After being pulled over for a busted taillight on July 6, Philando Castile informed a Minnesota police officer at his window that he owned a gun and had a license to carry it. As he reached for his license and registration, his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter then watched as the police officer fired four shots into Castile’s body. He died in the driver’s seat.
Castile was one of 137 Black people in the United States killed by a police officer this year. Another Black man, Alton Sterling, was killed by police in Louisiana the night before. On Thursday, seemingly in response, five police officers were killed and six were wounded when snipers interrupted a peaceful protest in Dallas on July 7. Amid the violence there have been forceful calls to city leaders to address police racism and brutality.
But research has existed for awhile to show cities how to reduce racism and interrupt the violence.
Train for racial bias
Stereotypes about the criminality of Black communities affect a police officer’s decision to shoot a suspect. That’s a fact. However, racial bias training can address the preconceptions and subsequent racially based brutality. After extensive training with a computer simulator in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, a Florida State University study showed that officers were able to eliminate their biases. In a separate study, California officers also found that listening to the community and giving suspects time to explain their side of the story reduced compliance issues and increased cooperation.
[For more of this story, written by Kate Stringer, go to http://www.yesmagazine.org/peo...-racism-and-violence]
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