:

• Use of force
• law enforcement
• racial and ethnic differences
• qualitative analysis
• quantitative analysis
• violence

Notes

1. The authors need additional newspaper microfiche research for examining shootings from 1983 to 1989.

2. The Rocky Mountain News’ published its final paper on 27 February 2009.

3. The first author has a separate article focused on the law enforcement shootings coded as problematic (Durán, 2016).

4. The authors chose to use the first name of the individual shot by the police to provide a more humanistic account. The individuals shot by the police did not encounter such a punishment through a court of law but rather by the discretion of individual police officers. The purpose is not to condone the actions of the individuals shot but to emphasize the public health risk that exists for the greatest loss of life at the hands of the criminal justice system.