Remaining Neutral?: White Americans' Reactions to Police Violence and Policing

Growing attention to police shootings of unarmed citizens has provoked important discussions surrounding use of police force. While an emerging literature explores perceptions of those victimized by police, less is known about White Americans' opinions towards the institution of policing. Drawing from stereotyping and dehumanization literatures, do Whites' attitudes towards police vary based on the identity of a victim? And does the news of any police shooting influence Whites' attitudes about police? Across two survey experiments, participants read a news story describing police killing an innocent victim and report subsequent attitudes towards police. We find that Whites' views of police remain relatively neutral, on average, in response to news of a fatal police shooting. Our findings suggest that protest mobilization adjacent to police brutality may mask an underlying neutrality in opinions about policing.