Jasmine Williams
Pronouns: She/he
Research Mentor(s): Shea Streeter, President’s Postdoctoral Fellow/Assistant Professor
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Political Science, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 4 (2pm-2:50pm)
Breakout Room: Room 3
Presenter: 3
Abstract
Police killings have been a prominent issue in the United States and seemingly has been increasing over the past 6 years. Some of these killings, such as Michael Brown and Georgy Floyd have sparked nationwide protests that have drawn crowds of 10,000 people. While some of these police killings have gained widespread attention, there are hundreds that have gone unnoticed. This raises the question of why certain police killings spark protests and others don’t. In order to facilitate this research, all police killings from 2015 and 2016 will be coded. Through extensive online searches and the use of various social media platforms protests for each killing is recorded. The location of the protest, the number of participants, who organized the protests, and the race of the protesters are all recorded and are input into an survey system that organizes the information. Based on the current information collected, it appears that race is one of the most important components. African Americans that were killed by police on average have more protests surrounding their death. This is likely tied to the underlying racist sentiments held by many police departments. Second to race, age was an important component. For non-Black victims, those who were 18 years of age or younger had more protests surrounding their death and for Black victims under 18 there were also more protests in comparison to those that were older. With the information collected, it can be concluded that while all police killings don’t lead to protests, race and age are big determining factors for if there are.
Authors: Jasmine Williams, Jasmine Williams
Research Method: Library/Archival/Internet Research
